BNSF’s Proposal For One-Person Train Crews Concerns Rail Workers
By Ashley Gross, July 29, 2014
FILE – In this Nov. 6, 2013, file photo, a BNSF Railway train hauls crude oil near Wolf Point, Montana. | Matthew Brown AP Photo
Railroad workers are speaking out against a proposal by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway to have single-employee freight train crews. They say the idea is unsafe, especially in light of the increasing transportation of crude oil by rail.
The controversy stems from a tentative contract agreement BNSF has reached with one of its unions, the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Union. If union members approve that deal, BNSF could operate freight trains with just an engineer onboard. That engineer would have help from a so-called master conductor who would not be on the train.
The company says it would only use single-person crews on trains that have a computerized collision-avoidance system, and not on trains carrying crude oil or other hazardous materials. But some workers say the proposal is still too risky.
“To be safe in the communities that we’re running these trains through, you need to remove as many hazards as possible, not add one giant one, which is essentially what this is doing,” said Jen Wallis, a BNSF conductor who is not part of the union that will vote on the deal.
Wallis says there’s nothing in the contract that prevents BNSF from using one-person crews to haul hazardous materials.
People have been paying close attention to rail safety in the wake of the deadly rail disaster in Quebec last year that killed 47 people. That train had one employee on duty who left it unmanned when the accident occurred.
The Federal Railroad Administration in the U.S. has said it plans to issue a rule requiring two-person crews on crude oil trains. Union officials did not return calls for comment.
Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle [Editor: (apologies for the commercial content…the video that follows the commercial is well worth the wait.) The following San Francisco Chronicle article on Positive Train Control is incredibly important. Until California is fully covered by a state-of-the-art collision-avoidance system, Valero should not be issued a use permit for crude by rail. Significant quote from the article: “In the four-plus decades since the federal safety board began urging that the technology be installed, 139 crashes that could have been prevented with collision-avoidance systems have occurred on U.S. rail lines, resulting in 288 deaths and 6,500 injuries, according to internal records of the safety agency examined by Hearst Newspapers.” – RS]
System can prevent train accidents, rail industry slow to adopt
New technology prevents accidents, but rail industry is dragging its feet
Bill Lambrecht, July 27, 2014
Jake Miille/Special to The Chronicle | A procession of tanker cars transporting Bakken crude oil travels on a railroad line near James (Butte County).
Faced with a huge increase in hazardous oil-carrying trains, California is urging quicker implementation of technology that would prevent train accidents caused by human error. But after pushing back against the idea for nearly half a century, the rail industry is far from ready to adopt the safety measure.
The technology monitors and controls train movements with a digital communications network that links locomotives with control centers. It’s designed to prevent collisions by automatically slowing or stopping errant trains that are going too fast, miss stop signals, enter zones with maintenance workers on the track or encounter other dangers.
Yet 45 years after the National Transportation Safety Board first recommended such a system, the technology, known as positive train control or PTC, operates only on a tiny slice of America’s rail network – including a segment of the Metrolink commuter rail line in Southern California, which has become a leader in adopting the technology after a crash near Chatsworth (Los Angeles County) killed 25 people and injured 102 in 2008. It is also coming soon to Caltrain in the South Bay and on the Peninsula.
In the four-plus decades since the federal safety board began urging that the technology be installed, 139 crashes that could have been prevented with collision-avoidance systems have occurred on U.S. rail lines, resulting in 288 deaths and 6,500 injuries, according to internal records of the safety agency examined by Hearst Newspapers.
During that time, the safety agency issued 75 PTC-related recommendations – formal advice to the industry and its federal regulator that has grown increasingly strident.
Railroad resistance
But the Hearst investigation found that even after early successes with the technology, its development has met continuous resistance from railroads unwilling to sacrifice profits for the safety that the system would provide.
The Federal Railroad Administration, charged with regulating the U.S. rail system, has frequently defied the safety board’s recommendations to install PTC. At times, it has joined with industry to push back against implementation.
Finally, shortly after the Chatsworth accident, in which one of the engineers was distracted while texting, Congress passed legislation mandating the installation of the control system on key portions of the nation’s rail network by the end of 2015.
