Category Archives: Canadian regulation

Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Tank car design, Tar sands crude, Train braking systems, Train speed

Canada proposes tough new oil tank standards after string of crashes

Repost from CTV News

Canada to propose tougher oil tank standards after a string of crashes

Rob Gillies and Joan Lowy, March 12, 2015 1:22AM EDT              
CN Rail derailment
A CN Rail train derailment near Gogama, Ont., is shown in a Sunday, March 8, 2015 handout photo. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / HO – Glenn Thibeault)

TORONTO — The Canadian government has proposed tough new standards for rail tank cars used to transport crude oil in response to a string of fiery crashes. The proposal, posted online Wednesday by Transport Canada, would require the cars to have outer “jackets,” a layer of thermal protection, and thicker steel walls.

The requirements are tougher than the oil industry wanted. But the proposal doesn’t include electronically controlled brakes that automatically stop train cars at the same time instead of sequentially, which are opposed by freight railroads. Regulators said they will take that issue up separately

Final regulations are expected by mid-May. U.S. officials have been working closely with Canada on the regulations and the White House is reviewing a draft proposal.

There have been four oil train derailments in the U.S. and Canada since mid-February. A runaway oil train derailed in Lac-Megantic Quebec in 2013, killing 47 people.A U.S. Transportation Department analysis predicts that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year over the next two decades, causing more than $4 billion in damage and possibly killing hundreds of people if an accident happens in a densely populated part of the U.S.

New standards were enacted after Lac Megantic, but safety officials on both sides of the border called for even stronger measures after fiery derailments continued to happen despite the new tank cars standards.

The newest standard calls for a hull thickness of 9/16th of an inch, up from 7/17th of an inch and makes thermal jackets mandatory.

“The proposed requirements are still subject to final approval,” said Zach Segal, a spokesman for Transport Minister Lisa Raitt. “We are working to have this done in an expedited manner.”

Segal said Transport Canada is working in collaboration with the U.S and “wants this done and published as soon as possible.?” Segal said Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet will have final approval.

The Transport Canada proposal is a “pretty clear indication” of what final regulations are likely to look like, said Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads.

“These are important protections to both help mitigate the potential for rupture of a tank car, as well as limiting the severity of an incident,” he said.

The oil and rail industries want thinner tank walls — half an inch thick, instead of the 9/16ths-inch that regulators propose. The thicker the shell, the less oil a tank car can hold, and with about a half-million carloads of crude hauled by rail in the U.S. and Canada last year, the cost difference could add up.

The tank cars in the recent accidents were built to a voluntary standard written by industry representatives in 2011 to answer criticism that cars used to transport flammable liquids were prone to rupture in an accident and spill their contents and ignite spectacular fires. But most recent accidents show that the newer cars — known as 1232s — also are prone to rupture, even at slow speeds. Trains involved in four recent accidents were travelling under 40 mph (64 kph).

The White House budget office is reviewing a draft proposal for a sturdier tank car design, as well as other safety proposals. U.S. and Canadian officials have been working closely together to co-ordinate the regulations since the tank cars move back and forth across the border. Railroads and shippers have said if there were separate regulations in each country it could cause significant shipping delays and raise costs.

The railroad association and officials from CSX, Norfolk Southern and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe argued against requiring the electronically controlled brakes in a meeting with White House officials last week, according to a document posted online by the government. They say the government has underestimated the cost of equipping tank cars with the brakes and overestimated the safety benefits. Railroads complain that electronically controlled brakes would cost them $12 billion to $21 billion.

The oil industry has rapidly moved to using trains to transport oil, in part because of oil booms in North Dakota’s Bakken region and Alberta’s oil sands, and because of a lack of pipelines.

Canadian regulation, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Fire, Rivers, Tar sands crude, Water quality

Gogama derailment – 35 oil tanker cars go off rails — 5 of them into the Makami River

Repost from CBC News

Gogama derailment – 35 oil tanker cars go off rails — 5 of them into the Makami River

Mar 08, 2015 6:14 PM ET

As crews continued to tackle a fire Sunday set off after 35 CN Rail cars carrying oil went off the tracks just outside of Gogama, Ont., the province’s transportation minister and his caucus colleague went after the federal government for its rail safety record.​

“The federal government, responsible for rail safety, must do more to protect our communities and the environment,” tweeted Glenn Thibeault, Liberal MPP for Sudbury and parliamentary assistant to Ontario’s environment minister.

