Category Archives: Explosion

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Ethanol, Explosion, Tar sands crude, Volatile gases, Volatility

Energy, Transportation departments to study volatility of oil moved by rail

Repost from McClatchyDC

Energy, Transportation departments to study volatility of oil moved by rail

By Curtis Tate, April 28, 2015
The federal government will conduct a two-year study of how crude oil volatility affects the commodity’s behavior in train derailments, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told a Senate panel Tuesday.The Energy Department will coordinate the study with the Department of Transportation, Moniz told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

After a series of fiery train derailments, the Transportation Department concluded early last year that light, sweet crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region is more volatile than other kinds.

But derailments involving ethanol and other types of crude oil have cast doubt on whether Bakken is likely to react more severely than other flammable liquids transported by rail.

The petroleum industry has been citing its own studies and a recent report from the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratory to support its position that there’s no difference. But it’s clear that more crude oil is moving by rail, and an increase in serious accidents has come with that increased volume.

Moniz said the Sandia report was “the most comprehensive literature survey in terms of properties of different oils” but showed the need for more research to determine their relevance in train derailments.

The joint Energy-Transportation study would look at other kinds of crude moving by rail, such as light crude from west Texas and heavy crude from western Canada.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a member of the Senate Energy panel who requested the departments work together on a study, noted that there had been four derailments of oil trains in the U.S. and Canada since the beginning of the year.

“A number of high-profile incidents have underscored major safety concerns,” she said.

On April 1, North Dakota began setting vapor pressure limits for crude oil loaded in tank cars at no more than 13.7 pounds per square inch.

But the crude oil tested in many serious derailments had a lower vapor pressure than the new standard…..  [MORE]

Bakken Crude, Casselton ND, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation zone, Explosion, Fire, Railroad workers

Derailed oil train’s crew told investigators they had seconds to escape

Repost from McClatchy Washington Bureau

Derailed oil train’s crew told investigators they had seconds to escape

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, April 27, 2015

The engineer and conductor on a BNSF oil train that derailed in North Dakota in December 2013 had seconds to escape their locomotive before it was engulfed by fire, according to interview transcripts made available Monday by federal accident investigators.

The interviews, conducted in January 2014 by the National Transportation Safety Board, show the occupational risks railroad workers face, especially with trains carrying hazardous materials. The train’s engineer is suing BNSF, and says the wreck left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

They also show that emergency responders did not initially understand the severity of the situation they faced when two trains derailed near Casselton, N.D., on Dec. 30, 2013. One of them was carrying grain, and the other, crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region.

The train’s engineer, Bryan Thompson, told investigators that he had only seconds to react before the oil train, traveling 43 mph, hit a derailed grain car in its path.

He activated the emergency braking system, but he knew from nine years of experience that virtually nothing could stop the 13,335 tons of train behind him from going off the track. He told his conductor to hit the floor and brace for impact.

“I knew what was coming,” he told investigators, “and I honestly said a prayer. It was really quick.”

Thompson and the conductor, Pete Riepl, were not injured when the locomotive came to rest. But almost immediately, they noticed that the train was on fire, and they needed to get away. They couldn’t exit through the front of the locomotive: The impact with the overturned grain car had jammed the door.

Their only choice was to exit through the back of the locomotive, which forced them to go toward the rapidly encroaching fire.

“That’s the last place you want to go,” Thompson said, “ but it was our only escape.”

Riepl told investigators that the pair got about 200 yards away before they looked back and saw that their locomotive was engulfed in flames.

He also said that several minutes after the derailment, tank cars began exploding, in succession, one about every 10 minutes.

Thompson left his belongings in the locomotive cab, save for his coat _ it was about 20 degrees below zero that day _ and cellphone. He called 911. The dispatcher asked him if she needed to call the local fire department.

“I said, ‘you need to call every fire department,’” Thompson said he told the dispatcher.

The 911 dispatcher instructed Thompson to report to the incident command center established at a local high school. Once there, Thompson said he could hear over radio chatter that people were watching the train burn. In similar situations, authorities usually recommend a half-mile evacuation radius.

“I don’t think you understand what’s going on here,” he said he told a deputy sheriff. “You need to get those people away from there.”

Thompson asked the deputy if he knew about the deadly oil train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, which killed 47 people in July 2013. He told the deputy that his train was carrying the same kind of cargo: Bakken crude.

“And his eyes got big, you know,” Thompson said, “then he said ‘Code Red’ on his radio.”

Bakken Crude, Casselton ND, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire, Train inspection

Investigators release records of fiery Casselton derailment

Repost from News OK, Oklahoma City
[Editor:  See also the NTSB Press Release, which links to the Casselton Accident Docket (79 documents).  – RS]

Investigators release records of fiery Casselton derailment

April 27, 2015 at 8:46 pm

Federal investigators have released hundreds of pages of records that offer new insight into the moments just before and after a 2013 oil train derailment near Casselton, North Dakota, that created a massive fire and forced 1,400 people to evacuate for several days.

