Category Archives: Derailment

Bakken Crude, California Public Utilities Commission, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Feather River Canyon, Fish and wildlife, Lac-Mégantic, Lake Oroville, Oil spill, Rail Safety, Water contamination

A looming disaster – Crude oil running on Butte County’s railways poses a threat to local, state watersheds

Repost from the Chico News & Review

A looming disaster – Crude oil running on Butte County’s railways poses a threat to local, state watersheds

By Dave Garcia, 03.10.16
DAVE GARCIA. The author, a longtime Oroville resident, is the spokesman for Frack-Free Butte County.

Scientists have found unprecedented levels of fish deformities in Canada’s Chaudière River following the Lac-Mégantic Bakken crude oil spill in 2013. This catastrophic train derailment, which killed 47 people and ravaged parts of the small town in Quebec, underscores the danger of spilled toxic crude oil getting into our waterways and affecting living organisms.

I find the Canadian government’s report very distressing—even for Butte County. That’s because, just last week, I observed a train of 97 railcars loaded with crude oil traveling through the Feather River Canyon and downtown Oroville.

The California Public Utilities Commission has designated this rail route as high risk because of its sharp curves and steep grade; it travels next to the Feather River, which feeds into Lake Oroville, an integral part of California’s domestic water supply.

If you think that railway shipping is safe, think back to 2014. That’s the year 14 railcars derailed, falling down into the canyon and spilling their loads of grain into the Feather River. The last thing we need, especially in a time of drought, is crude oil poisoning the water of our second-largest reservoir.

In 2010, it took over $1 billion to clean up the Kalamazoo River crude oil spill. But you can never really clean up a crude oil spill in pristine freshwater, as the deformed fish from the Chaudière River reveal.

Keeping crude-oil-carrying railcars on the state’s tracks is simply not worth it. Less than 1 percent of California’s imported oil is transported by railway. Californians receive little benefit, but bear the risks to their communities and watersheds from this practice.

Since Lac-Mégantic, there have been nine more crude oil derailments, explosions and spills into waterways. We need to learn a lesson from those catastrophes. We must convey to our politicians—local, state and federal—our priority of protecting our communities, fisheries and waterways. Let’s not let what happened in Quebec happen in Butte County.

Commuter train, Derailment, San Francisco Bay Area

DERAILMENT: Mudslide triggers Bay Area commuter train derailment

Repost from SFGate

14 hurt as commuter train derails — no ACE service Tuesday

Sheriff: “A miracle nobody was killed.”
By Jill Tucker, Jenna Lyons, and Michael Cabanatuan Updated 7:18 am, Tuesday, March 8, 2016
An ACE commuter train rests partially submerged in a creek following a derailment on Monday, March 7, 2016, in Sunol, Calif. Photo: NOAH BERGER / SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
An ACE commuter train rests partially submerged in a creek following a derailment on Monday, March 7, 2016, in Sunol, Calif. Photo: NOAH BERGER / SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

An Altamont Corridor Express train full of Silicon Valley commuters derailed Monday evening northeast of Fremont, injuring 14 passengers — four seriously — as the first car apparently slammed into a tree that had fallen across the tracks before plunging into a rain-swollen creek in rural Niles Canyon, authorities said.

The front car of the ACE commuter train was half submerged in the fast-running Alameda Creek, its lights still on, as passengers were evacuated. The second car also derailed but remained upright, officials said.

Emergency personnel were dispatched to the scene just before 7:30 p.m., and early reports indicated the eastbound train hit a downed tree, according to Capt. Joe Medina of the Alameda County Fire Department.

Of those transported to hospitals, four passengers suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries and five suffered minor injuries, according to fire officials. There were cases of head trauma and back pain, among other complaints. About 12 people were in the first car that derailed into the creek, officials said.

Emergency crews broke windows to evacuate some of the passengers from the first car as others scrambled up the south bank of the creek to escape the 55-degree water. There was chaos and confusion as the first rescuers arrived, with screaming heard over police radios, said Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly

“We’re very lucky,” Kelly said. “It’s absolutely a miracle that nobody was killed.”