“The rail cars involved are new models, compliant with the latest federal regulations. Yet they still failed to prevent this incident,” Thibeault said in a statement.

Gogama Train Derailment 2
Five of the oil tankers are in the Makami River, four kilometres outside of Gogama. This is the third CN derailment in northern Ontario in less than a month, (@GlennThibeault/Twitter)

​CN Rail has confirmed that five of the 35 tanker cars that detailed are in Makami River, which is part of the Mattagami River System. The train was 94 cars long and all were tanker cars carrying crude oil from Alberta.

Firefighters are working to control the flames and smoke from the burning oil tankers, about four kilometres outside of Gogama.

This is the third CN derailment in northern Ontario in less than a month, and the second in the same area. Crews are still working to clean up a similarly fiery derailment near the community just three weeks ago.

That prompted Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca to say in a statement Sunday that he “will be contacting Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, CN and CP this week to reiterate our government’s serious concerns with respect to ensuring our railways are safe.”

There’s no sign that drinking water or air quality near the site of the train derailment have been affected, according to CN Rail’s latest update Sunday afternoon.

The company has launched its emergency response plan, bringing in experts in engineering, operating, environment and dangerous goods. CN crews have already started constructing a 460-metre stretch of bypass track to divert around the derailment site.

Chief operating officer Jim Vena apologized to local residents for the disruption caused by the derailment, adding that he is heading to the scene.

‘Very hard to accept’

Rick Duguay, who runs Gogama’s general store, woke early Saturday morning to what he described as a strange banging noise. Duguay has lived in the community his entire and is accustomed to the sound of trains, but said this sound was different.

He’s relieved the derailment happened outside of town.

“Luckily it’s not right here at the railroad crossing, but it’s close enough and very hard to accept the things going on,” Duguay said.

He wants to see changes put in place to make railroads safer, but doesn’t think the two recent crashes are enough to prompt change.

“The worry was always there that a train wreck could happen in town … but I mean, we lived with it all our life.”

Morris Neveau said the two derailments so close together have left many in the Mattagami First Nation, just downstream from the recent derailment, unnerved.

“It affects our thinking and how we live, you know, because we live in fear, eh?”

‘What can we do now?’

Gogama residents spent much of the weekend looking up at the large plume of black smoke looming over the town.

Gogama Train Derailment
CN says indications are that ‘the drinking water supply to Gogama Village and the nearby First Nation are not affected at this time.’ (@GlennThibeault/Twitter)

Dawn Simoneau, 33, said her two daughters have been asking questions about the derailment.

“Like, ‘Are the fish going to be okay?’ and they are concerned as well,” said  .

Simoneau, a life-long Gogama resident, has lived her entire life with trains rumbling past and an ever-present fear that something might happen.

“This is just always the way it’s been. And now … we’re thinking, ‘What can we do now to make sure this doesn’t happen again?'”

The derailment has some residents talking about the Energy East oil pipeline, which has faced opposition in other parts of northern Ontario.

Nickel Belt New Democrat MP Claude Gravelle said he didn’t want to get into that debate while visiting Gogama on Saturday.

“Well, that’s a different discussion for a different day, but there certainly are some concerns about pipelines. But there are concerns about rail cars. What’s the safest? Accidents are accidents.”

The intense heat of the fire has kept investigators away from the site so far, but investigators hope to find some answers Sunday about how much oil was spilled and what caused the derailment.

