Category Archives: Derailment

Latest derailment: Selkirk, NY – cause pinned down, anxiety lingers

October 23, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from The Times Union, Albany NY

Derailment’s cause pinned down, but anxiety lingers

By Brian Nearing, October 23, 2014

Railcars are derailed Wednesday night, Oct. 23, 2014, at the CSX yard in Selkirk, N.Y. (Sheriff Craig Apple)

A misplaced piece of safety equipment triggered the slow-motion derailment of 18 railroad cars overnight at the spawling Selkirk rail yard, the state Department of Transportation said Thursday.

Eighteen cars — two of which had been earlier emptied of highly explosive propane — derailed about 7:40 p.m. at the sprawling Selkirk yard, which can handle thousands of freight cars a day for rail company CSX and is a critical transit gateway to much of the Northeast. No cars ruptured or spilled, and no one was hurt.

State transportation investigators said the mishap was caused by safety equipment — called a derailer — inadvertently left on the tracks by a crew that had been making repairs. A derailer is meant to protect workers by blocking trains from running over them.

Another worker elsewhere later began using a remote-controlled engine to move freight cars slowly around the yard, unaware the derailer was in the path of the oncoming cars, according to a DOT statement.

“The remote control operator was moving freight cars onto that section of track when they ran into the derailer, pushing them off the tracks. Investigators believe the remote control operator was initially unaware of what was happening and continued to move the cars down the track, causing more to derail,” according to DOT.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy said the accident, coming days after a liquid propane spill at a tank farm near a sprawling interstate highway intersection, shows the Capital Region is “dancing with the devil” as fossil fuel-laden trains surge through from the Midwest.

Fifteen of the cars in Selkirk had been righted by Thursday afternoon, said CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle. He said four cars were classified for hazardous materials, including two for propane, as well as one containing residue of a chemical herbicide and another containing an industrial acid.

Doolittle said “several of the remaining cars were empty, and none of the other cars contained any hazardous freight.” He said the accident was not causing backups or delays elsewhere on CSX lines.

A vocal opponent of a surge of crude oil rail shipments from North Dakota that are arriving daily in Albany, some carried by CSX, McCoy said the rail company was “downplaying” the mishap and “making it sound like less than it was.” He and Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple went to the yard Wednesday night to inspect the mishap.

Derailed cars were “stacked two or three high,” said McCoy. “There was a huge crater or hole near one of the derailed cars … and one car was leaning against” a tanker that was marked with a placard identifying its contents as propane. “Cars were beaten up, dented in. It looked like a bomb had gone off.”

State DOT spokesman Beau Duffy said CSX notified the state at 8:23 p.m., within a one-hour notification window required under law. He said previous state inspections of the yard have “not found anything out of the ordinary.”

This is the second derailment at the Selkirk yard this year. In February, 13 tanker cars each carrying about 29,000 gallons of highly flammable crude oil derailed, but did not spill or explode. DOT later fined CSX $5,000 for failing to notify the state of the derailment within the one-hour requirement.

Later, inspectors from DOT and the Federal Railroad Administration looked at a mile of track in the Selkirk yard and found 20 “non-critical defects” that were to be repaired, according to a March press release from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

On Monday, there was “a small release” of liquid propane from a tank farm in North Albany, near the intersections of Interstates 90 and 787, according to statement from tank farm owner Global Partners.

Workers found the leak during a “routine site inspection” about 3:45 p.m., according to a statement by Global Partners Vice President Edward J. Faneuil. The company informed the city Fire Department and burned off “excess gas which could not be recovered,” he said. No one was hurt and the cause of the leak was being investigated.

McCoy said flames from the gas burn went on for hours Monday night. City Fire Chief Warren Abriel said his department was notified by Global about 5 p.m. that they were going to burn off excess gas from one of its storage tanks. He said he was not aware that burn was linked to a leak.

Burning gas vented from tanks is a routine procedure at the Global facility that is not unusual, said Abriel. Global expanded its 540,000-gallon propane storage facility in April; it has been receiving propane shipments by rail there since April 2013.

Spokesman from both state DOT and the state Department of Environmental Conservation said their agencies were not required to be notified about the propane spill.

Bay Area Refineries, BNSF Railway, Bridge safety, Derailment, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail inspection, Tank car design, Union Pacific Railroad

KQED: As More Crude Oil Rolls In, a Push for Better Track Inspection

October 22, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from KQED Science
[Editor: Excellent Mina Kim audio interview with Tony Bizjak below. New information on Union Pacific derailment frequency, bridge inspection and other issues. – RS]

As More Crude Oil Rolls In, a Push for Better Track Inspection

By Mina Kim and Molly Samuel | KQED Science | October 22, 2014

Union Pacific owns the tracks that would deliver crude oil to the Valero refinery in Benicia. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

Shipments of crude oil by rail are expected to increase in the Bay Area and the rest of the state in the near future. BNSF Railways is already transporting crude oil into Richmond, including the kind of oil that exploded from a derailment and killed 47 people in a Quebec town last year.

