Category Archives: Rail Safety

AMTRAK, Bakken Crude, Derailment, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Rail Safety

NPR: What’s in those tank cars near the Amtrak derailment?

Repost from State Impact Pennsylvania, NPR.org
[Editor:  Quote: “Conrail knows what’s in the cars on their tracks but considers it proprietary information, not to be revealed unless there’s an emergency.”  – RS]

What’s in those tank cars near the Amtrak derailment?

By Susan Phillips, May 13, 2015 | 6:12 PM

Emergency personnel work at the scene of a deadly train derailment, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia. The Amtrak train, headed to New York City, derailed and crashed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a deadly train derailment, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia. The Amtrak train, headed to New York City, derailed and crashed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

News footage of the Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia Tuesday night shows nearby tank cars that look similar to the rail cars carrying crude oil or other hazardous material across the country each day. In aerial photos, it looks as if the Amtrak train, traveling at 100 miles an hour, nearly missed creating an even greater catastrophe, if it had struck an oil train, say, or a train carrying chlorine gas. Residents quickly took to twitter, wondering what about the content of those tank cars, and whether it was hazardous.

“This could be just one more in a litany of near misses,” said David Masur, director of PennEnvironment, an activist group working to ban oil trains.

It wouldn’t be far-fetched for a passenger rail car to collide with an oil train, dozens of oil trains run through the state on their way to Philadelphia and South Jersey refineries each week. In fact, Norfolk Southern runs oil trains on a track that runs above Amtrak lines, close to the derailment. Bakken crude oil from North Dakota crosses those lines daily, traveling across the Delaware river, and down to refineries in South Jersey. WHYY reporter Tom MacDonald says he saw the black tankers about 50 yards from the derailed Amtrak train.

But it’s still unclear what is in those tank cars.

“It could be corn oil, it could be very benign stuff,” said Conrail spokesman John Enright.

The accident occurred on Amtrak’s rail lines, but the scene is very close to a Conrail yard, which Enright says is used for local transport.

“I know the sensitivity to the whole crude oil situation,” said Enright. “One shouldn’t presume anything.”

Enright says Conrail knows what’s in the cars on their tracks but considers it proprietary information, not to be revealed unless there’s an emergency.

“If there was an incident then that information would be readily available to [first responders],” he said.

In this case, the Amtrak train did not hit any nearby freight cars, so the contents of the blank tankers remains a mystery.

Norfolk Southern, which operates the oil trains that cross the Amtrak line, did not respond to requests for comment. And the American Association of Railroads would also not comment on the freight rail traffic in the area. Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management would not comment on the contents, saying they were focusing on the accident itself.

But rail safety experts say the accident could have been much worse if the Amtrak train did hit those black tank cars, and if those cars were carrying explosive or flammable material.

A passenger is carried following an Amtrak train crash Tuesday, May 12, 2015, in Philadelphia. Train 188 was traveling from Washington to New York City. (AP Photo/Paul Cheung)
A passenger is carried following an Amtrak train crash Tuesday, May 12, 2015, in Philadelphia. Train 188 was traveling from Washington to New York City. (AP Photo/Paul Cheung)

Fred Millar is an independent rail safety expert.

“Having the oil train sitting there is not necessarily an undangerous situation,” said Millar.

Millar says, although it’s rare, trains have been known to run into each other. Federal investigators recently released a report about an oil train explosion in North Dakota in 2013, where the train hit a derailed freight train.

“One kind of industrial accident can set off another,” he said.

Not only would the death toll be higher, but the neighborhood would need to be evacuated.

Jim Blaze is an economist and railroad consultant who worked in the railroad industry for 30 years.

“Let’s say there was [hazardous material] in those rail cars,” said Blaze. “If the cars cracked open, it could have been an explosive force and caused a chain reaction. What would the casualty rate have been as a result? Could you imagine evacuating 750,000 people? What’s that going to cost? What’s the lost business revenue?”