With files from The Canadian Press
Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Rail industry, Rail inspection, Rail Safety

Transportation Safety Board of Canada adds new demands to emergency directive

Repost from The Wall Street Journal
Editor: This story is also covered in railway-technology.com and The Globe and Mail.  – RS]

Canada’s TSB Concerned Railway Safety ‘Remains Inadequate’

Transportation Safety Agency Concerned Over Ottawa’s Oversight of Railway Companies

By Judy McKinnon, Jan. 28, 2015

Canada’s transportation safety agency said Wednesday it is concerned that Ottawa’s oversight of railway companies remains inadequate, while noting that measures now in place would significantly reduce the risk of runaway trains.

Last year, the agency recommended several measures to strengthen rail safety after a 2013 oil-train derailment in Quebec killed 47 people and devastated the small town of Lac-Mégantic.

“While recognizing significant positive action taken by the regulator, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada remains concerned about Transport Canada’s response to outstanding recommendations,” the agency said Wednesday.

Transport Canada is the Canadian federal ministry responsible for rail transportation.

The TSB said it is specifically concerned the ministry hasn’t yet put in place an effective oversight process “that guarantees all railways will be audited in sufficient breadth and frequency to ensure safety issues are addressed in a timely manner.”

Canadian Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt said the ministry has taken action to boost oversight. “As part of our response to the Transportation Safety Board, Transport Canada will be conducting full (safety management systems) audits of federally regulated railway companies on a three-to-five-year cycle,” Ms. Raitt’s spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

In August, the TSB cited 18 factors for the Lac-Mégantic disaster, including a weak safety culture at the train’s operator—Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd.—and lax regulatory oversight. The derailment sharply raised concerns about the growing transportation of crude by rail and was followed by a number of other fiery but non-deadly accidents.

Among the TSB’s recommendations was that Transport Canada audit the safety management systems of all railways on a regular basis to confirm that safety measures are in place, and more measures to secure trains.

Transport Canada hasn’t yet shown that an effective oversight regime has been implemented, which could lead to a lag in identifying safety issues, the TSB said Wednesday.

As for preventing runaway trains, the agency said it is satisfied that Transport Canada has introduced “multiple layers” of defenses that, if fully implemented, will significantly reduce risks.

“The Minister of Transport and the department have taken strong action to improve rail safety in the wake of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, but more work needs to be done,” the safety agency said.

Last year, the TSB found that the 72-car train derailed after being left unattended and improperly secured on a descending grade despite indications there were mechanical problems with the lead locomotive. The agency said then that the now-defunct railway didn’t properly train and oversee its crews and lacked fully functioning safety-management processes.

“As we have always said, and as the Transportation Safety Board report clearly indicates, this was a case where rules were not followed,” Ms. Raitt’s spokeswoman said Wednesday.

—Nirmala Menon contributed to this article.
Bakken Crude, California Regulation, Canadian regulation, Derailment, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), State regulation

National Round-up: Calls to Ban Bomb Trains Ramp Up While Communities Await New Regulations

Repost from DeSmogBlog

Calls to Ban Bomb Trains Ramp Up While Communities Await New Regulations

By Justin Mikulka, 2014-12-15
ban bomb trains

Earthjustice has challenged the Department of Transportation’s denial of a petition by Sierra Club and Forest Ethics to ban the transportation of Bakken crude oil in DOT-111 tank cars.

“Most of the explosive crude oil on U.S. rails is moving in tanker cars that are almost guaranteed to fail in an accident,” explained Patti Goldman of Earthjustice.

“The risks are too great to keep shipping explosive Bakken crude in defective DOT-111s. The National Transportation Safety Board called them unsafe two decades ago, and by the Department of Transportation’s own estimates, the U.S. could see 15 rail accidents every year involving these cars until we get them off the tracks.”

At the same time Earthjustice was bringing this challenge, the Canadian government was announcing that it will ban 3,000 of the riskiest DOT-111s from carrying materials like Bakken crude.

And in California, where last week a train carrying grain derailed into the Feather River, democratic state senator Jerry Hill called on Governor Jerry Brown to impose a moratorium on oil trains in the state. The Feather River rail line is also used for Bakken crude oil trains.

In Toronto, the new mayor called for an end to these dangerous trains passing through the city.

“I said during the campaign and I’ll repeat it now, that I think we should be moving in the direction, in negotiation with the railways and the federal government, to stop movement of toxic and dangerous substances through the city at all,” reported The Star.

