Tag Archives: Railroad bridges

Crude By Rail, Oil trains, Railroad bridges

POEM: “Oil Trains” by Barbara Draper

Repost from the Minneapolis Star Tribune
[Editor:  On October 8, 2015, the Star Tribune published Barbara Draper’s incredible, wonderful, beautiful, moving – and frightful – poem, “Oil Trains.”  The Star Tribune gave it their own title, “Slithering into Minneapolis.”   Published here with permission from the author (and reformatted to her specifications).  – RS]

More tank cars like these seen near Gladstone, N.D., are traveling through downtown Minneapolis. JIM GEHRZ • Star Tribune

OIL TRAINS

A slithering line of obsidian tank-cars
from craven North Dakota
quakes the freshwater lakes of Minnesota,
then stuns the Mississippi.

Now on a neighborhood street in Minneapolis
it rumbles overhead —

over a bridge whose stanchions are stamped 1920.
Concrete crumbled off.
Ninety year-old steel shoulders the load.

I hold my breath against the ghost
like I did as a kid riding my bike past the cemetery.

Crows of unacknowledged intelligence
…..Caw
………….  ….and dive
as though raptors were invading their nests.

– Barbara Draper, Minneapolis
Crude By Rail, Derailment, Railroad bridges, Rivers, Water quality

Kayaktivists: Crude oil pipeline on rails threatens our waterways

Repost from the Wisconsin Gazette

Calling all kayaktivists and more: Crude oil pipeline on rails threatens our waterways

By Citizens Acting for Rail Safety and Milwaukee Riverkeeper,  September 12, 2015 07:35

rail-163472_copyThe dangers of shipping crude oil over and along our waterways will be highlighted by clean water advocates gathering at the confluence of the Menomonee and Milwaukee Rivers, near the railroad swing bridge.

This bridge is one of many in the metro area where trains carrying volatile crude oil cross or travel near local rivers. The railroad system was not laid out with this kind of cargo in mind. Nationally, oil train traffic has increased more than 4,000 percent in the past five years, and oil trains are also much longer, which concentrates the risk of an accident, especially in urban areas.

Crude oil trains threaten the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinic Rivers and Lake Michigan.

After decades of clean water work, we are alarmed to see an oil pipeline on rails emerge in our metro area. Work to improve water quality and wildlife habitat has also been an essential part of the revitalization of many parts of Milwaukee including the Third Ward, Menomonee Valley, and the Milwaukee River Greenway, and is critical to success of new efforts to develop the Inner Harbor..

An oil spill would have serious environmental and economic consequences.

Citizens have many questions about emergency response plans if a crude oil train were to derail and oil spill into waterways. Many oil trains — some with 100 cars of more — contain the same quantity of oil as an oil tanker, but are not required to have the same level of spill response plans or safety precautions.

  • Who would respond?
  • How would this oil be contained and cleaned up?
  • What would happen in winter when there is ice cover and oil spill recovery becomes nearly impossible?
  • How would seiche currents impact clean up efforts?
  • What are the implications for our drinking water and quality of life?

Please join clean water advocates for a visibility event highlighting the danger oil trains pose to our waterways.

    • When: Sunday, September 13, 3 p.m.
    • What: A gathering of kayaks, canoes and banners. Paddlers and other clean water supporters will join in singing and drumming with the One Drop ensemble of Jahmes Finlayson and Dena Aronson. Dona Yahola will begin the event with an Ojibwe water prayer and song.
    • Where: Participants will be near the Railroad Swing Bridge at the Confluence of the Menomonee and Milwaukee Rivers. Convergence at the Confluence. Third Ward Riverwalk.

 

 

Bridge safety, Crude By Rail, Derailment, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Lac-Mégantic, Railroad bridges

Milwaukee’s ticking oil train time bomb

Repost from The Progressive Midwesterner

Milwaukee’s ticking oil train time bomb

by Aaron Camp, 07.09.15

Two years and three days ago, a train carrying crude oil from the Bakken rock formation along the border between the United States and Canada in the northern Great Plains derailed in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, causing explosions of oil tank cars that destroyed dozens of buildings in the central part of Lac-Mégantic and killed 47 people.

The train that derailed in Lac-Mégantic passed through Milwaukee, the largest city in the American state of Wisconsin, where a railroad bridge responsible for carrying trains loaded with oil tank cars has deteriorated so badly, some of the beams supported the place have been rusted hollow. Earlier this week, a protest was held at the bridge, which runs right next to lofts in the Fifth Ward area of Milwaukee that would likely be destroyed in the event that an oil train derails and explodes, whether it occurs because of the bridge collapsing or for some other reason. Protesters were critical of both the deteriorating condition of the bridge and the oil trains that use it frequently, and they called for the release of bridge inspection reports and for the development of an evacuation plan in the event that either an oil train or other type of train carrying hazardous materials were to derail.

The deteriorating railroad bridge in Milwaukee is owned by Canadian Pacific Railway, a company, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, that runs freight trains through the United States and Canada. Under United States federal law, Canadian Pacific is legally responsible for inspecting the bridge and maintaining inspection reports. However, because the bridge has rusted and deteriorated so badly, a proper inspection of the bridge is impossible, according to a steel engineer that WITI-TV, a local television station in Milwaukee, brought to the bridge with them. Despite requests from WITI, Canadian Pacific has repeatedly refused to make the bridge inspection reports available to them. Additionally, the United States Federal Railroad Administration, the only government entity in the United States that can demand the release of bridge audits from Canadian Pacific, has claimed to have never asked for the Milwaukee bridge inspection reports from Canadian Pacific.

Because of deteriorating railroad infrastructure and more trains carrying tank cars full of highly-explosive oil across America, places like Milwaukee could become the next Lac-Mégantic if action isn’t taken to fix our crumbling infrastructure and increase the amount of energy being generated from renewable sources like solar and wind.