Category Archives: Train speed

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection, Tank car retrofit, Train braking systems, Train speed

Chicago Sun-Times editorial: Old tank cars put Chicago at risk

Repost from The Chicago Sun-Times

Old tank cars put Chicago at risk

Editorials, July 31, 2014
This July 6, 2013 file photo shows a worker, wearing protective gear moving though the wreckage of the oil train derailment and explosion in in Lac-Megantic, Quebec (AP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, File, Pool)
This July 6, 2013 file photo shows a worker, wearing protective gear moving though the wreckage of the oil train derailment and explosion in in Lac-Megantic, Quebec (AP Photo/Ryan Remiorz, File, Pool)

America’s drilling boom means more freight trains are snaking through Chicago carrying oil, which can erupt into fireballs if the tank cars derail. A new federal proposal to make the cars safer should be enacted as quickly as possible, and any changes in the final rules should enhance safety, not weaken it.

On July 23, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx proposed phasing out tens of thousands of tank cars called DOT-111s that date back to the 1960s and that too easily rupture or get punctured in derailments. In the past six years, oil has spilled in 10 major derailments, many of them fiery. In the worst, 47 people died last year in Quebec. In April, 30,000 gallons of crude oil leaked into the James River amid a blazing derailment near downtown Lynchburg, Va.

Because more than 40 oil-carrying trains pass through metropolitan Chicago every week, the safety proposal is critical. Mayor Rahm Emanuel called it a “very important step to reduce the risk of catastrophic disasters in our cities.”

The weaknesses of older tank cars, which include about 78,000 of the 92,000 now in use, have been known for 25 years. But now there’s a new reason to worry about them. A boom in American oil production, largely due to hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — that extracts petroleum from places where oil pipelines don’t go, has led to a surge in oil-carrying freights. Nationwide, the number of oil carloads jumped from 9,500 in 2008 to 434,000 last year. Trains carrying crude often are longer than 100 tank cars and can carry more than a million gallons.

In May, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring railroads to notify local officials before trains carrying large quantities of crude pass through. Now, the department has proposed a range of additional safety options, including requiring new or retrofitted tank cars to have thicker shells, more effective brakes and roll-over protections. Tank cars that don’t meet the new standards would be phased out after two years if they carry the most flammable fuels, including ethanol and most grades of crude oil.

Foxx also is calling for speed limits on trains transporting the fuels, especially through highly populated areas, and testing of the liquids they carry.

The proposals will go through negotiations, including a public comment period, before the final rules come out. Not everyone will agree: Industry representatives, for example, think the proposed speed limits are too low and environmentalists think they are too high.

Fortunately, industry players, including the Association of American Railroads and the American Petroleum Institute, agree tank cars need to be safer. They have offered their own safety enhancements, which don’t go as far as those proposed by Foxx. For example, they want a three-year phase-out period instead of two and would select a design used on tank cars built since 2011 as the new, safer standard.

The final rules should take into account legitimate concerns of business and environmentalists, but the government shouldn’t significantly water down the safety proposals nor let negotiations drag on, putting off the day crude shipments get safer.

We don’t want to see any disastrous fireballs along the many rail lines running through Chicago and its suburbs.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Rail Administration, Hazmat notification, Niobrara crude, Rail industry, State regulation, Tank car design, Train speed

Oil Boom, Part II: How and why railroads keep oil train information from communities

Repost from Boulder Weekly
[Editor: A good summary on the various states’ responses to weak new federal emergency regulations, and the oil and rail industries’ resistance to same.  – RS]

Oil Boom, Part II: How and why railroads keep oil train information from communities

By Matt Cortina, Thursday, July 31,2014

Last week’s Boulder Weekly cover story “Oil Boom” covered the proliferation of trains carrying volatile crude oil in outdated oil tanks through the hearts of Longmont, Boulder and Louisville. With industry estimates of an oil boom in the nearby Niobrara shale formation, Boulder County residents can expect that the risk of a potential explosion from an oil train will increase over the next decade.

On the day that story was published, documents were leaked from the state of Washington’s Military Department that showed the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. railroad companies like Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union Pacific pressured states to keep information about oil trains concealed from the public.

And so this brief part II to “Oil Boom” will take a look at why railroads are not required to tell citizens about oil trains, why this information needs to be a secret at all and how railroads are now working to enact soft oil transportation standards in order to save billions in revenue.

• • • •

Railroad companies have never been required to tell citizens, municipalities or states the contents of their train cars. Then, in May, the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered railroad companies to disclose to state emergency responders how many trains carrying one million gallons or more of crude oil from the Bakken shale region in North Dakota were coming through that state. This came after nine oil trains, many carrying Bakken crude oil, exploded or derailed in the last 12 months in the U.S. and Canada.

In response, railroad companies asked states to sign a confidentiality request form that would keep that information from being passed on to the public. Some states like California, New Jersey and Virginia signed the agreement. Colorado did not sign the agreement, but did ultimately decide to keep the information confidential.

