Category Archives: Rail inspection

Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Parked trains, Rail inspection, Rail Safety, Risk Assessment, Train braking systems

Canada toughens train brake rules, to impose ‘audit blitz’

Repost from Yahoo News Canada

Canada toughens train brake rules, to impose ‘audit blitz’

By Richard Valdmanis | Reuters – 29 Oct, 2014
Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt holds a press conference in the Foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hilll in Ottawa on Wednesday, October 29, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt holds a press conference in the Foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hilll in Ottawa on Wednesday, October 29, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada has issued an emergency order to railways detailing how many handbrakes they must set on unattended trains to prevent deadly runaways, and will hire new staff to conduct an “audit blitz” of rail companies’ safety systems.

The changes are the latest in a slew of regulatory moves in North America since a train carrying crude oil crashed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, last year, killing 47 people and highlighting the dangers from a surge in oil transport by rail.

The announcement on Wednesday came in response to the Canadian Transportation Safety Board’s final report in August on the Lac-Megantic crash that found shortfalls in railway safety culture and federal oversight of the industry.

“We will always remember what happened in Lac-Megantic. I do believe that the measures that we are announcing today will improve railway safety, and make the transportation industry more accountable,” Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said.

Canada’s Conservative government has already imposed several new regulations in the wake of Lac-Megantic, including toughening tank car safety and requiring railways do risk assessments, produce emergency response plans, and improve the security of parked trains.

As part of the new rules, Transport Canada said railway operators had to test the handbrakes they set and use other “physical structures” to complement them.

(Full details of the announcement: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=897699)

In the Lac-Megantic crash, a train laden with light crude as volatile as gasoline had been left unattended on a main line several kilometers up a gentle slope. Investigators said the conductor had not set enough handbrakes and the airbrakes had been released after a fire broke out in the engine.

Transport Canada said it will hire about 10 new auditors and begin an “audit blitz” on railway companies’ safety systems. In some cases the regulator will also require rail companies, mainly short lines, to submit reports on how they train their staff, Raitt said.

Raitt said the government will bring in new monetary penalties for railways whose internal safety systems fall short. In its August report, the Transportation Safety Board found that Montreal, Maine and Atlantic, which operated the train that crashed in Lac-Megantic, had developed a safety management system in 2002, but had not fully implemented it.

The watchdog said Transport Canada needed to be more hands on with safety management systems, making sure they work rather than just check that they exist.

Transport Canada said it will also hire engineering and scientific experts to help research the properties of different kinds of crude oils carried by railways, and launch inspections to ensure they are properly labeled on trains.

“Crude oil is something that needs to be moved in the country,” Raitt said. “Our job is to make sure it is done in the safest way possible.”

(Additional reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Jeffreys Hodgson and Benkoe)

 

Bay Area Refineries, BNSF Railway, Bridge safety, Derailment, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail inspection, Tank car design, Union Pacific Railroad

KQED: As More Crude Oil Rolls In, a Push for Better Track Inspection

Repost from KQED Science
[Editor: Excellent Mina Kim audio interview with Tony Bizjak below.  New information on Union Pacific derailment frequency, bridge inspection and other issues.  – RS]

As More Crude Oil Rolls In, a Push for Better Track Inspection

By Mina Kim and Molly Samuel | KQED Science | October 22, 2014 
Union Pacific owns the tracks that would deliver crude oil to the Valero refinery in Benicia. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)
Union Pacific owns the tracks that would deliver crude oil to the Valero refinery in Benicia. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

Shipments of crude oil by rail are expected to increase in the Bay Area and the rest of the state in the near future. BNSF Railways is already transporting crude oil into Richmond, including the kind of oil that exploded from a derailment and killed 47 people in a Quebec town last year.

In response to concerns about the risks of crude by rail, the state’s other large rail company, Union Pacific, began to boost its rail inspection program by dispatching vehicles with lasers that can find tiny track imperfections, as the Sacramento Bee reports:

The new cars will patrol the main mountain routes into the state, Union Pacific officials said. Northern California sites will include Donner Pass, the Feather River Canyon and grades outside Dunsmuir. The state has designated all those areas high hazards for derailments.

The Bee’s Tony Bizjack spoke with Mina Kim about the program, which began last month. Bizjack explained that Union Pacific is particularly worried about California’s mountain passes because they’re considered more high-hazard areas, “often because they’re curving, they’re on slopes, and they have to deal with more extreme weather,” he said.

Bizjak rode on one of the track inspection vehicles. He said they’re equipped with ultrasound to look into the rails to find weaknesses and lasers to measure variations in rail height and alignment.