Interviews with the BNSF Railway workers operating the two trains in the derailment are included in documents the National Transportation Safety Board posted online Monday. Federal investigators also said in the documents that a broken train axle found after the derailment might have been prevented if BNSF railroad had inspected it more carefully and found a pre-existing flaw.

The broken axel wasn’t pinpointed as the cause of the crash, but the NTSB ordered the industry to recall 43 axles made by Standard Steel in the same 2002 batch.

Officials have said the accident happened when a westbound freight train derailed and a portion of it fell onto an adjacent track carrying the eastbound oil train. Eighteen cars on the 106-car oil train derailed and several exploded and burned.

In the records released Monday, the two men onboard the BNSF oil train describe losing sight of the tracks in a cloud of blowing snow shortly before seeing a derailed grain car lying across the tracks. Emergency brakes were applied, but the train was still moving 42 mph when it struck the car.

The 18 tank cars broke open and spilled 400,000 gallons of crude oil that fueled the fire that could be seen from nearly 10 miles away. It took several weeks to clean up the remaining oil from the site 30 miles west of Fargo after the flames were extinguished.

Everyone aboard both trains escaped unharmed. But just a couple minutes after conductor Pete Rigpl exited the oil train, he looked back to see flames engulf the locomotive he and Bryan Thompson had been in.

“I was exiting the cab then and started to get away from all the fire. It was — the heat was intense,” Rigpl said to investigators. “I mean, the whole situation just — I was in knee-deep snow. I couldn’t get away as quickly as I would like to.”

The two men called 911 and talked with BNSF dispatchers as they moved away from the growing fire consuming their cargo. Rigpl and Thompson told investigators they stressed the potential danger as they talked with emergency responders.

Railroad shipments of crude oil are facing additional scrutiny and tougher regulations because there have been several fiery derailments involving the commodity in recent years. The worst happened in July 2013 and killed 47 people in a small Canadian city just across the U.S.-Canada border from Maine.

Thompson, the oil train’s engineer, said that when he heard people were approaching the derailment to get a glimpse of the wreckage he urged a sheriff’s deputy to remove them because of the danger.

“I don’t think he grasped what was going on until I told him, I said do you know the story of the train in Canada? I said that’s the type of train I am,” Thompson said to the NTSB. “And his eyes got big, you know, then he said Code Red on his radio. I remember that.”

BNSF and the other major freight railroads have taken a number of steps to improve the safety of crude oil shipments, including reducing speeds in high-risk areas.

BNSF officials did not immediately respond Monday afternoon to a request for comment about the report.

Federal regulators are expected to release new standards for the tank cars that carry crude oil and new rules for railroad operations as soon as next month.

The number of carloads railroads hauled nationwide increased again last year to 493,126 from 407,761 in 2013. In 2008, before the oil boom took off in the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana, as well as in Canada, railroads hauled just 9,500 carloads of crude oil.

BNSF, which is owned by Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., hauls most of the oil produced in the Bakken region. It is based in Fort Worth, Texas.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Rail Safety, Tank car design, Worst case scenario

FEMA planning for deadly worst-case oil train derailment scenario

Repost from The Journal Sentinal, Milwaukee WI
[Editor: FEMA held a “worst case” urban bomb train scenario/drill in New Jersey in March, and plans another in Wisconsin in June.  Will they also hold a big city drill here on the west coast?  We don’t have nearly the oil train traffic that Midwesterners and East Coasters see every day … yet.  But there is significant traffic in the Pacific Northwest and increasing deliveries and plans for more here in California.  A FEMA exercise would be an eye-opener here.  – RS]

FEMA drill plans for deadly worst-case oil train scenario

By Lee Bergquist and Crocker Stephenson, April 25, 2015

Federal authorities painted a frightening picture of what could happen if an oil train exploded in a big city.

In a mock drill in Jersey City, N.J., on March 19, authorities laid out a scenario where five oil tankers from a 90-car train would derail on an elevated track, spilling 100,000 gallons of crude oil.

The pool of highly combustible oil quickly ignited, sending a 300-foot fireball skyward. Jersey City is across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

The blast could kill an estimated 287 people within 200 yards of the explosion, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency documents.

Using information tailored to a Jersey City neighborhood, FEMA estimated that buildings up to 340 yards away [0.2 miles] could be severely damaged.

All told, more than 32,000 people within 1,500 yards [0.9 miles] of the explosion could be injured.

The rail cars are an older design that the federal government is proposing to phase out. Tens of thousands of the tankers are in use today.

The location selected by FEMA — near a freeway and surrounded by residential and commercial buildings — would not seem out of place from rail corridors of Milwaukee used by trains pulling oil tankers.

FEMA put on the exercise as one of the federal government’s first efforts at disaster planning for an oil train disaster in an urban area.

In its next such drill, federal officials will conduct a mock derailment involving oil trains with state and local authorities June 9-10 in the La Crosse area.

Oil trains moving through La Crosse travel in two directions — south down the Mississippi River valley and east across Wisconsin through Milwaukee before heading to Chicago-area refineries and other locations.