Conversely, some states, such as Washington, North Dakota and Wisconsin, decided to make the information public. This was not without contention from the rail companies. When Montana said it would do the same, BNSF promptly wrote to the state that it would consider legal action to keep the information hidden.

And in Washington, one state official wrote in an email (obtained by DeSmogBlog), “looks like UP is trying to put the burden on us vis-à-vis information transfer on oil trains,” noting that Union Pacific’s confidentiality request claimed states were requesting information about Bakken crude oil shipments, instead of that railroads are now required to share that information.

All this fuss from railroad companies concerns just one mandate on one very large amount of oil from one of several drilling areas nationwide. And that information doesn’t need to be sent until 30 days after trains pass through the state.

This mandate is effectively irrele vant for Boulder County. Crude oil shipped through the county comes from the Niobrara in Northern Colorado. Transporting this crude, like everything that’s not one million gallons of Bakken crude, does not require notification even though it can still overheat and explode and it is still shipped in outdated, dangerous tanks.

What is relevant is that the Niobrara shale region has been deemed by the oil and gas industry as the “next Bakken” region, so legislation and precedent for that region will affect how crude oil is transported through Boulder County in the future.

Now, railroads can keep the majority of oil train information hidden from the public because they have help from federal and state officials.

For instance, in ordering railroads to share Bakken crude oil train information with local emergency responders, the U.S. Department of Transportation also encouraged states to keep that information from the public in a FAQ that accompanied the emergency order.

Mark Davis, Union Pacific regional media director, says the issue is that railroads could face “security” issues if conservative monthly data about crude oil transportation is made public.

“A lot of that is the historic security concerns that were started following 9/11,” says Davis. “I know that is something that on the security side, that from a federal standpoint, they’re taking a look at and reviewing that process.”

Davis added that he was “not sure” if any actual threats to Union Pacific oil trains have been recorded, but that the security detail on crude oil transport via rail is “massive” and involves national, state and local authorities.

According to Dave Hard, director of the Colorado Division of Emergency Management, the state of Colorado is keeping what little oil train information it does receive hidden from the public not because of security concerns but because it is “business confidential.”

“The original guidance we received from the Department of Transportation […] made it clear that at the time, the federal D.O.T. considered it security sensitive and business confidential,” Hard says.

Hard says his department and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Department of Public Safety then reviewed the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) standards and agreed that crude oil shipments were still “not subject to public disclosure.”

“They still maintain business confidentiality viewpoints. The state is still honoring that [all oil train information] is not for public disclosure, it is for the purposes of preparing [emergency response personnel],” Hard says.

Railroads are also subject to the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which requires them to report the transport of hazardous materials to local and state emergency responders. But, for some reason, petroleum products including crude oil are exempt from this mandate.

The bottom line is that railroads are privately owned and not required to notify anyone of the contents of their trains. They are, at least, required to make their transport of volatile materials safe.

The Department of Transportation recently issued safety recommendations for railroads carrying crude oil. These recommendations included updated tank cars, new routing systems and reducing the speed of oil tank cars.

But railroads like BNSF, Union Pacific and CSX said implementing these safety measures would be too costly.

In a presentation to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which will amend and codify the safety standards introduced by the Department of Transportation, presenters for the railroads laid out the costs of implementing moderate safety measures.

First, railroads would pay $2.8 billion for capital improvements to railways across the country. Reducing the speed of trains would call for oil companies to build more tankers to the tune of $1.5 billion in order to maintain supply quotas. Reducing train speed would also cost the railroads themselves about $630 million per year because they’d have to pay for additional crew, fuel costs and “lost productivity of track maintenance workers.”

Train speed and outdated tank cars are by far the most common cause of derailments and explosions. Tank cars are not built for modern crude oil and train speed has many times caused modern volatile crude oil to overheat and explode.

BNSF went on to say that implementing these safety measures would take about four years and would result in “the immediate loss of existing business” and growth would be stifled.

Railroad officials and lobbyists are currently working beside federal lawmakers to carve out the new safety and notification rules for crude oil by rail transport. Initial regulations could come as soon as this year.

 

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Public Safety, Rail routing, Rail tank cars, Tank car design, Train speed, Valero Benicia Refinery, WesPac Energy

KTVU OAKLAND: New push to make rail cars safer

Repost from KTVU Channel 2, Oakland, CA
Andrés Soto from Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community is interviewed in this KTVU TV report.  “….the grass roots group, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, is not buying it: ‘There have been numerous…incidents with these rail cars. Even the improved rail cars, most recently at Lynchburg, Virginia,’ says Soto.”

