The Federal Railroad Administration said it has made a preliminary determination that the derailment of a crude oil train in Oregon earlier this month resulted from the failure of Union Continue Reading
Oil Train Derails Oregon transportation officials are now calling for a halt of Union Pacific trains after a derailment on the third of June. Eleven cars from a 96-car train Continue Reading
Luck was in abundance on Friday in Mosier, Oregon where the latest Bakken oil train derailed and erupted into flames near a 50-home residential area and a school. As Mosier Continue Reading
A multi-car oil train derailed in northern Oregon on Friday, about 70 miles (110 km) outside of Portland, officials confirmed, though there were no initial reports of injuries. Black smoke Continue Reading
A train towing cars full of oil derailed Friday in Oregon’s scenic Columbia River Gorge, sparking a fire that sent a plume of black smoke high into the sky. The Continue Reading
CSX earnings have been hurt by the drop in coal shipments. CSX Corp. CSX 1.88 % on Tuesday reported revenue fell in the first quarter, as the volume of coal Continue Reading
Cheap natural gas has slashed coal traffic across the U.S. rail network and in turn hit demand for diesel, demonstrating the interlocking relationship between the country’s energy and transport systems. Continue Reading
Note: Other includes pipeline, other waterway, Great Lakes barge, tidewater pier, and coastal ports. Intermodal transit uses multiple modes of delivery. Data for 2015 are preliminary. U.S. electric power generators Continue Reading
U.S. crude-by-rail shipments dipped nearly 17% in 2015 as domestic crude oil production slowed, according to the Association of American Railroads. Railroads moved 410,249 carloads of U.S. crude last year, Continue Reading
The Jacksonville, Fla., railroad has been struggling with a secular decline in coal and shifts in other energy markets. The company said Wednesday that intensifying coal headwinds and the impact Continue Reading
Phillips 66 says a long-proposed crude-by-rail project at one of its California refineries is more critical to supply because of the extended shutdown of an oil pipeline that ruptured last Continue Reading
Shipments of crude oil by railroad into California plummeted by 69 percent in 2015 amid the price collapse in oil and the shrinking difference in international and U.S. prices. California Continue Reading
The dismal energy market slammed two of North America’s biggest freight railroads in the fourth quarter, prompting them to slash jobs and driving profits below Wall Street’s expectations. Union Pacific Continue Reading
Weak crude prices and “unfavorable” spreads inhibited Union Pacific crude-by-rail shipments, the company said during its fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday. Crude shipments by Union Pacific shed 42% in the fourth Continue Reading
The amount of oil hauled on US railways has declined steeply in the past year as refineries swallow more foreign supplies in the face of falling domestic crude output. Tank Continue Reading
The amount of oil hauled on US railways has declined steeply in the past year as refineries swallow more foreign supplies in the face of falling domestic crude output. Tank Continue Reading
Traffic on the U.S. rail network continues to weaken in a sign of the slowdown spreading across the industrial economy and efforts by firms to reverse the unplanned build up Continue Reading
New York’s attorney general is calling on federal transportation regulators to impose new safety rules governing the combustibility of crude oil shipped by rail. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants energy Continue Reading
The rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline will put more oil on North American rails, but new pipelines will in time come to take up the slack, a report finds. Continue Reading
Rail company Canadian Pacific makes unsolicited bid for U.S. rival Norfolk Southern. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock CALGARY, Alberta, Nov. 18 (UPI) — Rail company Canadian Pacific said it made an offer to U.S. rival Norfolk Southern Corp. to join forces to create a new transcontinental transit entity. Canadian Pacific said it was "proposing a business combination that would create a transcontinental railroad with the scale and reach to deliver improved levels of service to customers and communities while enhancing competition and creating significant shareholder value." Merging the two rail companies would create a network stretching to the southern U.S. border and across most of Canada . The industry, following its peers in the oil and gas pipeline sector, has faced challenges because of a decrease in coal shipments and changing needs for oil and gas transit. Last week, industry research group Genscape said leasing rates for rail car model […]
U.S. study of post-Keystone XL energy landscape in Canada finds rail may carry more oil across the region. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) — Crude oil deliveries from Alberta, Canada, will rely on rail in the wake of the permit refusal for Keystone XL , the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. The U.S. State Department last week denied TransCanada’s permit to build the cross-border Keystone XL oil pipeline. The project was designed to carry as much as 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to Nebraska. From there, it would eventually send oil through the so-called Gulf Coast Project, which TransCanada put into service in 2014, and on to refineries along the southern U.S. coast Mark Cooper , a TransCanada spokesman, said saying no to Keystone XL means more of Canada’s crude oil would be sent to the U.S. market by rail, which the company […]
