No Pipeline, No Problem ! (we will use RAIL once again)

[Bob]

In my earlier threads:
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...highlight=rail

and

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...highlight=rail

"Massive freight rail explosion in North Dakota
3rd major incidents in 6 months in the transport of Crude Oil by freight train.."

"Another train derailment - Wisconsin
Carrying coal -The train had three locomotives and 135 coal cars from Wyoming headed for Sheboygan an 19 derailed with some precariously hanging off a bridge threatening the road below."

The transport of crude oil by old tanker cars apparently doesn't stop the rail transport companies from making a buck, does not matter one iota what disasters loom..







TransCanada considers rail as Keystone XL alternative, Girling says

From Oil and Gas Journal, 25 May 2014 Industry News

TransCanada Corp. is considering rail as an alternative to its proposed Keystone XL pipeline, Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said for the first time on May 21.

His response to a reporter’s question during a conference in New York indicated the Calgary transmission company was looking at the more expensive alternative to its 1,179-mile project from Hardesty, Alta., to Steele City, Neb.

“We are absolutely considering a rail option,” Girling told a Reuters reporter at the conference. “Our customers have needed to wait for several years, so we’re in discussions now with them over the rail option.”

Rail would be a "temporary solution", he added in a May 22 story in the Washington-based newspaper The Hill. “Our customers asked whether we would explore with them potentially building rail-car loading facilities [at Hardesty]…and we’ve said we will do that, and we’ll do it expeditiously,” Girling said.

Responding to an inquiry from OGJ, a TransCanada spokesman confirmed the reports on May 23. “We are looking at how to modify existing contracts with our customers to allow for rail shipments as we wait for US permits approving the construction of Keystone XL,” he said.

“Similar to other developments, rail loading and unloading facilities proximate to our existing infrastructure or our planned infrastructure would be required,” the spokesman said, adding, “Shippers and market demand would determine where along with ultimate market destinations.”

He explained that this would require modifying TransCanada’s current contractual relationships, which is what its customers asked the company to examine.

A typical unit train can move about 100,000 b/d, and new loading and unloading facilities would be designed to accommodate multiple unit train movements daily, he indicated.

A b/d is a barrel of oil per day. A barrel is 42 gallons typically, or this train will be moving 4,200,000 gallons of toxic flammable crude oil a day!

“It is too early to know exactly what it will cost or what all will be involved,” the spokesman said. “Some of our customers may have existing relationships in place with rail companies, while others do not. So it may involve the construction of some new loading and offloading facilities, and that has to be determined.”

The train cars are UNSAFE and OUTDATED, and can and do rupture when damaged.

The Canadian Federal government says it WILL NOT monitor the phasing out and the potential upgrading" of the antiquated rail tanker cars, but they will "require" a "plan" be put in place.

http://article.wn.com/view/2014/04/2..._in_3_years_8/

" Canada will require a three-year phase out or retrofit of the type of rail tankers involved in last summer's massive explosion of an oil train that destroyed much of a Quebec town and incinerated 47 people, a government official told The Associated Press. "

[Bob]

Petition to attempt to call notice to outdated unsafe tanker cars that transport oil, and dangerous chemicals on the rails every day in North America..

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/sto...ting-explosive

"Shipments of Bakken Crude Oil via rail are increasing exponentially across the United States. Most of these shipments are being carried out using DOT-111 tank cars.

"Out of 93,000 of these tank cars now in service, only 14,000 are up to current safety standards. And if that were not enough, Bakken Crude Oil is more volatile than other crude oil products. "

-------------------------

http://thegazette.com/subject/news/o...-iowa-20140518 - outdated rail cars haul dangerous loads in Iowa

"FAIRFAX — Will Forester spends his days fixing boats. But he thinks about trains.

"Every 10 to 20 minutes, he hears the horn of a Union Pacific train as it approaches Forester Marine in downtown Fairfax. The freight trains hauling coal hoppers, tank cars and flatbeds roar by his boat-repair shop, shaking the century-old former depot and making Forester’s ears ring.

“They go by at about 70 miles per hour,” Forester said. “It’s just pretty fast for a little town.”

"Included on those trains are DOT-111s, tank cars used to carry ethanol, crude oil and other hazardous liquids across the country despite concerns about the cars’ risk of puncture and fire in a derailment.

"Several high-profile train wrecks, including a fiery crash in Canada last summer that killed 47 people, have renewed scrutiny of the DOT-111s, regarded in Iowa and across the nation as the workhorse of the energy industry.

"Although never intended for high-speed use, DOT-111s may be driven through some parts of Iowa at nearly four times their recommended speed."

--------------------------

http://eaglefordtexas.com/news/id/75...goes-u-s-says/ - EagleFord Texas news - States MUST be warned of oil rail cargoes *shipping with DOT-111 rail tanker cars.

"May 7 (Reuters) – U.S. companies moving crude oil via rail must tell state officials when a cargo is moving across their regions, the U.S. Transportation Secretary said on Wednesday, the latest response to a string of fiery and sometimes deadly derailments.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, also said DOT-111 tank cars, the workhorse of the fast-growing oil-by-rail sector, should be avoided or reinforced wherever possible.

Officials have been under pressure to respond to a series of oil-by-rail mishaps in which tank cars derailed and then caught fire or exploded. The latest such incident was a week ago in Lynchburg, Virginia."