In the last five years, Union Pacific has had about 180 derailments in California, Bizjack said. “Derailments are surprisingly frequent, but generally very minor,” he said. “Most of those derailments, however, the train cars ended up standing up, not falling over.”

About half of all derailments are caused by track problems, said Bizjack. Others are caused by human and equipments errors. “So tracks are important, that’s sort of the front-line of defense — PUC and FRA think — in reducing the chance these new crude oil shipments can derail, explode.”

Union Pacific is not yet bringing volatile Bakken crude to California. But there are plans in the works for Union Pacific to bring crude oil both to and through the Bay Area, Bizjak explains. A project at the Valero refinery in Benicia would bring two 50-car trains a day through Sacramento and along the I-80 corridor. Another proposal in Santa Maria, by Phillips 66, would bring trains through Sacramento, the East Bay, San Jose and down the coast.

“If you ask anybody in the Office of Emergency Services here in California, or first responders, fire departments, there is a real level of concern about the safety with more crude oil coming in,” Bizjak said.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Rail inspection, Union Pacific Railroad

Union Pacific boosts rail inspections in high-hazard mountain passes

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: See video of reporter Tony Bizjak’s ride on the inspection car here.  – RS]

Union Pacific boosts rail inspections in high-hazard mountain passes

By Tony Bizjak, 10/19/2014
Mike Stoddard oversees the operation of Union Pacific Railroad’s EC-4 as it makes its way out of the Roseville yard on Oct. 6 in Roseville. The EC-4 is a 96-ton, 82-foot-long rolling track inspection car which travels 800-1500 miles a week making sure that heavily used railroad tracks are in good working order.
Mike Stoddard oversees the operation of Union Pacific Railroad’s EC-4 as it makes its way out of the Roseville yard on Oct. 6 in Roseville. The EC-4 is a 96-ton, 82-foot-long rolling track inspection car which travels 800-1500 miles a week making sure that heavily used railroad tracks are in good working order. Randy Pench

Faced with public concern about the risks of crude oil shipments, the Union Pacific railroad last month boosted its rail inspection program on mountain passes in California and the West, dispatching high-tech vehicles with lasers to check tracks for imperfections.

UP officials say they have leased two rail inspection vehicles, called geometry cars, doubling the number of computer-based safety cars in use on the company’s tracks. The move comes amid mounting public concern about hazardous-material shipments, including a growing quantity of highly flammable crude oil from North Dakota being shipped to West Coast refineries.

The inspection cars will supplement similar geometry cars UP owns that it uses to inspect hundreds of miles of tracks daily on the company’s main lines west of the Mississippi River. Running at regular train speeds, the inspection vehicles can detect tiny deviations and wear on rail lines that could cause a derailment if allowed to grow, UP officials said.

The new cars will patrol the main mountain routes into the state, UP officials said. Northern California sites will include Donner Pass, the Feather River Canyon and grades outside Dunsmuir. The state has designated all those areas high hazards for derailments.

In Southern California, the inspection vehicles will patrol UP’s looping line over the Tehachapi Mountains, as well as the line on the Cuesta grade in San Luis Obispo County. The trains also will check mountain rails in Washington, Oregon, Utah and Nevada.

“We’re ensuring we keep crude oil trains on the track,” said David Wickersham, UP’s chief maintenance engineer in the West. “We are going to time it so we are hitting California every three months.”

State rail safety chief Paul King of the California Public Utilities Commission applauded the move. “It’s easy to maintain a straight (flat) railroad, but it’s not as easy to maintain a curved rail like you find in the mountains,” King said.

Grady Cothen, a retired Federal Railroad Administration safety official, said the type of high-tech inspections cars UP is using have become a must for major railroad companies. With more freight moving through limited rail corridors, especially mountains, the financial and political implications of a major derailment that causes damage are huge for railroads.

Crude By Rail, Rail inspection, Union Pacific Railroad

Sacramento Bee video: Union Pacific Rail Inspection Car

Repost from The Sacramento Bee (on YouTube)
[Editor: See Tony Bizjak’s story that accompanies this video here.  – RS]

VIDEO: Union Pacific Rail Inspection Car

Tony Bizjak, Oct 19, 2014 

Union Pacific’s “geometry” car on the Valley Subdivision rail line in Roseville and Marysville is a key resource for keeping the rails safe.

Union Pacific Railroad’s EC-4.  The EC-4 is a 96-ton, 82-foot-long rolling track inspection car which travels 800-1500 miles a week making sure that heavily used railroad tracks are in good working order.