In response to concerns about the risks of crude by rail, the state’s other large rail company, Union Pacific, began to boost its rail inspection program by dispatching vehicles with lasers that can find tiny track imperfections, as the Sacramento Bee reports:

The new cars will patrol the main mountain routes into the state, Union Pacific officials said. Northern California sites will include Donner Pass, the Feather River Canyon and grades outside Dunsmuir. The state has designated all those areas high hazards for derailments.

The Bee’s Tony Bizjack spoke with Mina Kim about the program, which began last month. Bizjack explained that Union Pacific is particularly worried about California’s mountain passes because they’re considered more high-hazard areas, “often because they’re curving, they’re on slopes, and they have to deal with more extreme weather,” he said.

Bizjak rode on one of the track inspection vehicles. He said they’re equipped with ultrasound to look into the rails to find weaknesses and lasers to measure variations in rail height and alignment.

In the last five years, Union Pacific has had about 180 derailments in California, Bizjack said. “Derailments are surprisingly frequent, but generally very minor,” he said. “Most of those derailments, however, the train cars ended up standing up, not falling over.”

About half of all derailments are caused by track problems, said Bizjack. Others are caused by human and equipments errors. “So tracks are important, that’s sort of the front-line of defense — PUC and FRA think — in reducing the chance these new crude oil shipments can derail, explode.”

Union Pacific is not yet bringing volatile Bakken crude to California. But there are plans in the works for Union Pacific to bring crude oil both to and through the Bay Area, Bizjak explains. A project at the Valero refinery in Benicia would bring two 50-car trains a day through Sacramento and along the I-80 corridor. Another proposal in Santa Maria, by Phillips 66, would bring trains through Sacramento, the East Bay, San Jose and down the coast.

“If you ask anybody in the Office of Emergency Services here in California, or first responders, fire departments, there is a real level of concern about the safety with more crude oil coming in,” Bizjak said.

Bakken Crude, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Funding for emergency response

New Jersey firefighters warn county officials they don’t have staff, equipment, expertise; suggest the county buy equipment and bill CSX

October 21, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from NorthJersey.com

Firefighters want Bergen County plan for oil train accidents

October 21, 2014, By Scott Fallon

Lt. Matthew Tiedemann, the Bergen County Office of Emergency Management coordinator, talking about the newer cars that carry Bakken crude oil at the summit for first responders. | CHRIS PEDOTA/staff photographer

Local firefighters warned Bergen County officials on Monday that they don’t have the manpower, equipment or expertise required should there be an accident involving trains carrying millions of gallons of volatile Bakken crude oil that pass through their towns every day.

At a meeting of about 75 first responders in Hackensack, emergency officials said a coordinated countywide approach is the only way to deal with a potential derailment involving the enormous increase of trains carrying Bakken crude. The highly flammable oil has been involved in several fiery crashes throughout North America in the past year.

More than 60,000 tank cars, each containing as much as 3 million gallons of crude oil, are expected to be hauled on the CSX River Line through 11 Bergen County towns this year — almost triple the amount from last year, county emergency management officials said Monday.

“The rapid growth is going to be beyond anything we can contain,” said Bergenfield Fire Chief Jason Lanzilotti, who held a response drill to an oil train derailment over the summer. “Evacuation is a major problem. Fire suppression is out of the question. There has to be some kind of framework so that not every town is individually looking at what needs to be done.”

Over the past few years, Bergen County has become a major corridor for oil with 15 to 30 trains traveling every week on the CSX River Line from New York. They enter New Jersey in Northvale |and travel past thousands of homes and businesses in Norwood, Harrington Park, Closter, Haworth, Dumont, Bergenfield, Teaneck, Bogota, Ridgefield Park and Ridgefield. The trains eventually pass through the central part of the state, crossing the Delaware River near Trenton on their way to a refinery in Philadelphia.

The oil originates in a geological formation called the Bakken shale in a remote area of North Dakota where pipelines are scarce. About 33 million barrels were filled in August — seven 7 million barrels more than the same time last year, according to the latest government data.

Although there have been recent fiery accidents in North Dakota, Alabama and Virginia involving the oil trains, no one was severely injured. But one of the worst rail disasters in recent memory happened last summer when a train carrying 72 tanker cars full of Bakken crude derailed in the small town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The crude ignited and exploded, killing 47 people and destroying most of the downtown.

“You could just picture if this were to happen in a densely populated area in Bergen County where the houses are almost next to the train tracks,” said Lt. Matthew Tiedemann, coordinator of Bergen County’s Office of Emergency Management.

Tiedemann led the meeting, which was also attended by Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan, county fire officials and several freeholders.

Tiedemann talked about different methods firefighters may take in dealing with an oil train fire. He said it may be more dangerous to try to put a fire out immediately since the oil could flow away from the wreckage and reignite elsewhere.

“If you put that fire out and there are still 15,000 gallons of Bakken oil in that car, where is that Bakken oil going to flow?” he said. “How are you going to keep that car cool enough so it doesn’t spontaneously combust again? And how are you going to clean that all up once it flows out of the cars?”

Several first responders said they need equipment like booms, large quantities of foam retardant and absorbent materials to deal with a potential fire and spill, saying it would take the county time to move that equipment if a crisis occurred.