Railroads lost an agency appeal with the U.S. Department of Transportation in a battle over new crude-by-rail rules that require the installation of expensive new brakes on trains hauling hazardous flammable materials. In a ruling issued by its Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last week, the agency denied appeals challenging the new rules, including one from the Association of American Railroads. “While we understand that shippers, carriers, and tank-car manufacturers for Class 3 flammable liquids will face new challenges in the wake of these regulations, we maintain that they are capable of complying with the final rule,” the agency wrote. The rail-industry group could still appeal the decision in court. A spokesman said the organization is reviewing the decision and considering its options. The new rules, issued by the Transportation Department in May , include the phasing in of tougher tank-car standards over several years and requirements for […]
Train Derailment WATERTOWN, Wis. (AP) — A Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying crude oil derailed Sunday in Wisconsin, the second day in a row a freight train derailed in the state. The eastbound CP train derailed about 2 p.m. in Watertown in the southeastern part of the state. The railroad said at least 10 cars derailed, and some were leaking. No fires or injuries were reported. CP was sending teams to the site. "CP takes this incident extremely seriously," the railroad said in a news release. On Saturday, a freight train derailed near Alma in western Wisconsin, spilling thousands of gallons of ethanol. BNSF Railway said crews continued Sunday to transfer ethanol from the derailed cars and get the cars back on the tracks. The BNSF train derailed at 8:45 a.m. Saturday about two miles north of Alma, a town along the Mississippi River. Some of the 25 derailed […]
HELENA, Mont.—Montana’s oversight of railroad safety falls short at a time when crude-oil train traffic from the Bakken region, already high, is only expected to increase, a new audit found. Montana has no active rail-safety plan and employs only two inspectors to cover the state, the Montana Legislative Audit Division report released Wednesday said. In addition, there is a lack of statewide emergency planning and hazardous-material response capability should an oil spill occur, the report said. That is a potentially precarious situation with a new crude-oil transfer station in North Dakota coming online that should boost oil traffic crossing Montana from about 10 trains a week to as many as 15 cars a week. About 20% of Montanans live in an evacuation zone for an oil-train derailment, which is within a half-mile of a rail line, the report said. Two of the agencies criticized in the report said they […]
For years, railroads like Union Pacific have been developing their intermodal businesses of moving containers and trailers, allowing them to compete directly with truckers on their home turf. As fuel prices skyrocketed and trucking companies faced driver and capacity crunches, railroads became a logical, cheaper choice. But diesel prices have fallen by about 30% over the past year to $2.531 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, something that has made trucking prices more competitive again. “I think you look at what’s going on currently in the trucking environment, the lower fuel cost is allowing trucks to be more competitive vis-à-vis rail, just by virtue of that fact,” said Eric Butler, Union Pacific’s executive vice president of marketing and sales, on an earnings call with analysts Thursday. While Union Pacific still expects to be able to grow its domestic intermodal business to record volumes for the seventh […]
A major commodities shipping terminal would be adjacent to the Port of Oakland, above. OAKLAND, Calif.—A proposal that could make this city a gateway for Utah coal to be shipped overseas has become a political flash point and put pressure on Gov. Jerry Brown, a former mayor known for his warnings on climate change, to come out against the project. The proposed deal would grant four coal-producing counties in Utah rail access to a major commodities shipping terminal under development on city land, adjacent to the Port of Oakland, in exchange for a $53 million investment. City officials hope the redevelopment plan, on an old Army base, would bring thousands of jobs to a city that still has pockets of poverty and violence even as the region’s tech sector booms and housing costs rise. California ports in Stockton, Richmond and Long Beach export coal, but because of climate change […]
The only sign of trouble aboard a Norfolk Southern train, hauling roughly 9,000 tons of Canadian crude in western Pennsylvania last year, was a moderate sway in the locomotive as it entered a bend on the Kiskiminetas River. The first 66 cars had passed safely around the curve when the emergency brakes suddenly engaged, slamming the train to a stop. The conductor trudged back nearly a mile through newly fallen snow to see what happened. Twenty-one cars had derailed, one slamming through the wall of a nearby factory. Four tank cars were punctured, sending 4,300 gallons of crude pouring out of the tangled wreckage. The cause of the accident in North Vandergrift was identified as a failure in the rails — not aging or poorly maintained tracks, but a relatively new section laid less than a year earlier. The February 2014 crash fits into an alarming pattern across North […]
