Tag Archives: Train speed

U.S. oil train rule changes would have side effects on passenger, freight traffic

Repost from The Democrat & Chronicle, Rochester, NY

U.S. oil train rule changes would have side effects

By Brian Tumulty, January 13, 2015
Railroad oil tanker cars parked at the Port of Albany. Each week between 20 and 35 freight trains pulling such tankers roll through Monroe Coundy. (Photo: Mike Groll / AP file photo 2014)

WASHINGTON – Long-distance passenger and freight rail service could be headed for gridlock later this year if trains hauling crude oil and ethanol are limited to 40 miles per hour.

And it could get worse. If the controversial Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t win approval, the American Petroleum Institute estimates “an additional 700,000 barrels per day” will need to be shipped by freight rail. That would require an additional 1,000 rail tank cars every day to transport the tar sands oil the pipeline was intended to carry from Canada to the U.S.

Passengers in the tens of thousands per year travel on trains that stop in Rochester and could potentially be affected by the decisions that will soon be made.

The speed limit, proposed by federal regulators, would cause “severe disruption of freight and passenger rail service across the U.S.,” according to the National Shippers Strategic Transportation Council, a trade group.

The result of the debate will affect both local passengers who use Amtrak — 145,000 people boarded or got off at the Rochester Amtrak station in 2013 — and local activists worried about potential safety issues involving the oil tanker trains that run through Monroe County. Between 20 and 35 oil trains roll across upstate each week, passing through Monroe County on their way to Albany.

The Association of American Railroad says the 40 mph speed limit, and a related proposal requiring freight trains carrying crude oil or ethanol to have electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, “would have a devastating impact on the railroads’ ability to provide their customers with efficient rail transportation.”

Amtrak, which carried 31 million passengers overall in 2013, runs most of its trains on tracks owned by the nation’s major freight railroads. Trains on the Albany-Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo corridor use a pair of tracks owned by Florida-based CSX Transportation.

Under federal law, freight railroads are required to give priority to Amtrak as they dispatch trains on their systems. But the system has always been imperfect, and scheduling conflicts with freight trains, along with numerous other problems, have made delays a fact of life on most Amtrak routes.

Amtrak supports imposing the 40 mph speed limit only in federally defined “high-threat urban areas” where the risk of a catastrophe is considered greatest. There are just over 50 around the country, including the New York City metro area and Buffalo.

“Anything more restrictive, if it affected network fluidity, could have adverse effects on Amtrak,” the railroad wrote.

The challenge for the oil and gas industry is continuing to safely transport crude oil from new oil fields to refineries.

About 70 percent of crude oil produced in the Bakken Shale Formation of North Dakota and Montana is shipped by rail, according to the oil refineries trade organization.

And production is continuing to increase, from less than 200,000 barrels per day in 2008 to nearly 1.2 million barrels per day in 2014, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Freight railroads predict production eventually will reach 2 million barrels a day.

About 70 percent of ethanol also is transported by rail.

Meanwhile, the nation’s rail network is operating at near capacity. Last year, its choke points resulted in a dramatic drop in the on-time performance of many long-distance Amtrak passenger trains.

Amtrak’s Capitol Limited route between Chicago and Washington had an on-time performance of less than 3 percent in the three months ending Sept. 30. Amtrak provided bus service between Chicago and Toledo, Ohio, for six days in October because some trains were running 10 hours late.

Freight rail shipments from grain elevators faced delays of up to three months a year ago. Freight railroads weren’t prepared for harsh winter weather on top of increased crude oil shipments.

Freight railroads say they’re spending billions of dollars to improve capacity — they largely avoided delays in shipping farm commodities following this year’s harvest — but a 40 mph speed limit for oil trains could undermine that.

“The impact on railroad capacity can be compared to traveling on a two-lane highway,” the Association of American Railroads said. “Slowing down one car or truck affects trailing vehicles. Similarly, slowing down one train affects trailing movements, except that the impact on railroad traffic is much worse because the opportunities to pass are much more constrained than on a highway.”

Trains can pass only at widely spaced locations on a railroad, whether single or double-tracked. Research on rail capacity has shown, and rail operators have long understood, that reducing speeds reduces network capacity.”

At issue is safety in the wake of several derailments of oil trains. The most notable, in the Quebec community of Lac-Mégantic in July 2013, killed 47 people.

Many rail industry groups and shippers say federal efforts to improve the safety of “unit” trains carrying at least 100 tankers loaded with crude oil should focus on fixing faulty tracks. New speed reductions, they say, should be limited to the most densely populated areas.

