Category: Railroads

Washington (Platts)–3Feb2015/352 pm EST/2052 GMT Representatives of the rail industry Tuesday complained to the US Congress about the Obama administration’s slow pace in issuing its comprehensive crude-by-rail safety rule, as the Department of Transportation missed a self-imposed January 30 target to submit the regulation to the White House for final review. Joe Delcambre, a spokesman with DOT’s Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, told Platts the agency hopes to send the rule, including an overhaul of tank car safety standards, "very soon" to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which vets all regulations before they go into effect. The DOT in January had said in a rulemaking schedule update that it planned to submit the rule to OMB by January 30, and for the rule to be finalized by May 12. "The rulemaking is very comprehensive and involves interrelated issues that must be carefully assessed to ensure […]

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(Bloomberg) — Rail yard projects vital to the flow of crude from the shale oil boom are being waylaid in court by legal challenges that may slow the march to U.S. energy independence. Crude-oil handling facilities along rail lines in cities from Albany, New York, to Richmond, California, are mired in lawsuits by community and environmental groups claiming they were kept in the dark about the projects. They accuse local regulators of giving cursory review and rubber-stamping operating permits for proposals that pose threats to their safety and the environment. In Albany, pollution regulators who examine such projects for dirty-air potential are grappling with 19,000 comments from residents more worried about exploding trains. Citizen complaints about the move to rail as a new means of transporting oil initially focused on safety conditions of tanker cars en route from shipping point to destination as pipeline capacity failed to keep pace […]

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California’s high-speed rail project reached a milestone Tuesday as officials marked the start of work on the nation’s first bullet train, which will whisk travelers at 200 mph between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours. The ceremony in Fresno comes amid challenges. Central Valley farmers in the train’s path had sued to block it and are now contesting that those behind the project have fallen short of responsibilities under a 2013 legal settlement, according to The Fresno Bee . Meanwhile Republican members of U.S. Congress have vowed to cut funding for the $68 billion projecton the grounds of its perceived expense. Opponents also say the state can’t deliver the sleek project as it was first promised. Dan Richard, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, acknowledges the authority has been slow to buy up most of the land needed for laying track. But he is […]

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By Laura Stevens and Jesse Newman Rail congestion that caused headaches for shippers of everything from corn to coal may start to ease in 2015 as operators spend more to increase capacity. The entire transportation industry experienced capacity strains in 2014 as the U.S. economy continued to recover. Rail was one of the hardest hit areas, with unexpectedly strong demand and bad weather taking their toll on service. Severe delays for shipments of corn, soybeans and other crops in the upper Midwest began in early 2014, with bitterly cold temperatures forcing operators to run shorter, slower trains even as a record harvests produced more grain needing transport. The snarls returned after another bumper harvest in the autumn. The coal industry also has complained of significant delays, particularly in the western U.S. To fix this, railroads including BNSF Railway Co., owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., are collectively spending […]

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Brett Gundlock | Bloomberg Tougher rules on shipping crude by rail mean oil producers in North Dakota’s Bakken region could soon face the unwelcome choice of spending more to ship by truck or cutting back on production altogether. That’s the takeaway from a Wall Street Journal report that says that the Railway Supply Institute is warning that tens of thousands of rail cars will be sidelined because they no longer meet code in the wake of new safety regulations on shipping crude oil by train. The U.S. Department of Transportation has mandated that rail cars carrying flammable liquids meet higher safety standards. North Dakota regulators also toughened its own rules on shipping , saying that volatile gases had to be removed from crude oil before shipping. There’s a potential upside for any business not involved in oil: Farmers, manufacturers and utilities have complained for the past year that oil […]

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U.S. electricity costs are poised to reach the highest level since 1999 because railroads are too clogged to deliver enough coal to power plants. While the U.S. has the world’s biggest coal reserves, utilities are forecast by the government to end the year with the lowest stockpiles since 2005. With carriers including BNSF Railway jammed with record shipments of oil and grains, Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL) and other power producers say they can’t get the coal they need. The rail delays mean utilities haven’t rebuilt inventories that fell to a seven-year low last winter. Power producers filed 10 notices this year warning regulators that stocks were low enough to threaten generation, compared with two filings in 2013. Utilities have been obliged to rely more on natural gas, increasing costs for consumers. “There’s plenty of coal,”Jim Thompson, a director of coal for IHS, an Englewood, Colorado-based energy and industrial analytics […]

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