Repost from St. Cloud Times, St. Cloud MN [Editor: Significant quote: “The MnDOT study recommends short-term upgrades at 10 grade crossings throughout the state. It also prioritizes more costly long-term upgrades, such as creating grade separations, at other crossings.” IMPORTANT: The California Department of Transportation should take a few cues from Minnesota, commission a study and make similar recommendations. See also Minnesota officials put price tag at $280M to upgrade oil train routes (MN Star-Tribune) – RS]
Local rail crossings eyed for oil safety upgrades
Mark Sommerhauser, December 31, 2014
A BNSF Railway freight train crosses East St. Germain Street as traffic waits Wednesday in St. Cloud. A study has recommended upgrading the crossing. (Photo: Kimm Anderson
Upgrades are on track for train crossings in St. Cloud and Clear Lake, part of a bid to improve safety on Minnesota’s main thoroughfares for shipping oil by rail.
The upgrades are recommended in a new Minnesota Department of Transportation study of rail lines that carry large volumes of oil freight.
As oil production in North Dakota has soared, state officials estimated eight to 13 oil trains go through Minnesota each day. State officials said Minnesota’s most heavily used rail artery for oil transport is the BNSF Railway line that goes through east St. Cloud and other area cities.
The MnDOT study recommends short-term upgrades at 10 grade crossings throughout the state. It also prioritizes more costly long-term upgrades, such as creating grade separations, at other crossings.
The study calls for medians to be installed at grade rail crossings at East St. Germain Street in St. Cloud and at Minnesota Highway 24 in Clear Lake.
The medians are meant to keep motorists from driving around lowered crossing arms. They would cost about $100,000 apiece, according to the study.
The study also calls for connecting and coordinating rail signals with traffic lights at the crossing on Sherburne County Road 11 near Big Lake. That would cost about $500,000, according to the study.
St. Cloud City Engineer Steve Foss said his office had preliminary talks with MnDOT about upgrading the East St. Germain Street crossing.
MnDOT will work with communities to finalize the study’s recommendations, according to a news release from the agency. MnDOT spokeswoman Sue Roe said the projects should move forward after that.
“They’re a ‘go,'” Roe said.
The MnDOT study stems from a 2014 state law directing the Minnesota Department of Transportation to study road crossings on rail lines carrying Bakken crude oil from North Dakota through Minnesota. The measure also appropriated $2 million to upgrade crossings.
About $244 million would be needed to implement the proposed grade separation projects. Those dollars aren’t currently available, Roe said.
The MnDOT news release said the study considers population, facilities and activity within a half-mile radius of each crossing. That distance represents the evacuation zone around an incident for a flammable material spill and fire.
The type of oil being transported from North Dakota, Bakken crude, has prompted particular safety concerns because of its volatility.
A string of rail disasters related to Bakken crude oil also has heightened awareness.
In July 2013, 47 people were killed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, when a train carrying Bakken crude derailed. Five months later, an oil train crashed and burned after colliding with a derailed freight train near Casselton, North Dakota.
Safety Information For Alhambra Trestle In Martinez And Other Bridges Kept By The Railroads
Underneath the Alhambra trestle in Martinez (Jeffrey Schaub/CBS)
A KCBS Cover Story Special: Part 2 of 3, Produced by Giancarlo Rulli, December 30, 2014 – KCBS reporter Jeffrey Shaub and producer Giancarlo Rulli investigate the Bay Area’s aging railway bridges that will carry increasing loads of highly volatile Bakken crude oil from North Dakota in this three-part KCBS Cover Story Special.
MARTINEZ (KCBS) — Some local, state and federal officials are concerned that an old railroad bridge in Martinez, used to transport increasing car loads of highly volatile crude oil from North Dakota to East Bay refineries, may be unsafe.
Officials said they can’t obtain safety information about that bridge, and others like it, because the railroad that owns it is allowed to keep that information to themselves.
The Alhambra trestle was originally built in 1899 and later reinforced in 1929. The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway replaced the rail deck in 2003, but the trestle’s support structures are 85 and to 115 years old.
Each week it bears the load of hundreds of rail cars including a growing number that carry Bakken crude oil.
Jim Nue is a member of the Martinez Environmental Group who said he worries about a derailment and how it might affect the several schools and scores of homes nearby.
“We figured the effects within a half-mile blast zone of those tracks affects 12,000 people,” he said.
State and federal authorities are also worried about Alhambra trestle.
“We are concerned about failure,” Paul King, the Deputy Director of Rail Safety for the California Public Utilities Commission, told KCBS.
He’s concerned about shipments of Bakken crude oil over the Alhambra Trestle.
“The consequences of derailment failure are very high,” King said.
But there is no way to know for sure because ever since the Civil War, the railroads have been allowed to keep that information to themselves. While the Federal Railroad Administration does oversee the BNSF, there is only one bridge inspector to cover all eleven Western states.
In the Fall of 2014, The CPUC authorized the hiring of two bridge inspectors to evaluate the more than 5,000 railroad bridges in the state, including the Alhambra trestle. It’s a job that could take 50 years to complete.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) told KCBS that it’s a statewide problem.
“The main bridge across the Sacramento is more than 100 years old. It was built shortly after the Gold Rush,” he said.
BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said the trestle is safe.
“Our bridges are inspected three times a year and, in fact, if they did detect—in any way—that that structure needed to be replaced, they would immediately put plans in place to replace the structure,” she said.
The state says they want the final say on what is safe and what isn’t—and not just leave it up to the railroads.
Back in Martinez, Nue, remains worried about the geography of the Alhambra trestle and his town.
“So if something happens on either end, you’re stuck,” he said.
In Part III, we will reveal how state and emergency response coordinators are concerned about their ability to battle a major railway explosion and fire.
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, 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.
Repost from 5KPIX TV CBS SF Bay Area [Editor: apologies for the video’s commercial ad. You can pass on choosing an ad – the video will begin if you just wait. – RS]
State Senator Says Bay Area Not Prepared For Crude Oil Trains
Phil Matier talks with state senator Jerry Hill who believes that Bay Area emergency crews are not properly prepared to handle the hundreds of tanker trains bringing shale crude oil from the Dakotas to local refineries. (11/23/14)
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