Not only is it unclear what’s in those nearby tank cars. It’s unclear if Philadelphia’s first responders would be ready. The city’s Office of Emergency Management says it’s done exercises to prepare. But it’s not clear if the exercise has included passenger rail cars.

Pennsylvania’s Emergency Management Agency spokesman Cory Angell says that’s not a scenario he’s heard discussed.

Delaware County’s Office of Emergency Management says the risk of an Amtrak or regional rail line hitting an oil train is low because the passenger rail cars don’t run in close proximity to the oil trains as they do in Philadelphia. Ed Truitt runs Delco’s OEM.

“We’ve looked at a lot of different scenarios and that was never conceived as being a threat in Delaware County,” said Truitt.

Truitt says the rail cars only travel between midnight and 5 AM through the county.

Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block the implementation of new oil train safety rules.

 

AMTRAK, Derailment, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Rail Safety

Amtrak accident in Philadelphia: could’ve been much worse, the tank cars were full, missed by 50 yards

Repost from CNN [Editor:  The reporter interviews Scott Lauman, a nearby resident: “‘It missed that parked tanker by maybe 50 yards,’ he told KYW. ‘An Amtrak guy came by and he was telling me it turns out those tankers are full, and if that engine would’ve hit that tanker, it would’ve set off an explosion like no other.’”  NOTE: The videos only work on CNN’s website – see tweets, photos and video at CNN.com.  – RS]

Witness to Amtrak 188 crash: Train missed ‘tanker by maybe 50 yards’

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, Holly Yan and Don Melvin, CNN, May 13, 2015, 4:41 PM ET

Philadelphia Amtrak Crash 2015-05-12CNN1c(CNN) Rebecca Bibb awoke alongside the mangled Amtrak commuter train with no recollection of the carnage and chaos that had just unfolded.” The shoes, my shoes — are not my shoes. I lost my shoes. A lady gave me my shoes,” a distraught Bibb told CNN affiliate KYW. She recalls being on the train, in the third car from the back — and then, nothing. “I don’t remember anything. I did not hear any noise, did not see anything. When I started hearing people, I was on the side (of the crash scene), and someone told me I’d been delirious and that they had carried me off,” she told the station. When Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, it tore apart passenger cars, sending seven of them careening off the tracks. At least four toppled over, and some cars were smashed like aluminum cans. The rails were uprooted, and the badly damaged engine was left standing upright. At least seven people were killed and 200 more were sent to six area hospitals — some with critical injuries, authorities said. About 76 passengers were treated and released. Journalist Beth Davidz of Brooklyn was one of those fortunate enough to be released. To hear her Twitter feed tell it, she was on the phone when she boarded the train and thus chose not to sit in the “quiet car,” which was one of the most damaged in the wreck. Around 3 a.m., she tweeted she had been released from the hospital — “no wallet, one shoe, so grateful” — and later thanked CNN affiliate WPIX for helping her find a ride home. (CNN)Rebecca Bibb awoke alongside the mangled Amtrak commuter train with no recollection of the carnage and chaos that had just unfolded.”The shoes, my shoes — are not my shoes. I lost my shoes. A lady gave me my shoes,” a distraught Bibb told CNN affiliate KYW. She recalls being on the train, in the third car from the back — and then, nothing. “I don’t remember anything. I did not hear any noise, did not see anything. When I started hearing people, I was on the side (of the crash scene), and someone told me I’d been delirious and that they had carried me off,” she told the station. When Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, it tore apart passenger cars, sending seven of them careening off the tracks. At least four toppled over, and some cars were smashed like aluminum cans. The rails were uprooted, and the badly damaged engine was left standing upright. At least seven people were killed and 200 more were sent to six area hospitals — some with critical injuries, authorities said. About 76 passengers were treated and released. Journalist Beth Davidz of Brooklyn was one of those fortunate enough to be released. To hear her Twitter feed tell it, she was on the phone when she boarded the train and thus chose not to sit in the “quiet car,” which was one of the most damaged in the wreck. Around 3 a.m., she tweeted she had been released from the hospital — “no wallet, one shoe, so grateful” — and later thanked CNN affiliate WPIX for helping her find a ride home.

