Tanker rail cars, bearing hazardous materials placards, on an elevated railway in Aurora, Ill., last month. Daniel Acker/Bloomberg The U.S. government wants to phase out thousands of railroad tank cars that carry crude oil within two years once it adopts proposed rules to upgrade safety for trains carrying flammable liquids . Tens of thousands of these older tank cars, known as DOT-111s , will have to be replaced or retrofitted under the proposed rules, announced Wednesday. This puts the U.S. on roughly the same timetable as Canada, which announced a phase out earlier this year. The federal government’s sweeping proposals come after a string of explosive derailments involving trains filled with oil from the Bakken Shale and will change how flammable liquids are transported in North America. But they aren’t as stringent as some in the rail and energy industry feared. Crude-carrying tank cars would need to upgraded by […]