The Canadian Pacific railyard is pictured in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia February 15, 2015. Canadian rail companies are slashing rates for shipping crude in their first serious effort to revive an industry rocked by the rout in global oil prices, according to shippers and terminal operators who are seeing discounts of as much as 25 percent. The move highlights how railroads are struggling to compete with pipelines for a share of shrinking crude shipments across North America, particularly in Canada, where a long hoped-for boom in oil sands traffic has fizzled with the oil bust. Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, which together account for the vast majority of crude-by-rail cargoes shipped across the country, are dropping prices, four people familiar with the cuts told Reuters. The size of the cuts varied among sources, leading one source to suggest that railroads may be working with individual shippers to […]
Shiho Fukada for Al Jazeera America Propane tanks sit on the rail depot of Grafton & Upton Railroad in Grafton, Massachusetts, Sept. 24, 2015. This article was produced in collaboration with the New England Center for Investigative Reporting , a nonprofit news outlet in Boston that holds the powerful accountable and trains a new generation of investigative reporters. GRAFTON, Mass. — In early 2012, residents of this sleepy town began to notice an unusual amount of activity around the Grafton & Upton rail yard at the north end of town. An old barn that had stood for over a century was knocked down. Bulldozers came out, clearing the land. The tiny 16.5-mile railroad had been nearly defunct, but was purchased in 2008 by Jon Delli Priscoli, a major local developer with a penchant for railroads; he also owns a Thomas the Tank Engine theme park 70 miles away. At […]
A shovel is placed over coal briquettes during a protest in front of the chancellery in Berlin December 3, 2014. Investors in U.S. railroad stocks, who have been punished in 2015 by an accelerating decline in high-margin coal shipments, now are pinning their long-term hopes on a resurgence in consumer spending. Their bet is that a strengthening economy will produce enough demand that railroads will be able to replace the income lost to years of declining coal use with so-called intermodal shipping – the movement of containers stuffed with clothing, furniture and other consumer goods. Thanks to environmental rules regulating power plant emissions, coal use has declined steadily since peaking in 2008. So far this year, freight volumes have tumbled 9.2 percent as low energy prices encouraged utilities to switch to burning cheaper natural gas, while the strong U.S. dollar has hurt exports. The accelerated decline this year has […]
With myriad headwinds driving down coal shipments this year, officials with Class 1 US railroads painted a dim picture of their coal business Wednesday while speaking at the Cowen and Company 8th Annual Global Transportation Conference in Boston. In presentations broadcast online, officials with CSX, Northern Southern, Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern and Genesee & Wyoming sited low natural gas prices, mild summer weather and high utility stockpiles as the primary causes for a drop in demand. Fredrik Eliasson, CSX’s chief sales and marketing officer, said the railroad will lose about $400 million in coal business this year compared with 2014 and by the end of this year about $1.3 billion of coal revenue will have "disappeared" over the last four years. "I think it’s more and more realistic to think that where we are from a coal perspective, we’re not going to go back to kind of the […]
North Dakota gets federal grant to improve safer transport of energy products like crude oil. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (UPI) — A grant from a federal safety regulator will help North Dakota invest in the infrastructure needed to transport oil safely and efficiently, a senator said. U.S. Sen. John Hoeven , R-N.D., said the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration granted the state about $200,000 to improve its ability to respond to incidents involving the transportation of hazardous materials like crude oil . "It’s important for us to invest in the right kind of infrastructure to move energy [resources] as safely and efficiently as possible, now and into the future," Hoeven said in a statement. "This grant will help us do just that." Hoeven, who serves on an energy committee in the U.S. Senate, said he’s been pushing an agenda that includes improvements in rail […]
Unused oil tank cars are pictured on Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad tracks outside Hinsdale, New York August 24, 2015. Amid the rolling mountains surrounding this quiet town in southwest New York state, tucked away on miles-long stretches of underused rail tracks, hundreds of idle oil tank cars attest to the extent of fallout from oil’s rout. The oil tank cars – a year ago sought-after to haul crude from North Dakota to New Jersey – now stand idle as a result of two converging trends: the reversal in U.S. shale oil production and the completion of new pipelines. They show how the pain from the slump in the oil-by-rail industry has spread far and wide. Big rail lines, such as Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF Railways or Union Pacific are losing what used to be their fastest-growing source of new traffic; refiners such as PBF Energy are left with […]