The National Transportation Safety Board lists improvements in rail tanker car safety as one of its 10 most wanted safety improvements for 2015. It also lists installation of “positive train controls,” which automatically slow trains going into a curve if the operator doesn’t.

“The NTSB does not have a specific position on any specific speed limits but what we do want to make sure first of all is, does the train stay on the track,” said Robert Sumwalt, a member of the NTSB board. “And PTC (positive train controls) is one good way of ensuring that the trains stay on the track. We want to make sure if they do derail, there’s adequate protection in the tank cars. And finally if the tank cars breach, we want to make sure there’s adequate emergency response.”

Federal officials late last year received more than 3,400 public comments on an array of proposals aimed at safer transportation of crude oil by rail. They include a new design for tank cars, retrofitting existing tank cars, installing new braking systems and speed restrictions.

Three possible speed-limit scenarios been proposed — one would limit oil trains to 40 mph at all times. Another would impose the 40 mph limit only when trains pass through regions of at least 100,000 people, and another would impose it only in cities defined as high-threat urban areas.

Trains using a new generation of safer tank cars would be allowed to travel at 50 mph.

The proposed speed limit would apply to “high-hazard flammable trains,” which federal transportation officials would define as any train carrying at least 20 tankers loaded with crude oil or ethanol.

Railroads say 20 cars is too few because freight trains add and subtract cars as they move along the nation’s vast rail network.

The average unit train has 94 tank cars, according to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers association, which represents the owners of 120 refineries.

Inspection finds faulty switch, critical rail and tank car safety defects

Repost from The Times Union, Albany NY

Faulty switch slows trains

Speed limit lowered after defect that could cause derailment found
By Brian Nearing | December 15, 2014
Port-of-Albany_650
Oil tanker and freight cars at the Port of Albany are seen from Corning Tower Monday afternoon, Dec. 15, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. Speed limits for trains were lowered on tracks near a large industrial park near Voorheesville that are commonly used by massive trains carrying flammable crude oil after state and federal safety inspectors found a faulty switch that could have caused a derailment. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

Trains were slowed on tracks last week near a large Albany County industrial park — where passing trains routinely carry dozens of tankers filled with flammable crude oil — after state and federal safety inspectors found a faulty switch that could have caused a derailment.

That switch, which feeds trains into the 550-acre Northeast Industrial Park, was examined Dec. 9 as part of the eighth statewide inspection of oil trains and tracks ordered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in response to safety concerns about a surge of crude oil shipments through New York from the Bakken fields of North Dakota.

The switch is about three miles north of the village of Voorheesville and feeds trains into the park, which itself contains about 15 miles of tracks.

“We have sent inspection crews to check rail tracks and crude oil cars across New York and we continue to find critical safety defects that put New Yorkers at risk,” the governor said in a statement issued Monday. “We will remain vigilant and will continue to use all available resources to ensure that crude oil transporters are held to the highest safety standards.”

In the Capital Region, the speed limit on the CSX-owned track around the switch was lowered from 50 mph to 25 mph last week after inspectors from the state Transportation Department and Federal Railroad Administration found the switch was too narrow by just an eighth of an inch, said DOT spokesman Beau Duffy.

The switch could have been damaged by passing trains, or could cause a train to derail, he said. Duffy said the switch was repaired and higher speed limits have been restored.

The park is owned and managed by the Schenectady-based Galesi Group. A spokeswoman for company Chief Operating Officer David Buicko said the company was not made aware of the switch issue and learned of it from a Times Union reporter.

“We are committed to strong, ongoing and long-term coordination with state and local officials and will continue our aggressive program of inspection and maintenance of the entire CSX network,” said CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle. “Upon being made aware of the defect, CSX implemented a speed reduction in that area. The switch was repaired over the weekend and the speed restriction has been lifted.”

Cuomo’s office announced that state and federal inspectors examined about 95 miles of track — from Schenectady to Selkirk, and from Albany to Whitehall in the Capital Region, as well as from Plattsburgh to the Canadian border in the North Country.

In addition to the faulty switch, inspectors found about 30 violations on tracks, including “critical problems” like missing bolts from a rail joint and an “insecure switch point heel.”

Inspectors at the Canadian Pacific Railway-owned Kenwood yard at the Port of Albany also examined 478 DOT-111 tanker rail cars, which are commonly used to haul Bakken crude. Found were 16 “non-critical defects,” including worn brake shoes, defective wheels and other issues.