Speed a factor?

Scott Lauman, who lives in the Port Richmond neighborhood where the train crashed, told KYW that the tracks curve around a warehouse, and when the train reached the bend, “it looks like the engine just kept going straight, right off the curve, right down the hill and all of the cars just followed with it. And the engine was all the way over into the train yard.”

'Violent scene' near Amtrak train crash site
‘Violent scene’ near Amtrak train crash site 02:56. Click will take you to CNN for video.

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The train hit power lines and wiped out a support for a pedestrian bridge, leaving it hanging, Lauman told the station.
“They were pulling people, just lifeless,” he said of the rescue efforts.

But it could have been far worse in Lauman’s estimation.

“It missed that parked tanker by maybe 50 yards,” he told KYW. “An Amtrak guy came by and he was telling me it turns out those tankers are full, and if that engine would’ve hit that tanker, it would’ve set off an explosion like no other.”

Khaled Kayed, a volunteer with the Muslim-American Society, lives near the crash site and was on the scene before police began taping off the area. He saw many passengers with head injuries amid the chaos, he told CNN in an email.

“When we first got on to the scene we could see people laying on the ground covered in blood,” he wrote. “The scene was very disturbing! It looked like something straight out of a movie. When we got on the tracks you could see the carnage. The train could only be described as a tin can that was crushed & ripped apart. Anywhere you look you could see pieces of the train all around you. You could see some people trying to crawl out due to the train cars upside down & on their sides.”

It has not yet been established whether speed was a factor in the crash, which happened around 9:30 p.m. But passenger Janna D’Ambrisi said she thought the train was going “a little too fast around a curve.” “Then there was a jolt. And immediately you could tell the train derailed,” she said. “I was thrown into the girl next to me, sitting in the window seat. The train started to tip that way, to the right. And people on the other side of the train started to fall on us.” Moments later, she heard a banging from the bathroom. A man inside was screaming. “He was trying to unlock the door, but it was stuck,” D’Ambrisi said. The metal must have been bent.”

‘Everything flying’

Jeremy Wladis was on the last car of the train. He had been in Washington for work, and he was returning home to New York. Then he felt the jolt. The train was leaving the tracks. Wladis, 51, saw “phones, laptops, everything flying,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “There were women launched up in the luggage rack,” he said. “I don’t even know how they got there.” Once the train came to a rest, he and others helped the women down and they made their escape. Another passenger, Daniel Wetrin, 37 of New York, told the paper that the initial shock was gentle “compared to what came next.” “Within two seconds, it was chaos,” he said. Andrew Cheng, visiting from Singapore, was traveling with 14 relatives when he was thrown to the ground like a rag doll, along with other passengers, he told KYW. “Some were piling on top of the others,” he said, adding that he and his family members were able to walk away from the incident. “We know that we counted all the members. They’re all there. I can’t ask for more. That’s good enough.” Joan Helfman thought her ribs were probably broken, but, as a nurse, her mind was on the others who were hurt. “I saw so many head injuries and bloody faces,” she told KYW. “There were a lot of fractures — arms, shoulders, all kinds of fractures.” Helfman couldn’t believe the destruction. “This is a nightmare,” she recalled thinking, “and it can’t be happening.” People caught in luggage rack Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is 363 miles of track connecting Washington to Boston. It is the busiest railroad in North America, as three times more people take the train between Washington and New York City than fly the route. Train 188 was on its way from Washington to New York, carrying 238 commuters and five crew members at the end of another workday. The trip was routine until the train passed through the Port Richmond neighborhood in Philadelphia. That’s when Wetrin saw passengers catapulted from their seats. “There were two people above our head in the luggage rack asking to be helped down,” he told CNN. “It was just unbelievable.” A video posted on Instagram showed people trying to help passengers out. “Keep crawling, OK?” one man tells a passenger. “Where am I crawling to?” the passenger asks. “Crawl forward, sir,” another man says.