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) issued a study he commissioned in late April of issues stemming from the growing number of crude oil shipments by rail across the state. The report by Allan M. Zarembski, who directs the Railroad Engineering Program at the University of Delaware’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, made 27 recommendations including calls for more frequent track inspections and adoption of several voluntary safety measures. “Every week, roughly 60-70 trains carrying crude oil travel through Pennsylvania destined for Philadelphia or another East Coast refinery, and I have expressed grave concern regarding the transportation of this oil and have taken several steps to prevent potential oil train derailments,” Wolf said as he released the report on Aug. 17. “Protecting Pennsylvanians is my top priority and Dr. Zarembski’s report is important in helping my administration take the necessary steps,” he said. “I will also continue to work with […]
State data from North Dakota show rail transport of crude oil falling back after peaking in December 2014. Graph courtesy of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority BISMARCK, N.D., Aug. 18 (UPI) — New pipelines operating in North Dakota have pushed the volume of crude oil by rail lower during the first half of the year, a state official said. Rail broke away from pipelines as the main source of crude oil delivery in 2012. The boom in shale oil production from the so-called Williston basin, hosting the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations, had outpaced pipeline capacity, leaving companies with rail as the primary alternative transit option. After peaking in December 2014, when the state set its crude oil production record at 1.22 million barrels per day, transport by rail has been in a general decline and is now at parity with pipeline transport. Justin Kringstad, director of the […]
TransCanada points to study that says using pipelines to transport oil and natural gas is safer than rail. Photo courtesy of TransCanada. CALGARY, Alberta, Aug. 14 (UPI) — Pipeline company TransCanada pointed to a study that suggests the increase in the rail transport of crude oil is a risky option for the industry. TransCanada spokesperson Mark Cooper in an emailed statement said a report from The Fraser Institute shows transport of crude oil and natural gas in Canada by pipelines is 4.5 times safer than rail. For its long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline through the United States, the company said pipelines are also substantially less carbon intensive than other modes of transit. "Federally regulated pipelines in Canada currently move just under 15 times more hydrocarbons than do the railroads," Kenneth P. Green, the study’s lead author, said in a statement. "But with increased production and continued opposition to new pipeline […]
An aerial view of burnt train cars after a train derailment and explosion in Lac-Megantic, Quebec July 8, 2013, in this picture provided by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. The Obama administration on Wednesday released a new regulation intended to prevent explosive rail disasters such as the 2013 oil train derailment that killed 47 people and destroyed part of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The new rule by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requires two qualified railroad employees to ensure that handbrakes and other safety equipment have been properly set on trains left unattended while carrying dangerous materials such as crude oil or ethanol. A series of oil train accidents in recent years led the United States and Canada in May to announce sweeping new safety regulations that require more secure tank cars and advanced braking technology to prevent moving trains from derailing and spilling their contents. The new rule is […]
Orders for railroad tank cars fell sharply in second quarter, reflecting lower shipments of crude oil amid falling prices. Orders for 3,155 tank cars were placed in the quarter, down 29% from first quarter and off 70% from the second quarter of 2014, the Railway Supply Institute reported. The order backlog dropped 11% from the first quarter to 46,375 tank cars. The decline comes amid a broad decline in energy shipments at railroads. Carload volume for oil and petroleum products for the week ended July 18 was down 20% from last year and were off 2.7% in the first 28 weeks of 2015 from the same period in 2014, according to the Association of American Railroads. Meanwhile, orders for boxcars surged in the second quarter as shippers—led by the paper industry—complained of car shortages caused by railroads culling older boxcars from their fleets. Boxcar orders were 2,940 against none […]
AP Photo/Richard Peterson Train Derailment BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A train that derailed and spilled 35,000 gallons of oil in northeastern Montana was traveling within authorized speed limits, federal officials said Monday as they continued to probe the accident’s cause. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train loaded with crude from North Dakota was traveling 44 miles per hour before Thursday’s wreck, U.S. Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Matthew Lehner said. Officials have said the maximum authorized speed in the area is 45 mph. Twenty-two cars on the BNSF train derailed near the small town of Culbertson. Lehner said the tank cars were a model known as the "1232,"which is built under a 2011 industry standard intended to be more crash-resistant than earlier designs. But several recent oil train crashes, including some that caught fire, also involved 1232s and federal officials are seeking to phase out the cars. The oil […]