Non-critical rail defects must be repaired within 30 days. Non-critical tank car defects must be fixed before the train departs the yard.

Other inspections were done at rail yards and tanker cars in western New York, uncovering another five “critical defects,” including two broken rails at the Dunkirk and Buffalo-Frontier rail yard, and DOT-111s with defective brakes, a cracked weld and missing bolts.

Maclean’s: So it turns out Bakken oil is explosive after all

Repost from Maclean’s Magazine

So it turns out Bakken oil is explosive after all

Producers in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields have been told to make crude is safer before being shipped by rail
By Chris Sorensen, December 10, 2014

Oil TrainsAfter years of insisting oil sucked from North Dakota’s Bakken shale wasn’t inherently dangerous, producers have been ordered to purge the light, sweet crude of highly flammable substances before loading it on railcars and shipping it through towns and cities across the continent.

State regulators said this week that the region’s crude will first need to be treated, using heat or pressure, to remove more volatile liquids and gases. The idea, according to North Dakota’s Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms, wasn’t to render the oil incapable of being ignited, but merely more stable in preparation for transport.

It’s the latest regulatory response to a frightening series of fiery train crashes that stretches back to the summer of 2013. That’s when a runaway train laden with Bakken crude jumped the tracks in Lac-Mégantic, Que., and killed 47 people in a giant fireball. In the accident’s immediate aftermath, many experts struggled to understand how a train full of crude oil could ignite so quickly and violently. It had never happened before.

Subsequent studies have shown that Bakken crude, squeezed from shale rock under high pressure through a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” can indeed have a high gas content and vapour pressure, as well as lower flash and boiling points. However, there remains disagreement about whether the levels are unusual for oil extracted from shale, and whether the classifications for shipping it should be changed.

Still, with more than one million barrels of oil being moved by rail from the region each day, regulators have decided to err on the side of caution and implement additional safety measures. For producers, that means buying new equipment that can boil off propane, butane and other volatile natural gases. Under the new rules, the Bakken crude will not be allowed to have a vapour pressure greater than 13.7 lb. per square inch, about the same as for standard automobile gasoline. Regulators estimate that about 80 per cent of Bakken oil already meets these requirements.

The industry isn’t pleased. It continues to argue that Bakken oil is no more dangerous than other forms of light, sweet crude, and is, therefore, being unfairly singled out. It has also warned that removing volatile liquids and gasses from Bakken crude would result in the creation of a highly concentrated, highly volatile product that would still have to be shipped by rail—not to mention additional greenhouse-gas emissions. It goes without saying that meeting the new rules will also cost producers money—at a time when oil prices are falling.

In the meantime, regulators on both sides of the border are taking steps to boost rail safety by focusing on lower speed limits, new brake requirements and plans to phase out older, puncture-prone oil tank cars. Earlier this year, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said Canada would be “leading the continent” on the phase-out of older DOT-111 tank cars, which have been linked to fiery crashes going back 25 years. There are about 65,000 of the cars in service in North America, about a third of which can be found in Canada.

Ralph Nader: Unsafe and Unnecessary Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans

Repost from The Huffington Post
[Editor: This is a must read, a comprehensive summary by a visionary and influential old-timer.  – RS]

Unsafe and Unnecessary Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans

By Ralph Nader, 12/15/2014
Ralph Nader Headshot
Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, lawyer and author

Back in 1991 the National Transportation Safety Board first identified oil trains as unsafe — the tank cars, specifically ones called DOT-111s, were too thin and punctured too easily, making transport of flammable liquids like oil unreasonably dangerous. As bad as this might sound, at the very least there was not a lot of oil being carried on the rails in 1991.

Now, in the midst of a North American oil boom, oil companies are using fracking and tar sands mining to produce crude in remote areas of the U.S. and Canada. To get the crude to refineries on the coasts the oil industry is ramping up transport by oil trains. In 2008, 9,500 crude oil tank cars moved on US rails. In 2013 the number was more than 400,000! With this rapid growth comes a looming threat to public safety and the environment. No one — not federal regulators or local firefighters — are prepared for oil train derailments, spills and explosions.

Unfortunately, the rapid increase in oil trains has already meant many more oil train disasters. Railroads spilled more oil in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined.

Trains are the most efficient way to move freight and people. This is why train tracks run through our cities and towns. Our rail system was never designed to move hazardous materials, however; if it was, train tracks would not run next to schools and under football stadiums.

