Category: Railroads

(Bloomberg) — Hunter Harrison, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s chief executive officer, said his greatest fear in moving crude by rail is the prospect of a terrorist attack on the company’s trains. “That’s what concerns me more because it can be planned to do the worst possible damage,” Harrison told reporters after a speech in Toronto. Canadian and U.S. transportation regulators are drafting tougher standards for oil tank cars as record volumes of the commodity are moving across the continent from oil fields in Western Canada and the U.S. New regulation was prompted by the explosion in Lac Megantic, Quebec, in 2013 that killed 47 people. There have been recent incidents too. Last month, a CSX Corp. train carrying crude derailed and exploded in West Virginia shortly after a derailed Canadian National Railway Co. train caught fire near Gogama, Ontario. CP has taken “quantum leaps” to reduce spills by improving […]

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WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 2 03/02/2015 Noting that 60-70 trains/week carry Bakken crude oil across Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia area or other East Coast refineries, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) asked US President Barack Obama for stronger federal regulations to prevent derailments and improve safety. “I have already taken actions to address this issue including holding emergency trainings, participating in meetings with executives, and tasking my administration to put plans in place to both prevent accidents and mitigate impacts,” Wolf separately said on Feb. 27. “We also need expedited federal regulatory action in several areas along with a greater commitment to funding inspection and enforcement,” Wolf said. “We cannot afford to wait for a major incident before taking action.” In his Feb. 26 letter to Obama, Wolf called for consistent national standards to reduce Bakken crude’s volatility prior to transport, further reduction of trains’ speed limits through urban areas, more federal […]

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The scene of a CSX crude-oil train burning after derailment in Mount Carbon, W. Va. ENLARGE Photo: Marcus Constantino/Reuters The crude oil aboard the train that derailed and exploded two weeks ago in West Virginia contained so much combustible gas that it would have been barred from rail transport under safety regulations set to go into effect next month. Tests performed on the oil before the train left North Dakota showed it contained a high level of volatile gases , according to a lab report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The oil’s vapor pressure, a measure of volatility, was 13.9 pounds per square inch, according to the Feb. 10 report by Intertek Group PLC. That exceeds the limit of 13.7 psi that North Dakota is set to impose in April on oil moving by truck or rail from the Bakken Shale. Oil producers that don’t treat their crude […]

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Railroads and oil companies bicker over the cost of new rules The Feb. 16 explosion near Mount Carbon, W.Va. A week after a CSX train hauling crude oil derailed and exploded 30 miles southeast of Charleston, W.Va., on Feb. 16, its mangled, charred tank cars were still being hauled from the crash site. Of the 27 cars that derailed, 19 had been engulfed in flames. The wreckage burned for almost three days. “It’s amazing no one was killed,” says John Whitt, whose home is one of a handful clustered near the crash site, along the banks of the Kanawha River. Some were within 30 yards of the site. One home was destroyed. Exploding oil trains—this was only the latest in a series—have emerged as a dangerous side effect of the U.S. energy boom. A lack of pipelines connecting new fields in North Dakota and Texas to refineries and shipping terminals has led to […]

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LONDON (Reuters) – Train derailments involving crude oil and ethanol in the United States will cost more than $18 billion over the next 20 years, according to an assessment by the U.S. Department of Transportation. USDOT forecasts there will be just over 200 derailments involving trains carrying 20 or more tank cars of crude or ethanol between 2015 and 2034, an average of more than 10 per year, based on analysis of previous accidents and predicted growth in traffic volumes. Most will be "lower-consequence events" involving limited damage to property, environmental clean-up and only a few injuries or fatalities, with the bill totaling less than $5 billion. But up to 10 could have more serious consequences because they occur in more densely populated areas, with an estimated cost of $1.2 billion per incident. USDOT also considered a tail-risk event occurring in a densely populated urban center such as Chicago […]

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A train that derailed in northern Ontario just over a week ago—igniting and spilling more than 6,000 barrels of oil—was traveling at a restricted speed and carrying oil in structurally enhanced tank cars, Canadian investigators said Monday. Initial findings on the accident from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada suggest it bore stark similarities to a fiery derailment that occurred days later in West Virginia . The findings are likely to add to concerns that recent regulatory steps to make the transport of oil by rail don’t go far enough. In the Ontario accident , 29 railcars derailed, with 21 sustaining fire damage, the TSB said. The train, operated by Canadian National Railway Co. , was traveling at 38 miles an hour at the time of the derailment, under a 40-mile-per-hour speed restriction, the agency said. The train was made up of tank cars built to the new CPC-1232 […]

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http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=91585&siteSection=unitedpress&videoId=28581637 Oil tanker train. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock MOUNT CARBON, W.Va., Feb. 20 (UPI) — Some of the residents in and around communities evacuated in response to a West Virginia oil-train derailment can return home, a unified command said. Federal regulators said about 28 cars from a CSX line derailed Monday afternoon near Mt. Carbon, W. Va. State officials said about half of the derailed cars were transporting crude oil from North Dakota, which would equate to approximately 8,000 barrels. At least one home was destroyed in the massive fireball that followed the derailment. A unified command established to respond to the incident said some evacuated residents can go home, though others were still under restrictions because of safety concerns. Six of the derailed cars were put back on their tracks by recovery crews. Some of the oil still left in the derailed cars was transferred elsewhere for later […]

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(Reuters) – Hundreds of communities across the United States have become accustomed to the sight of mile-long oil trains rumbling by in recent years. Pembroke, Virginia, was not one of them, until now. CSX Corp is temporarily rerouting up to five oil trains through this small riverside town to bypass the site of an explosive oil train derailment that occurred 90 miles north in Mount Carbon, West Virginia, on Monday. The trains will likely travel instead on a track that hugs the New River and at one point sweeps into the Pembroke town limits. In line with a federal protocol established last year following a string of fiery derailments across North America, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management on Tuesday informed 16 counties and cities that oil trains could be coming through their towns, local officials and fire departments said, one day after the Mount Carbon derailment. Those counties […]

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Crews are on the ground in and around the site of Monday’s oil-train derailment in West Virginia deploying containment boom, the response team said. The National Transportation Safety Board estimated 28 tank cars of the 109 from a CSX line slipped the rails early Monday afternoon near Mt. Carbon, W. Va. State authorities estimated about a dozen of those cars were transporting crude oil from North Dakota, which would equate to approximately 8,000 barrels. A unified command set up by CSX, local, state and federal authorities said crews are on the ground surveying land and water contamination . No cars fell into the nearby Kanawha River. "The response crews were able to deploy about 500 feet of containment boom as a precautionary measure to limit potential impact on the environment," the command center said in its latest update Wednesday. "The use of additional boom material is being evaluated." West […]

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