The derailment of an oil train in rural northeastern Montana follows a string of accidents as shipments of crude by rail have increased dramatically in recent years, driven by a surge in domestic production: – July 5, 2013: A runaway Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train that had been left unattended derailed, spilling oil and catching fire inside the town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec. Forty-seven people were killed and 30 buildings burned in the town’s center. About 1.6 million gallons of oil was spilled. The oil was being transported from the Bakken region of North Dakota, the heart of an oil fracking boom, to a refinery in Canada. – Nov. 8, 2013: An oil train from North Dakota derailed and exploded near Aliceville, Alabama. There were no deaths, but an estimated 749,000 gallons of oil spilled from 26 tanker cars. – Dec. 30, 2013: A fire engulfed tank cars […]
A train derailment in rural eastern Montana spilled 35,000 gallons (132,489 liters) of crude oil and forced the evacuation of about 30 people, a U.S. official said on Friday in an email to state officials. About 20 cars on the Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF [BNISF.UL] crude oil train went off the rails east of Culbertson, Montana, on Thursday evening, officials said. There was no fire and no injuries were reported. A hazardous materials team from BNSF responded to the scene and contained the spilled oil with earthen dams, Michael Turnbull, an official with the U.S. Department of Transportation, said in an email to Montana officials that was released to the media. The spilled crude did not reach any waterways, the email said. Culbertson authorities temporarily evacuated about 30 people from an area a half-mile around the accident site, Turnbull’s email said. The spilled crude came from three breached tank cars […]
U.S. railroads, Wall Street favorites for much of the past decade, are slumping into a bear market amid a three-way squeeze from plunging coal, crude-oil and grain shipments. An index of the four largest publicly traded U.S. carriers has dropped 20 percent from its peak in November, paced by Kansas City Southern, as the companies struggle to offset the loss of volumes. They haven’t tumbled this much since 2011. Those difficulties are likely to drag on, leading to the first annual industrywide earnings decline since 2009, as low natural gas prices sap coal demand, U.S. oil drilling slows and harvests return to normal after a record crop. That threatens to crimp a rally that made the group one of the top performers in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. “It’s going to be a tough year,” David Vernon, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst, said in a telephone […]
Canadian government files federal charges in relation to the Lac-Megantic oil-train disaster, which in 2013 left more than 40 people dead. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock OTTAWA, June 23 (UPI) — The Canadian transport authority said it filed legal charges in connection with the Lac-Megantic oil-train disaster in 2013 under two federal acts. The federal Transport Canada said charges filed for violations of the Fisheries Act relate to the release of crude oil in and around the site of the 2013 derailment into fish-bearing waters. Charges under the Railway Safety Act relate to insufficient application and testing of handbrakes on the locomotive. Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, the train’s operator, blamed the air brakes on the locomotive holding the freight for the Lac-Megantic incident and later filed for bankruptcy protection. The disaster left more than 40 people dead. "The actions taken by the government of Canada in response to this […]
Oil companies have quietly agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars into a compensation fund for deaths and damage caused by a 2013 oil-train explosion in Quebec, though the energy industry has maintained it wasn’t responsible for the disaster. If U.S. and Canadian courts approve the fund, the companies would be shielded from several lawsuits claiming wrongful death and negligence in connection with the tragedy. Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., the small railroad hauling the crude oil, sought bankruptcy protection soon after the accident, in which an unattended train carrying oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation derailed and erupted into flames, killing 47. A trustee appointed by the bankruptcy court, who has approved the compensation fund, contended in court filings that oil producers were well aware the oil they were selling was dangerously volatile and failed to take action to make transporting it safer. Oil companies, […]