The No. 10 train, which runs from San Jose to Stockton, was due to arrive in Pleasanton at 7:30 p.m.

Passenger Tanner McKenzie was in the second car, which derailed and then slid for what seemed a long time through the mud, he said. People were screaming.

“There was an impact, the power went out,” he said. “I was just sure at any moment we were going to flip over.”

All passengers were evacuated by 8:30 p.m. and were assessed by emergency responders.

A 52-year-old woman was transported to Eden Medical Center, where she was in stable condition, hospital officials said. Others were taken to Washington Hospital in Fremont.

The agency said no trains would run Tuesday as they clear the tracks and investigate the crash.

John Wong, 49, of Pleasanton was in the last car of the train, traveling home from his work as an engineer at a semiconductor company in Sunnyvale, when the train derailed.

“There were a couple of huge jerks and then the train stopped,” he said by phone.

He and the other passengers, stunned by the jolt, waited for about a half hour before someone told them that the train had derailed and evacuated the car. He joined about 200 other passengers standing on Highway 84 as emergency vehicles whizzed back and forth.

“We were the last car, so we didn’t really see the event, but the first car landed in the creek. We saw several ambulances leaving the scene.”

“They gave us blankets, but no beer, no food,” said Wong as he stood out on the roadway at 10 p.m. “I wouldn’t mind getting a shot of whiskey, that’s for sure.”

At least two of the cars that remained on the tracks were unstable, according to emergency crews.

There were an estimated 214 people on the train, according to initial reports. Uninjured passengers were transported to the Alameda County Fairgrounds on buses.

Passengers, many in tears and wrapped in blankets, embraced relatives who had been waiting up to two hours.

One, who only gave his first name, George, said he was among the passengers in the top seats of the first car. At impact, he frantically tried to hang on to anything as the car tilted off the tracks and nose dived into the bank.

“I just prayed that it was over soon,” he said, adding that passengers stepped over shattered glass to escape. “We climbed our way out.”

Niles Canyon Road was closed to traffic due to the incident, and the closure was expected to last for at least two days, Kelly said.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the accident.

The train’s engine was in the last car pushing, rather than pulling it, officials said. It was unclear whether ACE staffers were in the front car.

Heavy rain was reported in the San Jose region at the time of the crash. The previous train, the No. 8, traveled along the same track about an hour before the crash.

Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Propane, Rail accidents, Rail infrastructure, Tank car design, Train weight

Hazards that enabled the Weyauwega train disaster 20 years ago still exist

Repost from the Wisconsin Gazette

Hazards that enabled the Weyauwega train disaster 20 years ago still exist

By Eric Hansen, March 3, 2016
The Weyauwega train derailment occurred on March 4, 1996, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 people who had to leave their pets behind. —PHOTO: Courtesy
The Weyauwega train derailment occurred on March 4, 1996, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 people who had to leave their pets behind. —PHOTO: Courtesy

A ferocious explosion and fireball followed a Wisconsin Central train wreck in the frigid predawn hours of March 4, 1996, in Weyauwega, Wisconsin. Two thousand citizens, many fleeing without their pets or medications, evacuated for 18 days as the fires burned.

Authorities feared additional explosions that would catapult shrapnel a mile or more from the derailed propane tank cars. Gas lines were shut off; water pipes froze in unheated houses.

Four days after the initial explosion, Wisconsin National Guard armored personnel carriers transported residents into the danger zone to rescue their pets. Wearing helmets and flak jackets, the evacuees dashed into their abandoned homes to retrieve hungry dogs, cats and parakeets.

Ever so slowly, specialists drained the railroad tank cars of their volatile cargo and Weyauwega pulled back from the brink. Federal investigators blamed a cracked rail and deficient track maintenance for the derailment.

March 4, 2016 is the 20th anniversary of the Weyauwega catastrophe. Unfortunately, railroad track failures remain a concern today — a concern greatly magnified by massive increases in explosive crude oil train traffic in recent years.

