Category Archives: Derailment

Derailment, Heavy crude, Liquid propane gas, Oil spill

Feds: Broken spike caused Vandergrift derailment, oil spill

Repost from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Feds: Broken spike caused Vandergrift derailment, oil spill

By Mary Ann Thomas, June 20, 2014
Jason Bridge | Valley News Dispatch | A Norfolk Southern worker walks past damage from a derailed train next to the MSI Corporation building along First Avenue in Vandergrift on Thursday, on Feb. 13, 2014.

A broken railroad spike likely caused a Feb. 13 train derailment and crude oil spill in Vandergrift.

Federal investigators said the broken spike allowed the track to spread, becoming too wide for the Norfolk Southern train to pass safely.

Mike England, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration, confirmed the cause.

The investigation of the Vandergrift derailment was completed recently by the railroad agency and its report was obtained by the Valley News Dispatch through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Broken spikes do cause train derailments on occasion, England said.

No violations were reported during the federal review, and the investigation is closed, he said.

“Just because there is an accident, it doesn’t mean that the railroad did anything wrong,” England said

Dave Pidgeon, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said he had nothing to add to the investigators’ report.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said the nation and industry must learn from rail accidents.

“The derailment in Vander-grift and others across the state should serve as a wake-up call that we need to improve rail safety,” he said in a statement on Friday.

“Dependable rail travel is vitally important to Pennsylvania’s economy and critical to the safety of the millions of Americans who live near rail lines. I will continue to push for improvements to prevent future derailments,” Casey said.

“Among other measures, it is imperative that the Federal Railroad Administration has the resources it needs to hire rail inspectors to prevent this from happening again,” he said.

Report details

According to the report, two trains used the Vandergrift track hours before the derailment without incident.

No injuries were reported among the engineer, locomotive engineer trainee and conductor on board the derailed train. Three MSI Corp. employees were evacuated when one of the rail cars went through the wall of a company building near the tracks.

The first car to derail was the 67th car in the train of 112 loaded cars and seven empty cars. The 67th through 88th cars derailed, including 19 loaded with crude oil and two with liquid propane gas.

The train originated in Conway, Pa., and was on its way to Harrisburg and points east.

After the derailment, the railroad “did a fair amount” of work on tracks in the accident area, where train traffic has resumed, Pidgeon said.

The Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration this year determined the Vandergrift derailment to be the 14th most significant involving crude oil or ethanol in the past eight years. That report stated that 10,000 gallons of oil spilled in the Vandergrift derailment.

In contrast, the Federal Railroad Administration report states that only 4,310 gallons of heavy crude oil was released.

Damage to equipment in the accident is estimated at $1.76 million, according to the report.

In addition, about $240,000 in damage was caused to the track and $30,000 to a signal.

Bakken Crude, Capitol Corridor, Crude By Rail, DEIR, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail accidents, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Risk Assessment, Spill prevention and response, Tank car design, Train speed, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento Bee: NRDC report – thousands face the risk of crude oil train spills

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Advocacy group: Thousands in Sacramento face the risk of crude oil train spills

by Tony Bizjak  |  June 19, 2014

More than 135,000 Sacramentans live within a half-mile of rail tracks and could find themselves in harm’s way should a crude oil train derailment cause a spill, according to a report published Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council in California. The group’s maps show 25,000 residents in Davis within a half-mile of train tracks.

The NRDC study includes maps of rail lines through seven California cities, showing areas likely to require evacuation in case of serious rail incident. It is unclear which lines might carry crude oil trains. Oil companies and railroads closely guard information about crude oil rail movements. NRDC said its analysis of a handful of oil company refinery and terminal projects indicates more than seven trains, each a mile long, could soon run through metropolitan areas daily.

Oil companies increasingly are turning to rail shipments of crude oil, responding to the availability of less expensive deposits in North Dakota and Canada. Diane Bailey, a scientist with NRDC, said the state does not yet have safety measures and adequate emergency response plans in place to handle the expected increase.

The NRDC report follows a report Tuesday authorized by the city of Benicia that said a plan for the city’s Valero Refining Co. to run 100 crude oil train cars a day through Sacramento, Roseville, West Sacramento, Davis and other cities is unlikely to cause a spill.