Caltrain and Metrolink are among the few commuter lines in the country that say they expect to meet that deadline. But rising concern about trains hauling crude in the North American oil boom has put California at odds with the federal government about the pace of PTC and railroad safety in general.
Ten derailments
Since last year, 10 oil trains have derailed in the U.S. and Canada, including the catastrophic wreck a year ago in Quebec that killed 47 people in the small town of Lac-Mégantic.
The amount of oil arriving into California by rail jumped last year by 506 percent to 6.3 million barrels, a state interagency working group on rail safety reported last month.
The report predicted that by 2016, the amount of crude oil coming to California by train could increase by 150 million barrels if California’s five major refineries operate at capacity.
California recently learned that a Burlington Northern Santa Fe crude-carrying train is making weekly runs through the Feather River Canyon, into downtown Sacramento and south to Stockton, before ending up at the Tesoro refinery outside Martinez.
State officials are raising an array of concerns with the federal government about the sluggishness of implementation of the safety measures.
Congress and the Federal Railroad Administration are proposing delays in PTC deadlines, but the report last month from nine California agencies recommended just the opposite: accelerating the installation.
Heading off disaster
“We’re trying to do something before an accident happens instead of looking at a catastrophe and figure out how it could have been prevented,” said Kelly Huston, deputy director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “A train with better technology to prevent it colliding with another train is safer than a train that doesn’t have that technology.”
Metrolink began running the collision-avoidance technology earlier this year on the line that runs from Los Angeles to Riverside.
“Our biggest challenge has been the fact that we’re out front as much as we are, so we’re the ones experiencing the bugs,” said Metrolink spokesman Jeff Lustgarten.
“The deadline was seven years out,” he added. “It wasn’t as if it were an unreasonable deadline.”
Caltrain is installing its $231 million safety system along the San Francisco-to-Gilroy line.
The Government Accountability Office and rail safety advocates have questioned whether the Federal Railroad Administration is prepared for the inspections and approvals for PTC. Caltrain echoes those concerns.
“I think they will be challenged from a resource point of view to get this done, and it seems likely that that is going to be a constraint on all of us,” said Karen Antion, a consultant who is directing Caltrain’s transition to the system.
Human factor
The collision-avoidance technology is designed to minimize the number of train disasters caused by human error, the cause of roughly 40 percent of derailments.
In the 1980s, Burlington Northern, plagued by a series of fatal accidents, was the first to act on a recommendation that the National Transportation Safety Board had issued nearly two decades before, calling on railroads to adopt an avoidance system. The railroad’s technology plotted the speed and positions of trains within 30 feet. If trains got too close and an engineer didn’t slow after warnings flashed on a locomotive computer screen, the system took over.
It became more than an experiment: For five years, Burlington Northern’s system operated on 17 locomotives on 300 miles of tracks in Minnesota. There were no accidents.
“All of the components worked as expected,” said Steven Ditmeyer, who was Burlington Northern’s research director at the time. “We had acceptance by train crews, dispatchers and maintenance people. There was no fear of the system and people could see its benefits.”
Momentum lost
The federal safety board soon turned up the heat, advising the Federal Railroad Administration in the early 1990s to establish a “firm timetable” for installing train control along America’s tracks.
But the opposite occurred. The 1990s were a time of upheaval in the industry, with mergers set in motion by deregulation. Amid the reorganizing and subsequent cost-cutting, railroads lost interest in train control.
In 1993, the Association of American Railroads prepared a 91-page study that laid out a case for benefits of the technology beyond avoiding wrecks: savings in fuel and labor costs, better traffic control, a means to monitor the condition of locomotives and “a better-rested and safer workforce.”
But rather than use the study to rally its members, the leaders of the railroad trade group ordered the study destroyed. The railroad association argued in 1995 that the new technology “must be justified on the basis of safety benefits only.”
The Federal Railroad Administration went along with what the industry wanted. Ditmeyer headed the agency’s Office of Research and Development after being deeply involved with the Burlington Northern project. In 1996, he testified at a congressional hearing that technical issues with the system still needed to be addressed.
