Category Archives: Derailment

Benicia CA, Derailment, Rail accidents, Rail Safety, Union Pacific Railroad

Union Pacific investigates Benicia derailment

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald
[Editor: Here’s the story on the derailed train engines last Sunday.  Thanks to Jim Kirchhoffer for spotting it and bringing it to our attention.  Tony Burchyns of the Vallejo Times-Herald did an excellent job of investigative reporting (see below).  Tony’s article set the accident in context, providing background on the two other recent Benicia derailments, one on 5/17/14 and another on 11/4/13.  Do the math: that’s 3 derailments in 10 months!  …The story was also covered in the Benicia Herald.  – RS]

Union Pacific investigates Benicia derailment

Two locomotives came off the tracks Sunday near port
By Tony Burchyns, 09/09/2014
Union Pacific Railroad is investigating what caused two of its locomotives to come off the tracks in Benicia on Sunday, a spokesperson for the rail
Union Pacific Railroad is investigating what caused two of its locomotives to come off the tracks in Benicia on Sunday, a spokesperson for the rail operator said Tuesday. (Tony Burchyns-Vallejo-Times-Herald)

BENICIA >> Union Pacific Railroad is investigating what caused two of its locomotives to come off the tracks in Benicia on Sunday, a spokesperson for the rail operator said Tuesday.

The locomotives were being used for switching operations and were moving rail cars near the Benicia port when each had one wheel set come off the tracks at about 2:30 a.m., Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt said. The engines were attached to each other when the derailment occurred, he said.

Both were re-railed several hours later and moved to Union Pacific’s maintenance yard in Roseville, where an internal investigation was launched to determine what caused the derailment, Hunt said. He added the findings would be reported to the Federal Railroad Administration.

“Fortunately there were no injuries and there was no damage to our track infrastructure,” said Hunt, adding he did not know how fast the locomotives were traveling.

Benicia police got a call from Union Pacific at 2:38 a.m. Sunday reporting the incident, but there was no request for assistance and no emergency response by the city, Lt. Scott Przekurat said.

Hunt said that because the derailment happened in the railroad’s automotive yard along Bayshore Road — where finished automobiles that arrive by boat are transported by rail to other places — there was no impact to motorists or other people in the area.

On May 17, two rail cars carrying petroleum coke derailed near the Valero refinery. Prior to that, three rail cars carrying petroleum coke came off the tracks on Nov. 4, 2013.

No hazardous materials were spilled in those incidents, but the derailments have raised eyebrows in light of the Valero refinery’s plan to bring in up to 70,000 barrels of crude oil daily on Union Pacific tracks.

Asked whether the locomotives involved in Sunday’s incident could be used to move tanker cars, Hunt said they were “switching locomotives” and are not the same as those used to move trains from city to city.

“Safety is our primary focus at Union Pacific,” Hunt said. “We invest time, human power and substantial capital to minimize derailments across our 32,000-mile network.”

Alberta Canada, Derailment

Latest derailment: CN train derails east of Whitecourt, Alberta

Repost from WhitecourtStar.com

CN train derails east of Whitecourt

By Bryan Passifiume, QMI Agency, Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Nobody was injured after eight cars of an eastbound freight train derailed east of Whitecourt, Alberta. Four of the cars tipped over, spilling their loads of gravel on the ground. CN Spokesperson Emily Hamer confirmed that no hazardous materials were involved. Chance Hansen photo | Submitted
Nobody was injured after eight cars of an eastbound freight train derailed east of Whitecourt, Alberta. Four of the cars tipped over, spilling their loads of gravel on the ground. CN Spokesperson Emily Hamer confirmed that no hazardous materials were involved. Chance Hansen photo

Nobody was injured after a CN train derailed east of Whitecourt, Alta.

According to CN spokesperson Emily Hamer, the eastbound freight train ran into trouble just after 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9 near Cherhill, Alta., about 100 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Eight cars filled with gravel left the tracks in the incident. Four of the cars tipped over, emptying their loads on the ground around the tracks.

None of the cars involved in the derailment contained dangerous goods.

This is the second derailment this month on CN tracks in Alberta. On Sept. 3, 15 cars filled with grain left the tracks near Hondo, northwest of Edmonton. In July, five cars along the same stretch of track carrying crude oil toppled over east of Whitecourt. Nobody was injured in either of those incidents.

The CN Sangudo subdivision, a 240 kilometre railway line stretching from Edmonton to Fox Creek, sees several trails daily hauling crude oil, hydrochloric acid, sand, gravel and sulphur.

No indication was given on when the line would re-open.

Derailment, Draft EIR, Sacramento Area Council of Governments, Valero Crude By Rail

Sacramento leaders question Benicia’s crude oil rail project

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: The SACOG letter can be viewed here.  (Note that this download is in draft form, but the letter was approved as is.)  Of interest also is this 10-page Union Pacific letter addressed TO the SACOG Board, encouraging no action.  A recording of the Board meeting  is available here.  – RS]

Sacramento leaders question Benicia’s crude oil rail project

By Tony Bizjak, Aug. 28, 2014
Tracks lead to Benicia’s Valero refinery. Sacramento area leaders have drafted a letter saying a Benicia report doesn’t take major oil train risks into account. | Manny Crisostomo

Sacramento leaders will send a letter to Benicia today formally challenging the Bay Area city to do a better job of studying train derailment risks before it approves an oil company’s plans to ship crude oil on daily trains through Sacramento-area downtowns to a Benicia refinery.