Wisconsin, now one of the busiest routes in the nation for this dangerous cargo, is part of a nationwide surge. In 2008, railroads carried 9,500 tank carloads of crude oil in the United States. By 2013, that number had risen to 407,761.

Connect the dots on the systemic danger the oil trains bring — and the details of the Weyauwega incident — and a reasonable citizen would question whether a Weyauwega scale disaster, or worse, is looming.

Key points: highly explosive crude oil from North Dakota is traveling in tank cars that are aging and were never designed with this kind of volatile cargo in mind. In addition, the sheer weight of mile-long oil trains stresses railroad tracks and aging bridges.

Those concerns grew when a Canadian government investigation traced the path of an oil train that exploded in Lac Megantic, Quebec on July 6, 2013, killing 47 people.. The train had traveled through Wisconsin and Milwaukee on Canadian Pacific tracks before exploding in Quebec.

As knowledge of the dangers of oil train traffic spread, something else became clear: a lack of transparency on the part of the railroads. Milwaukee citizens, local elected officials and journalists sought to obtain safety inspection reports for the corroded, century-old, 1st St. railroad bridge.

Canadian Pacific railroad officials refused to share the inspection reports for half a year. Federal Railroad Administration director Sarah Feinberg announced a new program to obtain bridge safety reports on Feb. 19, 2016, indicating some progress.

But bridge inspection reports are only the tip of the iceberg. Railroads are not sharing information on what levels of insurance they carry, their worst-case accident scenario plans or how they make critical routing decisions that bring oil trains through densely populated areas.

Any illusion that federal regulators are exercising effective due diligence on oil train traffic faded when the Department of Transportation released an audit of the FRA on Feb. 26, 2016.
That report’s opening words cite the Lac Megantic disaster and the vast increase in crude oil train traffic. However, the audit summarizes FRA’s overview of oil train traffic as dysfunctional and lacking analysis on the impact to towns, cities and major population areas. It also notes a lack of criminal penalties for safety violations.

When citizens push, governments move into action. Insist that your elected representatives take effective action to protect our communities from dangerous crude oil train traffic.

Outdoor writer Eric Hansen is a member of Citizens Acting for Rail Safety – Milwaukee Area. He will be one of the presenters at “Your Right to Know – Oil Train Risks to Metro Milwaukee”, a March 12 forum hosted by the League of Women Voters. For more information, see lwvmilwaukee.org
Clean-up, Controlled burn, Derailment, Ethanol, Evacuation, Propane, Spill

Controlled burn at Ripley train derailment

Repost from WBKW, Buffalo NY
[Editor:  See also the video report at WGRZ Buffalo, which clarifies that three cars carried ethanol and one carried propane.  45 homes were evacuated to a nearby church.  – RS]

Controlled burn at Ripley train derailment

WKBW Staff, Mar 1, 2016 11:51 PM, Updated Mar 3, 2016 4:18 AM

RIPLEY, N.Y. (WKBW) – A controlled burn was held at the site of the Ripley train derailment Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Crews worked to ignite what was left of the propane in train cars that went off the tracks Tuesday.

This comes after emergency officials asked residents around Route 76 in the Town of Ripley to shelter in place following the train derailment Tuesday night.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office said that 15 rail cars traveling on the Norfolk Southern lined derailed around 11:20 p.m. Three rail cars were carrying the hazardous liquid ethanol turned on their side. One was said to be leaking.

As a result the Ripley Central Schools were closed Wednesday and government officials asked residents to shelter in place.

“I have directed the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services’ Office of Emergency Management, the Office of Fire Prevention and Control, the Department of Environmental Conservation as well as foam equipment to assist in suppressing the spill and provide support to hazmat teams that will be working to patch the leak,” Cuomo said in an emailed statement Wednesday morning.

Several homes were evacuated in the vicinity of the derailment. Chautauqua County Sheriff’s deputies say no one was hurt.