Power cables add extra danger

Many passengers walked away, some with bloodied shirts or head wounds wrapped in bandages. But the journey from the crash site was also treacherous. “All the power cables that run parallel to the track caved in,” Wetrin said. “There were cut cables hanging around.” Many passengers, including former U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Florida, praised the firefighters and police, who arrived within minutes. “Thank you so much to all the first responders-there w/in minutes,” Murphy tweeted. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Not all the rescuers wore uniforms. “My son went back and got everybody off our one car,” Helfman, the nurse, said. “There was a very small opening in the door, and we were able to get out.” Her son, Max, told KYW that his first priority was getting his mother off the train. Then he went to help the strangers. “Luckily I’m still here, I’m still walking,” Max Helfman said. “So I figured I would do my best to help because I saw everyone — I could see the blood on people’s faces. They can’t move. … So I just tried to do my best to help people get out of that car.”

AMTRAK, Derailment, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Rail Safety

Photos of deadly Amtrak derailment: hazardous tank cars a close call?

PHILADELPHIA AMTRAK CRASH SCENE: IS ANYONE QUESTIONING THE CLOSE PROXIMITY OF TANK CARS?

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, May 13, 2015 9:54 a.m. PDT
Philadelphia Amtrak Crash 2015-05-12b50
Maybe 15 feet from a tank car involvement?

With courage and strength to survivors and the grieving … it looks like this tragedy might’ve been much worse.  Check out the photos.  What was in those tank cars at the time of the accident?  What is typically stored in tank cars in that railyard so close to the tracks?  The Philadelphia Enquirer: “Gov. Wolf, who visited the scene overnight, said later that the trains derailed near a row of tanker cars ‘and that is a cause of additional concern.'”

Philadelphia Amtrak Crash 2015-05-12e50Philadelphia Amtrak Crash 2015-05-12cPhiladelphia Amtrak Crash 2015-05-12d

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Ethanol, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Rail Safety

New rules on oil trains draw flak from firefighters, too

Repost from the Bellingham Herald

New rules on oil trains draw flak from firefighters, too

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, May 11, 2015
Derailed train cars burn near Mount Carbon, W.Va., Monday. A CSX train carrying crude oil derailed at around 1:20 p.m. Monday, spilling oil into the Kanawha River and destroying a home in the path of the wreckage. Marcus Constantino/ Daily Mail

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers and environmental and industry groups criticized the federal government’s new safety measures for oil trains when they were announced earlier this month. Now another group has expressed disappointment in the new rules:

Emergency responders. They’re among the first in danger when a fiery derailment happens.

After another oil train derailed and caught fire last week, this time in North Dakota and the fifth in North America this year, firefighters renewed their call for more training and information about hazardous rail shipments.

The International Association of Fire Fighters’ primary objection to the new rules is about their information-sharing requirements. But Elizabeth Harman, an assistant to the general president of the group, also said firefighters needed more training on responding to hazardous materials incidents. The rule didn’t directly address that issue, though some lawmakers have sought additional funding.

“The training that’s needed has been developed,” she said. “This is the first step that needs to be funded and expanded for all first responders.”

Harman said her group had been talking to the Federal Emergency Management Agency about making more competitive grants available for first-responder training.

Tank cars still showing accident vulnerability

Tens of thousands of rail tank cars haul flammable liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol, across North America, and most have weak spots that make them vulnerable to puncture and fire in an accident. A new tank car design has been approved, but is not widely available yet. There have been five serious oil train derailments so far this year.