Those trains could begin operation later this year and are expected to run on the rail line shared by the Capitol Corridor passenger train service. That line loops into Sacramento near Business 80, and runs westward along the top of the downtown perimeter, passing through the downtown railyard, then over the I Street Bridge to West Sacramento. It continues through downtown Davis on its way to Benicia.

Acknowledging the growing concern, federal officials have issued warnings about the potential higher flammability of one crude oil type, Bakken oil, and have been exploring implementing tougher safety designs for crude oil tankers to replace the current fleet, which has been deemed inadequate to safely transport volatile crude oils.

In its report, the NRDC called for officials to:

•  Remove antiquated oil tankers from service.

•  Impose lower speed limits on crude oil trains.

•  Reroute trains around sensitive areas.

•  Require railroads to disclose the contents of trains.

•  Make emergency procedures available to local residents.

•  Assess fees on shippers to cover costs of improved emergency response to incidents.

•  Elevate crude oil trains to the highest risk category for hazardous material shipments.

•  Require oil companies to conduct “cumulative risk analysis” for oil rail infrastructure projects, so that the overall impact of all projects is adequately analyzed.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Tank car design, Train speed

NRDC – It Could Happen Here: The Exploding Threat of Crude by Rail in California

Repost from Natural Resources Defense Council
[Editor: Excellent resources….  Be sure to see the downloadable fact sheet and blast zone maps for Bakersfield, Benicia, Davis, Martinez, Pittsburg, Richmond and Sacramento that follow below this article.  – RS]

It Could Happen Here: The Exploding Threat of Crude by Rail in California

Diane Bailey  |  June 18, 2014

Key Points

  • More crude oil was transported by rail in North America in 2013 than in the past five years combined. Millions of Californians live near crude-by-rail routes and could face extreme safety risks.
  • Federal regulators have few safeguards in place to protect communities and the environment from accidents, spills and explosions resulting from the race to move millions of barrels of crude by rail.
  • NRDC calls on lawmakers to expedite rules mandating commonsense practices, including removal of defective tank cars, rerouting around sensitive areas, and requiring disclosure regarding the content of all shipments and relevant risks to local residents.
  • Nearly four million Bay Area and Central/San Joaquin Valley residents are at increased risk from oil train accidents occurring with the proliferation of new crude by rail terminal proposals. But dangerous crude oil train derailments are preventable if the mandatory safety measures NRDC recommends are enacted.

Soda cans on wheels. That’s what some call the dangerous rail tank cars that have suddenly become ubiquitous across the American landscape. In the rush to transport land-locked unconventional new crude oil sources, old rail lines running through communities across America are now rattling with thousands of cars filled with crude oil. Neither the cars nor the railroads were built for this purpose. Worse, federal regulators have few safeguards in place to protect communities and the environment from accidents, spills and explosions resulting from the race to move millions of barrels of crude by rail.

More crude oil was transported by rail in North America in 2013 than in the past five years combined, most of it extracted from the Bakken shale of North Dakota and Montana. In California, the increase in crude by rail has been particularly dramatic, from 45,000 barrels in 2009 to 6 million barrels in 2013. As “rolling pipelines” of more than 100 rail cars haul millions of gallons of crude oil through our communities, derailments, oil spills and explosions are becoming all too common. Between March 2013 and May 2014, there were 12 significant oil train derailments in the United States and Canada. As oil companies profit, communities bear the cost.

Californians Living Near Crude By Rail Routes

A new report from the State of California Interagency Rail Safety Working Group outlines serious vulnerabilities along California rail lines including close proximity to many population centers, numerous earthquake faults, a shortage of adequate emergency response capacity, many areas of vulnerable natural resources, and a number of “high hazard areas” for derailments, which are generally located along waterways and fragile natural resource areas. Millions of Californians live near crude by rail routes and could face extreme safety risks. Currently, there are five major new crude by rail terminals in the planning stages and two recently converted crude oil rail terminals that could collectively bring in up to seven or more mile long trains each day through metropolitan areas like Sacramento, putting up to 3.8 million people in harm’s way.