Miami company that sold crude oil tied to Lac-Megantic disaster in 2013 contributes to multi-million dollar settlement for vicitms. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock MIAMI, June 9 (UPI) — A company tied to the sale of the oil on the train that crashed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013 said it agreed to contribute to a settlement for victims. World Fuel Services Corp. said it agreed to contribute about $90 million to a compensation fund for victims of the 2013 derailment as part of a settlement with the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and its bankruptcy trustees. "We believe that participating in the settlement and contributing to the compensation fund is in the best interests of our shareholders and will also aid in providing closure to those affected by this tragic accident," the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, Michael Kasbar, said in a statement. A World Fuel subsidiary sold the […]
Canadian crude oil exports by rail down by more than a quarter year-on-year, federal data show. Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock CALGARY, Alberta, June 3 (UPI) — Canadian crude oil exports by rail for the three months ending in March declined by more than 25 percent year-on-year, federal data show. The National Energy Board updated data on total crude oil exports by rail , showing an average 119,755 barrels per day were shipped for the three months ending in March. That’s down 24 percent from the three-month period ending in December and 27 percent less than the same period in 2014. Though rail shipments have declined recently, the volume delivered through March 2015 is six times greater than the volume delivered for the three months ending March 2012, data show. North American crude oil production has increased to the point that it’s more than the existing pipeline infrastructure can handle, […]
ALBANY, N.Y., May 22 (UPI) — New York’s state government found there would be "at least one" environmental issue with a proposal to build a tar sands storage facility at a rail terminal. The state Department of Environmental Conservation rescinded a 2013 notice to Global Partners, which has headquarters in Massachusetts, that a proposed project to warm rail cars filled with the heavier form of crude oil called bitumen would not present environmental threats. Global wanted to install boilers at its Albany terminal to offload to vessels headed for coastal refineries. DEC rescinded its 2013 notice after reviewing thousands of comments and documents, including those submitted by environmental groups. Its review found "little experience" with heating bitumen in major oil storage facilities. "This new information suggests that the proposed project has the potential for at least one significant adverse environmental impact that was not considered in the negative declaration," […]
ENLARGE Crude oil volume on U.S. railroads has been falling as the declining price of oil pushes companies to pull back production. Photo: Associated Press Railroads carried less crude oil in the first quarter as oil companies scaled back domestic shipments. The Association of American Railroads reported that crude oil carried by big U.S. railroads fell nearly 14% to 113,089 carloads compared with the fourth quarter of 2014. The railroads have been major beneficiaries of the U.S. energy boom, as oil companies shipped crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to refineries on the coasts. But as the price of oil tumbled, shipments dipped. Crude-by-rail shipments are still a small part of railroads’ total revenues—only about 5% for the sector combined with drilling supplies—but the business has grown at a rapid rate in recent years. The tonnage of crude petroleum carried by U.S. railroads soared from about […]
Crude by Rail Citing ‘customer complaints’, the BNSF railway has abandoned plans to buy 5,000 crude oil tankers. Typically, leasing companies or oil companies own the tank cars that move crude along the tracks and not the railroads themselves. But last year, BNSF requested proposals from railcar manufacturers to produce cars for them that were stronger and safer cars than the current DOT standards. The company had hoped that producing cars with thicker shells, reinforced ends and thermal blankets would reduce the risks of using trains to haul oil. Over the past two years, BNSF Railway has been involved in a number of incidents including a derailment and fiery crash that caused the evacuation of a small town in North Dakota just last week. The company confirmed that the eight cars that derailed were the unjacketed CPC-1232 models that the federal government would like phased out by 2020 due […]
American Petroleum Institute challenges federal mandates for oil-trains in court, arguing timelines are arbitrary. File Photo by Steven Frame/Shutterstock. WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) — The American Petroleum Institute said it filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation challenging a federal timeline for oil-train safety. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx hosted Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt in Washington to announce new standards for "stronger, safer rail tank cars" carrying flammable liquids like crude oil through North America. By Jan. 1, 2018, the U.S. rule mandates the retrofit or removal from the rail fleet for oil transport of cars designated DOT-111. The Canadian government set a May 1, 2017, deadline. Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, said the industry was frustrated with those timelines. "Improving on a 99.997 percent safety record requires data-driven efforts to prevent derailments with enhanced inspections and maintenance, upgrade the tank car […]