Perhaps the fact that the new mayor isn’t smoking crack like his predecessor has something to do with this rather clear-headed assessment. You would, after all, have to be on crack to think running DOT-111s filled with Bakken crude through highly populated areas was an acceptable practice.

Meanwhile in Baltimore, residents are fighting a new proposal for an oil-by-rail facility that would bring these trains right through their neighborhoods.

In addition to calls for outright bans of the DOT-111s, two states recently released new studies about the oil train issue.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is looking for ways to fund the oil spill clean up fund for the state. The fund is projected to be in the red financially by 2016 and currently collects no fees from the oil companies transporting the Bakken and tar sands oil through the state. As many as 44 oil trains carrying at least 1,000,000 gallons of oil, and often more than 3,000,000 gallons, cross New York each week.

Cuomo criticized the federal government’s lack of movement on new oil-by-rail regulations referring to their progress as “unacceptably slow” according to The Record Online.

“Over the past six months, our administration has taken swift and decisive action to increase the state’s preparedness and better protect New Yorkers from the possibility of a crude oil disaster,” Cuomo said. “Now it is time for our federal partners to do the same.”

Cuomo’s self-assessment of New York’s actions didn’t impress oil train activists. Sandy Steubing of Albany, NY, based group PAUSE isn’t pleased with the state’s progress.

“The Governor’s response is lame; he’s either urging other entities like the railroad and the Federal government to protect New Yorkers or he’s trying to appear like the measures he’s taking will protect us,” Steubing said. “There’s not enough foam in the entire state to protect us from an explosive derailment the likes of which we’ve seen five times since July of 2013.”

Meanwhile in Washington State, the draft of the 500-page 2014 Marine and Rail Oil Transportation Study was released. The report contains some staggering growth projections for oil-by-rail transportation in the state, as reported by The News Tribune.

The Department of Ecology’s report estimates that 12.7 billion gallons of oil were moved through the state by rail in 2013 alone and says 19 trains of roughly 100 tank cars each are passing through the state each week today. It predicts that traffic could mushroom to 137 weekly trains by 2020 if all proposed oil terminals and refinery expansion projects are permitted and utilized.

Facing this onslaught of oil-by-rail traffic for the state, Washington’s Governor Jay Inslee is proposing a new tax on oil transported through the state by rail.

In North Dakota, the birthplace of the modern oil-by-rail industry, meaningless new rail regulations will keep the bomb trains rolling. There is also a legal battle going on between the town of Enderlin and the rail operator Canadian Pacific. Canadian Pacific moves as many as 28 trains through Enderlin every day. Many stop and block roads and traffic in Enderlin causing traffic delays one would expect in Los Angeles but not in a town of 900 people in North Dakota.

In response, the town council made it illegal for trains to stop for more than 10 minutes in town. Now the town is being sued by Canadian Pacific. Unfortunately for the residents of Enderlin, Canadian Pacific has a strong argument that many municipalities are learning about now that they have become the home to oil train operations.

Kansas interstate commerce attorney Bob Pottroff explained the reality to Reuters, “Right now cities don’t have the right to tell a railroad it can’t park in the middle of their town.” If Enderlin were to win, Pottroff predicted the result could have far reaching effects as other municipalities opted to take some level of control over rail traffic within their borders.

In the face of this widespread opposition to the dangers posed by the oil-by-rail industry, there just happens to be a new industry-funded study showing that no new regulations are warranted.

The Railway Supply Institute funded a report prepared by The Brattle Group that concludes that all of the proposed regulations may have benefits but in every case they have found that the costs outweigh these benefits. In addition to this conclusion, Natural Gas Intelligence reports that The Brattle Group proposes one of the other favorite industry tactics for delaying new regulations. More research.

As communities across the country await new oil-by-rail regulations and continue to hear about close calls regarding oil train accidents the level of opposition to the dangers of transporting explosive oil in DOT-111s continues to grow. Unfortunately for them, the lobbyists for Big Oil and Big Rail are still hard at work protecting their profits above all else.