OAKLAND: New push to make rail cars safer

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232 standard, Crude Oil, DOT-111, Ethanol, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail routing, Tank car design, Train braking systems, Train speed

Stopping deadly oil train fires: New rules planned

Repost from The Sacramento Bee (Wire Business News, AP)

Stopping deadly oil train fires: New rules planned

The Associated Press, Jul. 23, 2014
Oil Train Fires
FILE – This Nov. 6, 2013, file photo shows a BNSF Railway train hauling crude oil near Wolf Point, Mont. Thousands of older rail tank cars that carry crude oil would be phased out within two years under regulations proposed in response to a series of fiery train crashes over the past year. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government’s testing of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana shows the oil is on the high end of a range of volatility compared with other crude oils, meaning it’s more likely to ignite if spilled. Matthew Brown, File / AP Photo

WASHINGTON — Responding to a series of fiery train crashes, the government proposed rules Wednesday that would phase out tens of thousands of older tank cars that carry increasing quantities of crude oil and other highly flammable liquids through America’s towns and cities.

But many details were put off until later as regulators struggle to balance safety against the economic benefits of a fracking boom that has sharply increased U.S. oil production. Among the issues: What type of tank cars will replace those being phased out, how fast will they be allowed to travel and what kind of braking systems will they need?

Accident investigators have complained for decades that older tank cars, known as DOT-111s, are too easily punctured or ruptured, spilling their contents when derailed. Since 2008, there have been 10 significant derailments in the U.S. and Canada in which crude oil has spilled from ruptured tank cars, often igniting and resulting in huge fireballs. The worst was a runaway oil train that exploded in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic a year ago, killing 47 people.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said he said he expects his department to complete final regulations before the end of the year. First, the public and affected industries will have an opportunity to comment on the proposal.

“We are at the dawn of a promising time for energy production in this country,” Foxx said. “This is a positive development for our economy and for energy independence, but the responsibilities attached to this production are very serious.”

In a report released along with the rules, the Department of Transportation concluded that oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana, where fracking methods have created an oil boom, is more volatile than is typical for light, sweet crudes.

The oil industry immediately challenged that conclusion. “The best science and data do not support recent speculation that crude oil from the Bakken presents greater than normal transportation risks,” said American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard. “DOT needs to get this right and make sure that its regulations are grounded in facts and sound science, not speculation.”

Rail shipments of crude have skyrocketed from a few thousand carloads a decade ago to 434,000 carloads last year. The Bakken now produces over 1 million barrels per day, and production is increasing.

The phase-in period for replacing or retrofitting older tank cars that transport the most volatile types of liquids is shorter than the Canadian government’s three-year phased plan. Congress, fearing another Lac-Megantic, has been pressuring regulators to put new safety rules in place as quickly as possible.

The proposal also includes ethanol, which is transported in the same kind of tank cars. From 2006 to 2012, there were seven train derailments in which tank cars carrying ethanol ruptured. Several crashes caused spectacular fires that emergency responders were powerless to put out.

The proposed regulations apply only to trains of 20 or more cars. Crude oil trains from the Bakken are typically 100 cars or more.

The department is weighing three options for replacements. One would be to make cars known as “1232s” the new standard for transporting hazardous liquids. Those cars are a stronger design voluntarily agreed to by the railroad, oil and ethanol industries in 2011. But those cars, which have been in use for several years, have also ruptured in several accidents.

The oil and ethanol industries have been urging White House and transportation officials to retain the 1232 design for new cars. The industries have billions of dollars invested in tens of thousands of tank cars that officials say were purchased with the expectation they would last for decades.

Another option is a design proposed by Association of American Railroads that has a thicker shell, an outer layer to protect from heat exposure, a “jacket” on top of that, and a better venting valve, among other changes. A third design proposed by the department is nearly identical to the one proposed by railroads, but it also has stronger fittings on the top of the car to prevent spillage during a rollover accident at a speed of 9 mph.

Regulators also are weighing whether to limit crude and ethanol trains to a maximum of 40 mph throughout the country, or just in “high-threat” urban areas or areas with populations greater than 100,000 people. A high-threat urban area is usually one or more cities surrounded by a 10-mile buffer zone.

Railroads had already voluntarily agreed to reduce oil train speeds to 40 mph in urban areas beginning July 1. Tank cars — including the newer ones built to a tougher safety standard — have ruptured in several accidents at speeds below 30 mph. Regulators said they’re considering lowering the speed limit to 30 mph for trains that aren’t equipped with advanced braking systems.

The freight railroad industry had met privately with department and White House officials to lobby for keeping the speed limit at 40 mph in urban areas rather than lowering it. Railroad officials say a 30 mph limit would tie up traffic across the country because other freight wouldn’t be able to get past slower oil and ethanol trains.

The department said it is considering three types of braking systems for oil and ethanol trains, but a final decision will depend on what type of tank car design is eventually adopted.

Whatever option regulators settle on, the proposal calls for newly manufactured cars to meet that standard beginning Oct. 1, 2015.

The proposal continues a requirement that railroads transporting at least 1 million gallons of Bakken crude oil notify emergency response commissions ahead of time in states they pass through. Communities from upstate New York to the coast of Washington have complained they’re in the dark about when trains pass through and how much oil and ethanol they’re transporting.