Explosions and Spills Threaten Lives

“Each tank car of crude holds the energy equivalent of 2 million sticks of dynamite or the fuel in a widebody jetliner,” write Russell Gold and Betsy Morris in the Wall Street Journal. In July 2013, an unattended oil train carrying 72 carloads of crude oil from North Dakota exploded in the center of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, near the U.S. border. The resulting inferno killed 47 people and destroyed much of the town center. Some 1.6 million gallons of crude oil was spilled. In the months following this devastating event, several more North American oil train derailments illustrated the sobering recurring public safety and environmental threats of catastrophic derailments due to the virtually unregulated surge in crude by rail. In 2013, rail cars spilled more crude oil than nearly the previous four decades combined (1.14 million gallons in 2013 compared to 800,000 gallons from 1975 to 2012).

Communities Lack Information And Control Over Hazardous Rail Shipments

Municipalities across the country are demanding increased communication about rail shipments of crude oil through their communities. However, crude oil — and other hazardous materials shipped by rail — have been exempted from the disclosure requirement of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). While the federal government finally directed rail companies to disclose this critical information to emergency responders, the general public remains in the dark about the nature of mile long tanker trains hurtling through their backyards at dangerous speed. Nobody has a choice about what gets transported through their community, how dangerous the cargo is, how frequently it goes through or whether it could be rerouted to more remote areas. Of the more than 3.8 million Californians who will be put at risk by proposed new crude by rail terminals, most are unlikely to even be aware of the significant new risks that they face.

Outdated and Dangerous Tank Cars Are Used to Carry Crude

Most of the rail tank cars used to carry flammable liquids, including crude oil are old “DOT-111s,” which are widely known to be unsafe. Speaking at a farewell address at the National Press Club in April 2014, outgoing National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chairwoman Deborah Hersman repeated a long-held NTSB position that unmodified DOT-111 tank cars — non-pressurized rail tank cars that accident investigators report are easily punctured or ruptured during a derailment — are not safe to carry hazardous liquids. “Carrying corn oil is fine, carrying crude oil is not,” she said.

Thus, in 2009, the NTSB recommended these tank cars be equipped with additional safety features. Since October 2011, new rail tank cars built for transporting crude oil have incorporated these features, such as the use of head shields, thicker tank material, and pressure-relief devices. Yet regulators have not eliminated the use of the older, unmodified DOT-111 cars for carrying oil — out of 39,000 DOT-111 tank cars now used to carry crude, two-thirds still do not meet these modern safety standards. The Department of Transportation, simply recommended that shippers stop using these cars to transport oil, but they do not require it.

Commonsense Safeguards for Crude-by-Rail Are Overdue

In the longer term, our health depends on cleaner, renewable energy and moving away from fossil fuels. In the immediate term, we must tighten safety regulations on the rail transport of crude oil, or run the risk of devastating consequences. NRDC calls on lawmakers to expedite rules mandating commonsense practices, including but not limited to the following:

  1. Remove Defective, Dangerous Tankers from Crude by Rail Service: The existing fleet of dangerous DOT-111 tank cars must be taken out of crude oil service immediately.
  2. Impose Safer Speed Limits: Crude oil unit trains must adhere to speed limits that significantly reduce the possibility of an explosion in the event of a derailment.
  3. Reroute Around Sensitive Areas: The National Transportation Safety Board recommendation that crude oil trains avoid heavily populated areas and otherwise sensitive areas must become mandatory.
  4. Require Disclosure: Information regarding the content of all shipments and relevant risks and emergency procedures should be made accessible to local residents.
  5. Provide Emergency Responder Resources: States should assess fees on shippers and carriers to fully cover the costs of providing emergency response services and safeguarding the public from oil trains, and ensure that there is adequate emergency response capacity.
  6. Make Additional Operational Safety and Oversight Improvements: Unit trains of crude oil and other hazardous materials should be placed in the highest risk category of Hazmat shipments; and many other operational improvements should be made. Additional inspections of crude oil trains are also critical, including the funding necessary for more rail safety personnel.
  7. Exercise Local Government Powers:
    • Local governments and states can require cumulative risk analysis of crude oil rail infrastructure and increased rail traffic.
    • Local governments should thoroughly evaluate all of the environmental and public health and safety risks of crude oil rail terminals that require land use permits or other forms of local approval.
    • Local governments should reject any new crude oil rail terminals within one mile of sensitive sites such as homes, schools, daycares, and hospitals.