One particular area of concern is that the oil trains cross a small bridge over the upper reaches of the Oradell Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to 750,000 people. Harrington Park Fire Marshall Tom Simpson said there was no way his volunteer fire department nor any of the ones in surrounding towns could stop thousands of gallons of oil from going into the reservoir.

“Any spill above the reservoir is going to contaminate the reservoir,” said Simpson who suggested that the county buy the equipment for local towns and then bill CSX. “We don’t have the equipment to contain that much flow into the reservoir.”

Bergenfield fire Capt.ain Jim Kirsch said putting the equipment near the rail line could be a bad idea. “I walk out my [firehouse] door, I walk 20 feet and I’m on the track bed,” he said. “A derailment in Bergenfield means I’m probably going to have a tank car in my firehouse.

“It’s a countywide problem and it has to be dealt with on a countywide scale,” he said.

Bakken Crude, Derailment, Disclosure of tank car contents, Explosion, Hazardous cargo transparency, Hazmat notification, Pacific Northwest

Report shows increase in Central Oregon oil trains

October 14, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from The Bulletin (Serving Central Oregon)
[Editor: Significant quote: “The company’s (BNSF) most recent report shows a change in data format. In the first two reports, BNSF reported the actual number of trains passing through Central Oregon during a specific week. While the new report still focuses on a specific week, the company is now giving a estimated number of oil trains.” – RS]

Report shows increase in Central Oregon oil trains

BNSF: 100-car Bakken trains passing through Bend

By Dylan J. Darling / The Bulletin / Oct 14, 2014

While a state-released report by BNSF Railway about the number of large Bakken crude oil trains passing through Central Oregon shows a potential notable increase, a company spokesman said Monday the actual number of trains is less than detailed in the report.

Following relatively new federal rules about reporting oil trains, BNSF Railway Co . sent a Sept. 30 report to the Oregon Office of the State Fire Marshal showing that an estimated zero to three oil trains carrying more than 1 million gallons of crude oil each pass through Deschutes and Jefferson counties per week.

A report earlier this year showed one such train passed through Central Oregon weekly.

“The real number is one every 12 days,” said Gus Melonas, spokesman for BNSF. That works out to three or four of the trains per month going through Redmond, Bend and beyond. He said the trains are carrying the oil to refineries in California.

The trains going through Central Oregon and the Columbia River carry crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota, oil that has proved to be more volatile than other crude oil. Bakken oil train derailments have led to dramatic explosions in Canada and North Dakota. Last May, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring railroads to provide information to state emergency responders about large train shipments of Bakken oil.

The BNSF rail route through the Gorge, bringing crude oil to refineries near Portland and in Washington, sees two to three oil trains per day, Melonas said. He said the route through Bend is “not a high volume line.”

The reporting rules pertain to trains carrying 1 million or more gallons of crude oil, the equivalent of about a 35-car train.

“If they have a train carrying less than a million crude, they don’t have to report it at all,” Rich Hoover, community liaison for the Office of State Fire Marshal, said Monday.

Melonas declined to give details on whether there are trains carrying less than a million gallons of crude oil rolling through Central Oregon, citing security and customer information concerns. If there were, he said, the oil cars would be hauled with cars carrying other commodities.

“We don’t put out specifics,” he said.

Each time a railroad company has an increase or decrease of 25 percent or more in the number of trains passing through an area, the rules require it to send a report to the state. Since May, BNSF has sent three reports to Oregon.

The company’s most recent report shows a change in data format. In the first two reports, BNSF reported the actual number of trains passing through Central Oregon during a specific week. While the new report still focuses on a specific week, the company is now giving a estimated number of oil trains.

Hoover said the state goes by what the company states in its reports , which the Office of State Fire Marshal posts to its website.

“What you see and read is exactly how much we know,” he said.

Melonas described the trains traveling through the region as “unit trains,” meaning they haul one commodity, and each train has about 100 tanker cars. The trains hold 70,000 to 80,000 barrels of crude oil each, or about 2.94 million to 3.36 million gallons of crude oil.

Concerned about the possible catastrophic results of an oil train derailment, Sally Russell, Bend city councilor, said it is a good thing the railroad is having to supply information to the state.

“Knowledge and the ability to response and react are critical,” she said.

If the number of large oil trains passing through Central Oregon is going up, it means the potential for a situation necessitating an emergency response is increasing, Bill Boos, deputy chief of fire operations for the Bend Fire Department, said Monday.

He said he’d like to have information on oil trains, large and small, rolling through Bend.

“It would be nice to know if there were smaller quantities coming through and if that was increasing,” he said.

While concerned about the dangers of train derailment and fire in towns, Michael Lang, conservation director for Portland-based Friends of the Columbia Gorge, also worries about the risks of an oil spill into the Deschutes River. The rail line through Central Oregon follows the river north of Bend. Along with towns, the large oil trains pass through a section of designated Wild and Scenic River.

“It’s not safe,” Lang said. “It endangers our communities, it endangers our environment. … And we are really concerned about it.”