Old and new tank car designs
Click for full size viewing
Accidents
Click for full size viewing.
  1. Feb. 14, Gogama, Ontario, 29 cars of a Canadian National oil train derail and a fire engulfs seven cars. No injuries are reported.
  2. Feb. 16, Mount Carbon, W.V., 28 cars of a CSX oil train derail along the banks of the Kanawha River. One injury reported.
  3. March 5, Galena, Ill., 21 cars of a BNSF crude oil train derail and a fire erupts.
  4. March 7, Gogama, Ont., 39 cars of a Canadian National oil train derail and a fire engulfs multiple cars. A bridge is destroyed by the heat. No injuries are reported.
  5. May 6, Heimdal, N.D., six cars of a BNSF crude oil train derail and a fire erupts, forcing temporary evacuation of Heimdal.
*In addition to the 2015 accidents, the map locates selected derailments from 1981 through 2014 involving DOT-111A tank cars that polluted waterways and threatened cities with flammable or toxic chemicals.  Sources: McClatchy Washington Bureau, National Transportation Safety Board, Department of Transportation, Surface Transportation Board, Association of American Railroads, Railway Supply Institute

Since 2010, an exponentially larger volume of flammable liquids, especially crude oil and ethanol, has been moving by rail, and with it has come an increase in risk to communities.

“We need to be prepared for it, and we’re willing to be prepared for it,” Harman said.

The rail industry and the government have funded new training for emergency responders as a result of the increased risk. Railroads train 20,000 firefighters a year in communities across the country, according to the Association of American Railroads, an industry group.

Since last summer, the rail industry has paid to send hundreds more to an advanced firefighting academy in Pueblo, Colo., designed for responding to oil train fires.

While firefighter groups have praised the industry’s efforts, 65 percent of fire departments involved in responding to hazardous materials incidents still have no formal training in that area, according to a 2010 survey by the National Fire Protection Association.

While no first responders have been injured in multiple oil train derailments and fires in the past year and a half, they’ve faced numerous challenges:

– When an oil train derailed and caught fire near Casselton, N.D., on Dec. 30, 2013, a BNSF student engineer became an ad-hoc first responder. According to interview transcripts published last month by the National Transportation Safety Board, the student donned firefighting gear and equipment as he uncoupled cars that were still on the track to move them away from the fire.

– When an oil train derailed and caught fire in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, 2014, first responders didn’t know right away which railroad to call, since two companies operate tracks through the city. According to a presentation at a conference of transportation professionals in Washington in January, it also took 45 minutes for first responders to obtain documents showing them what the train was carrying.

– After an oil train derailed and caught fire near Galena, Ill., on March 5 this year, volunteer firefighters could reach the remote site only via a bike path. Once there, they attempted to extinguish the fire, but had to retreat when they realized they couldn’t, leaving their equipment behind. According to local news reports, their radios didn’t work, either.

Harman said the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new regulations for trains carrying crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids didn’t go far enough with respect to information that railroads provided to communities.

Under an emergency order the department issued last May, railroads were required to report large shipments of Bakken crude oil to state emergency-response commissions, which then disseminated that information to local fire departments.

But under the department’s new rules, starting next year, railroads will no longer report the information to the states, and fire departments that want the information will have to go directly to the railroads. It also will be shielded from public disclosure.

“These new rules fall short of requiring rail operators to provide the information fire departments need to respond effectively when the call arrives,” said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the firefighters group.

Susan Lagana, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, said Friday that the department was reviewing feedback from emergency responders and lawmakers to address their concerns.

She said the new rule would expand the amount of information available to first responders and noted that for now, last year’s emergency order remains in place.

Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, said the industry was reviewing the new regulations. He said it had shared information with first responders for years and would continue to do so.

Greenberg said the industry was developing a mobile application called AskRail that would give emergency responders immediate access to information about a train’s cargo.

“Freight railroads have ongoing dialogue with first responders, residents and local civic officials on rail operations and emergency planning,” he said.

Emergency planners in Washington state sought more information about oil trains from BNSF, including routing information, worst-case derailment scenarios, response planning and insurance coverage. On April 30, the railroad met with state fire chiefs in Olympia.

“I think both sides learned a little bit about the other group’s point of view,” said Wayne Senter, the executive director of the Washington Fire Chiefs. “I was pretty positive by the end of the meeting the information we asked for in our letter was either available or will soon be available either directly or indirectly.”

Samantha Wohlfeil of The Bellingham (Wash.) Herald contributed to this article.