In a recent interview, Ditmeyer recalled that testimony as “one of the things I regret most in my life. … I was forced to say it was not ready to implement.”
Congress acts
After 9/11, the railroads’ focus shifted to protecting against terrorist attacks, and collision-avoidance technology was pushed even further down the priority list.
Finally, after the Chatsworth crash, Congress passed a measure requiring implementation of PTC and President George W. Bush signed it into law. But the delays were far from over.
In 2010, the Association of American Railroads filed suit challenging federal rules for installing the new technology, arguing that “while the costs of PTC are tremendous, the benefits are relatively few.” Four years later, the suit drags on.
Michael Rush, associate general counsel of the Association of American Railroads, said his members are committed to the technology, but that key components are still in a developmental stage.
“It is a work in progress. We’re trying to do something that’s not been done before,” he said.
In the run-up to the 2015 deadline, Americans don’t have the opportunity to measure progress in installing the technology. The federal railroad agency rejected a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation to post railroads’ updates online.
“To publish this information would likely mislead and confuse the public,” agency administrator Joseph Szabo said in a letter, adding that it would “waste valuable agency resources.”
Robert Sumwalt, a member of the federal safety board, said in an interview that the railroad agency’s “response to this was, frankly, appalling.”
Drop in accidents
The railroad agency defends its safety record, pointing to a 50 percent drop in rail accidents over the past decade. The agency also touts a voluntary agreement that went into effect July 1 under which oil trains reduce speed in urban areas and take pains to identify routes with the fewest risks.
The Federal Railroad Administration favors a plan to deal with railroads’ plans to install the safety system incrementally, not setting any overall deadline. Testifying at a Senate hearing this spring, Szabo said the open-ended plan would set milestones for individual railroads and “achieve the benefit of PTC as much as possible as soon as possible.”
Other proposals in Congress would delay the technology beyond 2015.
“Pure trouble” is how Grady Cothen, the agency’s former associate administrator for safety, sums up the agency’s open-ended deadline proposal. “There is a place for FRA discretion, but there has to be a framework,” he said.
Sumwalt said he and other federal safety board members “were feeling good” after Congress ordered the collision-avoidance technology six years ago.
“And now we’re finding that it’s going to be delayed even further,” he said. “It’s frustrating to see accidents continue to happen that we know PTC would have prevented.”
This story has been corrected since it appeared in print editions.
Bill Lambrecht is a reporter in the Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau.
Seattle oil train derailment further fuels concerns, opposition
By Josh Kerns on July 24, 2014
Crews stand by an oil train that derailed early Thursday in Seattle. (Hayley Farless/Washington Environmental Council)
While no oil spilled when a train carrying crude oil through Seattle derailed Thursday morning, local officials say it’s a dangerous wake up call that can’t be ignored.
The train, with 100 tanker cars of Bakken crude oil, was heading for a refinery at Anacortes and pulling out of the Interbay rail yard at 5 mph when five cars derailed early Thursday morning, said Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman Gus Melonas.
They included one of the locomotives, a buffer car loaded with sand and three tankers. The locomotive, buffer car and one tanker remained upright. Two of the tankers tilted. One leaning at a 45-degree angle had to be pumped out and taken elsewhere for repairs, Melonas said.
No one was injured in the accident and a railroad hazardous material crew was on the scene in five minutes, he said.
King County Executive Dow Constantine said the incident underscores the need for federal regulators to take action immediately on new rules to protect the public.
“I’m very concerned that large volatile oil trains pose significant risk for derailment, fire, explosion, loss of property and life.”
Constantine tells KIRO Radio he finds it troubling that local governments have little say or control over what passes through their communities while facing potential dangers.
Concerns about oil trains have grown significantly as production of domestic oil continues to increase. More people became aware of oil train dangers when a runaway train exploded in 2013 in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee cited safety and environmental risks in June when he directed state agencies to evaluate oil transport in Washington.
The derailment comes just one week after Constantine convened a group of elected leaders from across the Northwest and British Columbia to examine what he calls “the true costs and impacts of coal and oil trains on our communities.”