Acting collectively through the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, which represents 22 cities and six counties, Sacramento representatives say they are protecting the region’s interests in the face of a proposal by Valero Refining Co. to transport an estimated 2.7 million gallons of crude oil daily on trains through Roseville, Sacramento, West Sacramento and Davis. Valero officials say the oil will be refined into gas for cars in California, as well as diesel fuel and jet fuel.

“We are not taking a position on whether the project should proceed,” said Don Saylor, a Yolo County supervisor and SACOG member. “We are pointing out, as we have the responsibility to do, the public safety issues in our region. There are ways those issues can be identified and mitigated.”

Benicia officials have been collecting public comments and questions about their environmental review of the Valero project plans, and said they will respond to all comments after the comment period closes Sept. 15.

The SACOG group also is drafting a letter to federal regulators, encouraging them to make hazardous materials transport on rail safer, particularly shipments of volatile crude oil produced in North Dakota’s Bakken region. Crude oil train shipments have increased dramatically in recent years, leading to several derailments and explosions, including one that killed 47 in a Canadian town last year.

Railroad officials nationally say derailments are very infrequent. A study commissioned by Benicia determined that a derailment and spill would be a rare occurrence on the line between Roseville and Benicia. But Sacramento leaders contend Benicia has underplayed derailment possibilities, and has not adequately studied the consequences of a spill and fire.

“We think there are serious safety concerns that should be addressed by Benicia, not downplayed,” said Sacramento Councilman Steve Cohn, chairman of the SACOG board.

The Benicia trains would travel on tracks just north of downtown, through the downtown Sacramento railyard, and over the I Street Bridge.

Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis was one of two SACOG members who voted to oppose sending the letter. “I thought it is a little outside our scope. It’s a slippery slope,” he said.

SACOG’s main role is to serve as the region’s transportation planning agency and to administer a portion of the region’s federal transportation funding allotment.

Sutter County Supervisor James Gallagher also voted against sending the letter, saying many safety issues are in the federal government’s purview, not Benicia’s. He said he doesn’t want to discourage production of domestic oil that creates jobs and reduces reliance on foreign oil.

Sac Bee: More Information

Coal, Derailment, Rail inspection, Rail Safety

NTSB final report on 2012 fatal freight train derailment

Repost from The Washington Post

Report on fatal Ellicott City train accident details how a piece of rail snapped

By Ashley Halsey III,  August 23, 2014

Workers stand near one of the coal cars of the derailed train behind the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum: Ellicott City Station on Aug. 21, 2012. (Mark Gail / FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)

They would be college graduates now, poised on the brink of life, had not a train gone off the tracks two years ago in a tragic fateful moment that caught them where they should not have been.

After almost two years of investigation into a 2012 train derailment in Ellicott City, Md., the National Transportation Safety Board said a piece of rail near replacement age simply snapped under the weight of a half-mile-long train carrying 9,873 tons of coal toward the Baltimore docks.

Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr, both 19 and celebrating their imminent return to college, were sitting a few feet away on a trestle 20 feet above Main Street. They were buried beneath the spilling coal. Death transformed them into a parable for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and for the random cruelty of fate. The details played out on the airwaves and in print as far as Australia.

They had tweeted messages and photos to friends from atop the rail bridge as the freight train rumbled toward them just before midnight. One photo showed the tiny shops and bars of Main Street, gone dark deep into Sunday night. Another showing their feet dangling off the bridge came with a one-word exclamation: “Levitating.”

Last month, the parents of the girls spoke out for the first time, releasing a statement through their attorneys saying that the CSX railroad was to blame.

The NTSB report is more meticulous than captivating. It describes details of the accident and gives a broader picture of a freight rail company struggling to stay ahead of deterioration on the oldest stretch of common carrier rail line in the United States.

It describes how the three crew members had the train rolling at 23 mph, just below the acceptable limit, when the emergency brakes slammed it to a halt. They got out to discover that 11 cars had overturned, including eight that had dumped their loads as they toppled into a parking lot below.

As they pieced together sections of shattered rail, investigators could not find five inches of it. “At the point of derailment, the rail fractured,” they said. The board said that “the probable cause of the Ellicott City derailment was a broken rail with evidence of rolling contract fatigue.”

The NTSB report said the railroad was aware of the history of rail defects on that line and of the increased volume of coal tonnage the line was carrying. As a result, the report said, CSX ran ultrasonic tests on the rails 11 to 12 times a year, far more frequently than regulations require. The rail had been tested by federal regulators in July 2012 and by CSX 17 days before the Aug. 20 derailment. “In the area of the derailment, no defects were recorded” by that CSX testing, the NTSB said.

After the accident, some people in Ellicott City said the railroad bridge was a place where underage people went to drink out of sight of others.

Just before they died, Nass tweeted, “Drinking on top of the Ellicott City sign,” a reference to the welcome sign painted on the bridge just below their dangling feet. The underage girls were not heavily inebriated, the NTSB report said. One had a blood alcohol level of 0.05 and the other was at 0.03, both below the limit of 0.08 for driving a car.

“Our daughters did not cause the derailment, CSX did,” Sue Nass, Elizabeth Nass’s mother, said in the statement released by the law firm, which said the families would seek a settlement from CSX. “A rail car should not turn over and kill innocent people.”

The NTSB report said CSX has installed a chain-link fence along the rail line “in an attempt to deter future trespassing.”