Category Archives: DOT-111

Bakken Shale, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Local Regulation, Rail industry, Rail tanker cars

NY locals, state and feds join together to demand rail reform

Repost from lohud.com The Journal News

Fast-track oil train standards, Rockland officials say

Khurram Saeed, The Journal News    11:20 p.m. EDT March 17, 2014

Officials want tighter regulations and safer tank cars in place for freight trains transporting crude oil through Rockland County.

Congresswoman Nita Lowey and local elected officials and community leaders at a press conference in West Nyack March 17, 2014 demanded new rules to ensure the safe transport of crude oil through the region.(Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News)

WEST NYACK –  A small cadre of federal, state and Rockland officials on Monday demanded that the U.S. transportation department boost safety standards for trains that carry crude oil through local communities and environmentally-sensitive areas.

At one point during the press conference held at the rail crossing on Pineview Road, a southbound oil train slowly rolled past. It was hauling dozens of the tank cars, known as DOT-111s, that are prone to rupturing following derailments or collisions.

In December, a train moving 99 empty oil tank cars — each large enough to carry about 30,000 gallons — hit a car carrier at the site but did not derail.

About 14 oil trains move through Rockland each week on CSX tracks, shuttling between Chicago and refineries along the East Coast, a recent Sunday story in The Journal News detailed.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is currently working on stricter standards for transporting crude oil by rail and the tank cars that carry them.

Safe transport of the more volatile crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota must be “fully tackled” by the DOT, U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey said. She said voluntary initiatives by the oil and rail industries were a good start but called for better planned routes, more transparency and improved tank cars.

“The promises of industry just aren’t enough to safeguard the public,” said Lowey, D-Harrison.

Rockland Legislators Alden Wolfe, D-Montebello, and Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, on Monday sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx asking his office to “fast-track rule changes” endorsed by Lowey and New York senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Several speakers noted CSX’s River Line passes near Lake DeForest and the Hackensack River, which supply hundreds of thousands of residents in Rockland and Bergen County, N.J., with drinking water. An oil spill in the reservoir would be devastating, they said.

“Guess who pays for the catastrophes and clean-ups?” asked Cornell — before explaining it would primarily fall to taxpayers.

Rockland Sheriff Louis Falco said he planned to meet with CSX in the coming weeks. His officers have been checking speeds of trains during the day — they have largely been in compliance, he said — and would soon begin observing them at night.

He also wants CSX to provide a daily list of what is aboard the trains so he can notify local police and fire departments.

“It takes a lot of people working together to make it clear that this is unacceptable,” Lowey said.

DOT-111, Lac-Mégantic

Canada: get rid of the dangerous DOT-11A tank cars!

Repost from The Montreal Gazette

Opinion: Railways should just refuse to accept dangerous DOT-111A cars

By Jerry Dias, The Gazette February 23, 2014
Opinion: Railways should just refuse to accept dangerous DOT-111A carsDOT-111 tanker cars

When tragedy strikes, we are first overcome by emotion. In the case of Lac-Mégantic, the severity of the tragedy now requires us to take action so that such a catastrophe cannot occur again.

There has been no shortage of such discussions since the derailment last summer, when 47 people were killed and the heart of this small Quebec community was destroyed by the crash of rail cars carrying volatile fuel.

Much of that discussion has focused on the DOT-111A cars that were involved. These tank cars were made before more strict manufacturing standards were put in place. Cars made today must be safer, but companies are free to keep using the old DOT-111A cars, rather than replace them.

The result is that while we now have higher standards, the less-safe DOT-111A cars are still rolling through our communities filled with volatile fuels. And that has many worried that another tragedy is inevitable.

Speaking in Calgary last week to a crowd of business people, the chief executive of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. was blunt in his assessment of the situation, and suggested that the DOT-111A cars be banned.

“So what should we do with them? Stop them tomorrow. Don’t wait to study. We know the facts,” Hunter Harrison said. “You know what this comes down to? And I hate to tell you this: The almighty dollar. Who is going to pay for this?”

This is encouraging, but we need to see more. Some companies, including Irving Oil, are already moving to take the old DOT-111A cars out of use, but we need the big rail companies to act to really ensure the safe movement of oil through our towns and cities.

Speaking publicly about a getting rid of the DOT-111A is one thing — actually pursuing a ban on using such dangerous rail cars is quite another. Unifor is eager to work with Harrison and the rail companies to win a total and immediate elimination of the use of the DOT-111A cars.

Since Lac-Mégantic, the rail companies have imposed a $325-per-car surcharge on any oil company using DOT-111A cars. The idea is that the extra costs will serve as a deterrent to companies using the cars. I am not convinced. With a capacity on the cars of some 114,000 litres, the surcharge works out to just a fraction of a cent per litre. The surcharge, then, won’t be a deterrent. And with both big rail companies charging it, the surcharge will simply become part of the cost of doing business.

Unifor encourages Harrison to make a formal proposal to Lisa Raitt, the federal minister of transport, for an immediate moratorium on the use of DOT-111A cars. As Harrison says, don’t wait for a study. We know the facts.

Better still, Harrison should be telling the oil companies that his rail line will no longer put the safety of its workers and the communities through which it operates in danger, by hauling the DOT-111A and will from this point forward refuse to accept the cars.

The announcement by Irving last week that it will no longer use, as of April 1, old DOT-111A cars made before October 2011 shows that the rail companies need not wait for the Harper government to ban the cars. They can act now.

Jerry Dias is the national rail president for Unifor, Canada’s largest union in the private sector with 300,000 members, including 9,000 in the railway sector.