Repost from The Contra Costa Times [Editor: This happened just outside the Point Edith Wildlife Area and less than a mile from the Waterbird Regional Preserve. I have not been able to determine what, if anything, the train was carrying. If you hear more on this, please send me an email (rogrmail at gmail dot com). – RS]
Contra Costa: Union Pacific Railroad train collides with truck
Bay City News, 02/01/2015
View from Waterfront Road toward Solano Way. (Google Street View)
A Union Pacific Railroad train collided with a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline in Contra Costa County on Saturday night, a spokesman said.
The collision occurred shortly before 10 p.m. at Waterfront Road and Solano Way, Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Aaron Hunt said.
The intersection is northeast of Martinez and east of Pacheco Creek.
The train crew and truck driver were not injured, Hunt said.
On Sunday, trains were running on the line where the collision occurred, he said.
Repost from The Missoulian [Editor: Significant quote: “the cars were rigged with double shelf couplers designed to prevent individual cars from detaching and potentially causing punctures. ‘This safety feature of the tank cars worked properly, resulting in all 30 cars rolling on their side(s), as designed,’ Lewis said in a written statement.”
Here is more about double shelf couplers. And note p. 23 of a 2010 Transport Canada study which found that “Double shelf couplers also have disadvantages: sometimes string of ’empty’ tank cars derail.” – RS]
Montana Rail Link: Trains collide, tank cars derail in Missoula
By Kim Briggeman, December 16, 2014
The first of 30 derailed tank cars in the Missoula rail yard is put back on the tracks Tuesday morning by a Montana Rail Link crew. The stationary tank cars were rerailed after being hit by a loaded car at low speed. Michael Gallacher
An early Tuesday morning train collision in the Missoula rail yard resulted in the derailment of 30 empty tank cars but no injuries or spills.
Montana Rail Link officials said the accident occurred about 4 a.m. when a rail car loaded with company scrap metal made low-speed contact with a stationary empty tank car coupled to 29 others.
MRL spokesman Jim Lewis said the cars were rigged with double shelf couplers designed to prevent individual cars from detaching and potentially causing punctures.
“This safety feature of the tank cars worked properly, resulting in all 30 cars rolling on their side(s), as designed,” Lewis said in a written statement.
Lewis said there was minimal equipment damage. The loaded car did not derail and was moved from the site.
Crews with heavy equipment started putting the tank cars back on track before noon and worked until 8 p.m. They’ll resume Wednesday morning, Lewis said.
Mainline service was not interrupted, and the cause of the incident is under investigation.
MRL has released no further word on its investigation into a collision east of Missoula near the mouth of the Blackfoot River on Nov. 13. That crash resulted in the derailment of three locomotives and 10 empty grain cars.
Both engineers in one locomotive were hospitalized and released. The shells of the grain cars remain along the tracks by a trestle below the former Milltown Dam as salvage work continues.
MRL report cites ‘track geometry’ issues in July derailment of Boeing fuselages
By Kim Briggeman, November 6, 2014
A raft floats by Boeing 737 fuselages on the Clark Fork River during recovery efforts in July. TOM BAUER, Missoulian
Montana Rail Link has ruled out human error as the cause of a July 3 train derailment that destroyed six Seattle area-bound Boeing 737 fuselages along the Clark Fork River in Mineral County.
Simulations performed by a contractor hired by MRL were inconclusive, but company spokesman Jim Lewis said Wednesday they “suggest a track geometry issue.”
Railroads are required to conduct an investigation after derailments and file their findings with the Federal Railroad Administration.
An FRA spokesman said Wednesday the agency’s own investigation of the July wreck is ongoing and could take anywhere from two months to a year. The report by the railroad company is used as “another piece of evidence,” Mike Booth said.
The 19-car derailment occurred in a remote stretch a mile above the mouth of Fish Creek on the south bank of the Clark Fork River. The ruined fuselages were shipped a few miles downstream to a landing at Rivulet, where they were scrapped out later in July.
The initial investigation by Montana Rail Link, the Missoula-based railroad operated by industrialist Dennis Washington’s Washington Cos., found no evidence of operator error either on the train or in the loading or stacking of the train cars.
The fuselages themselves were shipped from Wichita, Kansas, where they’re fabricated by Spirit AeroSystems.
Safety and accident prevention have always been a top priority of Montana Rail Link, Lewis said.
“We have numerous employee safety programs, as well as rigorous track inspection policies,” he said. “In addition, we invest millions of dollars in track maintenance annually to operate the safest railroad possible.”
Boeing continues to use the Wichita company as its sole supplier of fuselages, sending the blue-green plane shells more than 1,500 miles to Renton, Washington. Almost half the route follows BNSF and MRL tracks in southern Montana.
Parts of Boeing 777 and 747 hulls were also involved in the wreck but were undamaged. They were sent on their way to a separate plant in Everett, Washington.
The smaller 737s are in unprecedented demand. Two assembly lines in Renton each completes a 737 roughly every working day, a total of 42 a month. Boeing has announced it will open another line next year in the same plant to build the 737 Max, upping the total capacity to 60 a month.
Repost from Weather Films [Editor: Perhaps the best short video presentation I’ve seen on the dangers of crude by rail. Excellent for groups and public forums. Caution: graphic scenes of anguish and destruction. See also the lengthier original text-based report, notable for its expose on bridge safety. – RS]
Boom: North America’s Explosive Oil-By-Rail Problem
Weather Films, 12/7/14
On July 6, 2013, a train hauling two million gallons of crude oil exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. It took two days to put out the fire and devastated the small community.
That catastrophe had its origin in America. For five years, a boom in oil production has been taking place in the Bakkan Shale region of North Dakota. Oil from the Bakkan is transported across the U.S. and Canada by rail to refineries on the coasts – it was one of these trains that derailed in Lac-Megantic.
The sharp increase in domestic oil production has created jobs, decreased economic vulnerability to turmoil in the Middle East, and lowered prices of gasoline and home heating oil.
But there’s another side to this story.
In “Boom,” a joint investigation by The Weather Channel and InsideClimate News, we explore how the boom in oil has resulted in highly volatile crude oil being sent over aging, often defective rails in vulnerable railcars.
Rail accidents involving oil trains have been on the rise. But industry and regulators have been slow react. Will it take another Lac-Megantic to make America’s towns and cities safer?
“Boom” was produced by Weather Films, the award-winning documentary unit of weather.com.
Produced by Greg Gilderman
Edited by Brandon Kieffer
Associate Producer: Katie Wiggin
Consulting Producer: Joe Halderman
Director of Photography: Jason Rudge
Executive Producers: Neil Katz, Greg Gilderman, Shawn Efran
Additional Reporting by Andy Blatchford
Additional Editing by Jason Rudge
Special Thanks: Karine Blanchette, Yannick Gagne, Bernard Boulet, Adrien Aubert, Rachel Rawson, Trip Jennings, Samuel Ezerzeer