Crude oil train accidents are preventable. All Californians should be calling for the crude oil and rail safety standards listed here.

Read More…

Fact Sheet (PDF)

portable document format

Maps: Crude Oil Train
Derailment Risk Zones
in California

Derailment, Fairfield CA, Suisun Marsh

Two historic derailments, just uprail from Benicia

Repost from The Fairfield Daily Republic

A tale of 2 train derailments

By Tony Wade  |  October 18, 2013
Derailment in Fairfield, CA at 6:30 am on May 29, 1978, Memorial Day.

At 6:30 am on May 29, 1978, Memorial Day, a thunderous noise that neighbors later described as sounding like an earthquake, nuclear explosion and the end of the world all at once occurred.

I was 14 years old and evidently enjoying my exquisite recurring Lynda Carter dream because I heard absolutely nothing.

The deafening din was the derailment of a Southern Pacific train on the tracks that ran right behind my family’s Davis Drive home. The westbound train had 24 of its 66 cars (each 93 feet long and weighing more than three tons) jump the tracks when the rear wheel assembly on the lead car broke.

When we looked out over our back fence, there were rail cars and debris scattered everywhere. With houses abutting the tracks on both sides, it was a miracle no one got hurt. It did knock down a power line, which caused both a blackout for more than 2,600 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers for more than an hour and sparked a 200-square-foot grass fire.

I have several photos from back then. My favorite is one of me playing basketball against my dad in the backyard and peeking over the fence are the wrecked cars. A couple of days later, my best friend Wayne Thomas and I sneaked inside one of them and rode our bikes down its length.

Since that derailment happened literally in our backyard, it is memorable for me personally, and others who lived near it, but it had nothing on a derailment that happened in Solano County in 1969.

I am not usually one given to sensationalism, but in this case it is warranted. The other derailment involves: The FBI! U.S. Navy SEALs! White Phosphorus! Sabotage! Really!

At approximately 1 a.m. on March 19, 1969, a southbound 40-car train derailed in a remote area near Chadbourne Road adjacent to the Suisun Marsh. Thirty-one cars went a-flyin’ and unfortunately two of them contained 90 tons apiece of liquid white phosphorus, and they ruptured.

White phosphorus ignites when it comes into contact with the air and the resultant firestorm was fierce. The Solano Fire Protection District was aided in the firefight by U.S. Navy SEAL underwater frogmen from Mare Island who happened to be training nearby when the derailment occurred.

Once the flames were extinguished, there was still the matter of what to do with the two cars nearly filled with white phosphorus that were half-buried in the mud. Twenty-eight hours after the derailment, the decision was made to bury them there and cover them with an unreinforced concrete cap and fence it off with obvious warning signs.

By the way, a third car was buried as well, but it only had corn in it.

After a preliminary investigation by the Solano County Sheriff’s Office and Southern Pacific, foul play was suspected and (cue the Efrem Zimbalist Jr. show’s music) . . . the FBI was notified.

Evidence that the track had been altered was found. Rails on the track were disconnected and a heavy object had been placed on them. The FBI called it “an intentional derailment.”

It looked like a case of (cue the Beastie Boys’ song) . . . Sabotage.

It could have been much worse because that track was Southern Pacific’s main line for passenger trains entering and leaving San Francisco. No one was ever caught for the crime.

Meanwhile, the phosphorus train cars (and the harmless corn one) remained buried for decades. In fact, they are still there.

I was intrigued when I learned about the white phosphorus crash site and went directly from the microfilm machine at the Civic Center Library to the site at the end of Chadbourne Road. You just keep going past where the road is no longer paved and come to a dead end and you will see the fenced-in area with the signs warning of white elemental phosphorus.

The site is monitored annually and in 1998 a deed restriction was recorded that bars it from ever being developed. It lists specific things that can never be built there just in case someone gets a wild hair to plant a day care center, school or hospital in a marsh area, right next to the train tracks where white phosphorus is buried.