“We need to have a conversation about what is appropriate to ship through these heavily populated areas and what kind of notice people deserve that these shipments are taking place,” Constantine said.
On Wednesday, the Seattle City Council sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx supporting a petition filed by environmental groups seeking an emergency ban on shipments of Bakken and other highly flammable crude oil in old style tankers known as DOT-111 cars.
“The city of Seattle is deeply concerned about the threat to life, safety and the environment of potential spills and fires from the transport of petroleum by rail,” the letter said.
The government proposed rules Wednesday that would phase out tens of thousands of older tank cars that carry increasing quantities of crude oil and other highly flammable liquids through America’s towns and cities.
The tankers involved in the Seattle accident hold about 27,000 gallons of oil and are a newer design with enhanced safeguards.
“The cars performed as designed,” Melonas said. “There was no release of product.”
It was the first incident in the state involving an oil train, he said.
“We have an outstanding safety record, and derailments have declined in Washington state over 50 percent on BNSF main lines in the past decade,” he said.
But Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien tells KIRO Radio he wants far greater assurance.
“As far as which steps need to be taken before I’m comfortable, I don’t have an answer for that yet. But I’m really disappointed that people aren’t taking those steps immediately,” he said.
The Seattle accident occurred on the same day the Corps of Engineers is holding a hearing in Seattle on a draft environmental statement for a pier that BP built at its Cherry Point refinery north of Bellingham to handle oil tankers and oil trains. Environmental groups planned a rally before the hearing.
“This is a warning of how dangerous this could be,” says Kerry McHugh, communications director for the Washington Environmental Council.
She noted the train derailed near Puget Sound, under Seattle’s Magnolia Bridge, the main connection to one of the city’s neighborhoods.
“The potential for environmental damage, economic damage and the disruption of people’s lives is huge,” she says.
Repost from WKYC, Cleveland, OH [Editor: This shows the lengths the rail and oil industries will go to market their deadly plans to first responders and the public. Will we see “safety trains” here on the West Coast? Hmmm… maybe at Disneyland? – RS]
CSX ‘safety train’ rolls into Cleveland
AJ Ross and WKYC Staff, WKYC 7:18 p.m. EDT July 24, 2014
CLEVELAND — One day after President Obama’s administration called for tougher rules on how flammable crude oil is transported, the CSX “safety train” rolled into Cleveland.
The train is making stops in much of the company’s crude oil service territory over the next several months.
Its enhanced training program offers firefighters, police, emergency medical technicians and other first responders hands-on exposure to rail cars.
“We have a variety of experts here on hand to talk about general freight operations, some of the products that we ship and talking about crude by rail,” CSX Spokeswoman Carla Groleau said.
On Wednesday, the Obama administration proposed stricter guidelines that include phasing out tens of thousands of tank cars unless they are retrofitted to meet new safety standards.
The proposals also include changes in speed limits, better braking and testing of volatile liquids, including oil.
“We need a new, world order on how this stuff moves,” Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said, in announcing the rules. “More crude is being shipped by rail than ever before.”
Cars carrying volatile crude oil have skyrocketed, increasing 4,000 percent in 5 years, creating more risk, spills, fires and explosions.
“This volume of crude oil being produced and transported by rail just didn’t exist that long ago,” Foxx said.
The proposal comes from painful lessons learned in the aftermath of tragedy.
Just two months ago, an oil-carrying freight train derailed in Lynchburg, Virginia, spilling 30,000 gallons of oil into the James River.
And last year, in Lac Megantic, Quebec, a runaway oil train exploded, killing 47 people.
The department’s proposal will take months to finalize after a 60-day comment period.
As the wheels of progress move at a snail’s pace in Washington, there is no waiting here in Cleveland.
Train traffic continues to move through and first responders know they must be ready for the call, whatever and whenever it may be.
“To actually be able to touch and look at the equipment involved, and the valves involved, and the different train cars involved, I think it’s very helpful to cement that information in,” said Darren Collins, a first responder from Lakewood.