Last summer, environmental watchdog group ForestEthics released a map of North America that shows probable oil train routes. Using Google, anyone can check to see if their home or office is near an oil train route. (Try it out here.)

ForestEthics used census data to calculate that more than 25 million Americans live in the oil train blast zone (that being the one-mile evacuation area in the case of a derailment and fire.) This is clearly a risk not worth taking — oil trains are the Pintos of the rails. Most of these trains are a mile long, pulling 100-plus tank cars carrying more than 3 million gallons of explosive crude. Two-thirds of the tank cars used to carry crude oil today were considered a “substantial danger to life, property, and the environment” by federal rail safety officials back in 1991.

The remaining one-third of the tank cars are not much better — these more “modern” cars are tested at 14 to 15 mph, but the average derailment speed for heavy freight trains is 24 mph. And it was the most “modern” tank cars that infamously derailed, caught fire, exploded and poisoned the river in Lynchburg, Virginia last May. Other derailments and explosions in North Dakota and Alabama made national news in 2014.

The most alarming demonstration of the threat posed by these trains happened in Quebec in July 2013 — an oil train derailed and exploded in the City of Lac Megantic, killing 47 people and burning a quarter of the city to the ground. The fire burned uncontrollably, flowing through the city, into and then out of sewers, and into the nearby river. Firefighters from across the region responded, but an oil fire cannot be fought with water, and exceptionally few fire departments have enough foam flame retardant to control a fire from even a single 30,000 gallon tank car, much less the millions of gallons on an oil train.

Given the damage already done and the threat presented, Canada immediately banned the oldest of these rail cars and mandated a three-year phase-out of the DOT-111s. More needs to be done, but this is a solid first step. Of course, we share the North American rail network — right now those banned trains from Canada may very well be transporting oil through your home town while the Department of Transportation dallies.

The immense public risk these oil trains pose is starting to gain the attention it deserves, but not yet the response. Last summer, the U.S. federal government began the process of writing new safety regulations. Industry has weighed in heavily to protect its interest in keeping these trains rolling. The Department of Transportation, disturbingly, seems to be catering to industry’s needs.

The current draft rules are deeply flawed and would have little positive impact on safety. They leave the most dangerous cars in service for years. Worse yet, the oil industry would get to more than double its tank car fleet before being required to decommission any of the older, more dangerous DOT-111s.

We need an immediate ban on the most dangerous tank cars. We also need to slow these trains down; slower trains mean fewer accidents, and fewer spills and explosions when they do derail. The public and local fire fighters must be notified about train routes and schedules, and every oil train needs a comprehensive emergency response plan for accidents involving explosive Bakken crude and toxic tar sands. In addition, regulations must require adequate insurance. This is the least we could expect from Secretary Anthony Foxx, who travels a lot around the country, and the Department of Transportation.

So far, Secretary Foxx is protecting the oil industry, not ordinary Americans. In fact, Secretary Foxx is meeting with Canadian officials this Thursday, December 18, to discuss oil-by-rail. It is doubtful, considering Canada’s strong first step, that he will be trying to persuade them to adopt even stronger regulations. Will Secretary Foxx ask them to weaken what they have done and put more lives at risk? Time will tell. He has the power, and the mandate, to remove the most dangerous rail cars to protect public safety but he appears to be heading in the opposite direction. Earlier this month ForestEthics and the Sierra Club, represented by EarthJustice, filed a lawsuit against the DOT to require them to fulfill this duty.

Secretary Foxx no doubt has a parade of corporate executives wooing him for lax or no oversight. But he certainly doesn’t want to have a Lac Megantic-type disaster in the U.S. on his watch. It is more possible now than ever before, given the massive increase in oil-by-rail traffic.

Pipelines, such as the Keystone XL, are not the answer either. (Keystone oil would be routed for export to other countries from Gulf ports.) Pipelines can also leak and result in massive damage to the environment as we have seen in the Kalamazoo, MI spill by the Enbridge Corporation. Three years later, $1.2 billion spent, and the “clean up” is still ongoing.

Here’s the reality — we don’t need new pipelines and we don’t need oil by rail. This is “extreme oil,” and if we can’t transport it safely, we can and must say no. Secretary Foxx needs to help make sure 25 million people living in the blastzone are safe and that means significant regulations and restrictions on potentially catastrophic oil rail cars.

Rather than choosing either of these destructive options, we are fortunate to be able to choose safe, affordable cleaner energy and more efficient energy products, such as vehicles and furnaces, instead. That is the future and it is not a distant future — it’s happening right now.

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