Canada Transportation doesn't seem to care that the US Federal Government blew the whistle; US says STOP don't use these cars.. Canada appears to be saying, well eh, maybe in 3 years, but until then we are still going to use what we have (paraphrased a bit)..

Feds issue emergency order on crude oil trains

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Transportation Department issued an emergency order Wednesday requiring that railroads inform state emergency management officials about the movement of large shipments of crude oil through their states and urged shippers not to use older model tanks cars that are easily ruptured in accidents, even at slow speeds.

The emergency order requires that each railroad operating trains containing more than 1 million gallons of crude oil — the equivalent of about 35 tank cars — from the booming Bakken region of North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada provide information on the trains’ expected movement, including frequency and county-by-county routes, to the states they traverse. The order also requires that railroads disclose the volume of oil being transported and how emergency responders can contact “at least one responsible party” at the railroad.

Much of the oil from the region is being shipped across the U.S. and Canada in trains of 100 cars or more that accident investigators have described as “moving pipelines.”

The trains traverse small towns and big cities alike. Local and state officials, fire chiefs and other emergency responders have complained that they often have no information on the contents of the freight trains moving through communities and their schedules.

Nor are they able to force railroads to provide that information, they say.

The department also issued a safety advisory urging shippers to use the most protective type of tank car in their fleets when shipping oil from the Bakken region. The order recommended that to the extent possible shippers not use older model tank cars known as DOT-111s. Accident investigators report the cars have ruptured or punctured, spilling their contents, even in accidents that occurred at speeds under 30 mph.

The tank cars are generally owned by or leased to oil companies that ship the crude, not the railroads.

The emergency order follows a warning two weeks ago from outgoing National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman that the department risks a “higher body count” as the result of fiery oil train accidents if it waits for new safety regulations to become final.

[Bob]

Three years to phase out the substandard DOT-111 tank cars not adequate

"Three years is the amount of time that we thought was the best saw off between what industry said that they could do and what is wanted by the Transportation Safety Board," Raitt said.

She said the three-year phase out will affect about 65,000 tank cars in North America, including a third or a quarter in Canada.

Raitt said industry thinks the three year phase out is "ambitious."

She announced the changes in response to recommendations by Canada's Transportation Safety Board in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Raitt was referring to last summer's massive explosion of an oil train that incinerated much of a Quebec town and killed 47 people, Canada's transport minister announced Wednesday.

Last July, a runaway oil train derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, near the Maine border. About 30 buildings were destroyed.

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said the DOT-111 tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol must be phased out or retrofitted within three years..

U.S. officials will be watching closely as the rail industry is deeply integrated across North America and both nations' accident investigators implored their governments earlier this year to impose new safety rules.

Raitt said she didn't have a sense of what the U.S. would do but said they are working with U.S. officials.

The DOT-111 tank car is considered the workhorse of the North American fleet and makes up about 70 percent of all tankers on the rails. But they are prone to rupture. The U.S. NTSB has been urging replacing or retrofitting the tank cars since 1991.

Canada's safety board has said a long phase-out would not be good enough.

ref: http://www.stltoday.com/business/loc...e828122dc.html

[Bob]

Can Seattle withstand an oil tank car train fire?

http://crosscut.com/2014/03/13/trans...-/?page=single

It was the type of accident that has cities around the country, including Seattle, examining their ability to respond to train wrecks involving tank cars of highly flammable petroleum crude oil.

A 106-car eastbound train crashed around 2 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2013. It had collided with a derailed car from a grain train that was travelling west. A total of 21 tank cars carrying crude oil ran off the tracks, some of them catching fire. The derailment occurred between two snow-covered fields, less than one mile from the western edge of Casselton, N.D., a town of about 2,300.

It was a cold day. Temperatures dropped to 15-below-zero. The foam used to extinguish flaming oil froze and couldn’t be sprayed. Firefighters decided to let the wreck burn, according to the emergency manager for Cass County, where Casselton is located. Un-punctured cars were heated by the flames and eventually ruptured in towering explosions.

It took between 16 and 18 hours for the thick, black smoke cloud to clear.

Eighteen breached cars released about 400,000 gallons of oil, according to a preliminary accident report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

“With the amount of train traffic coming through Cass County on a regular basis, we knew we were probably at risk of something happening,” emergency manager Dave Rogness said. “We were never expecting that it would happen that quickly.”

The Casselton accident was not the only fiery wreck last year that has local governments in many areas worried: A runaway train crashed and exploded in the small Quebec town of Lac Megantic last July, killing 47 people and, according to Transport Canada, causing $200 million of property damage. The accident happened around 1:15 a.m. Some who died were at a popular cafe near the center of the crash. In November, a 90-car train derailed near a trestle in Alabama and some of the 20 derailed tankers burst into flames.

Each of the trains carried crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken fields, which "may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude oil," according to a Jan. 2 safety alert issued by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is part of the federal Department of Transportation. (this oil transport was NOT labeled as it should have been as HIGHLY DANGEROUS)

This is the same oil that trains commonly deliver to Washington refineries. It is unclear how frequently the cargo enters Seattle's city limits.

The rapid uptick in crude-by-rail shipments is due largely to an oil boom in North Dakota. The limited pipeline capacity in the region has producers turning to rail in order to move the oil to refineries. In 2010, 29,605 tank cars of crude oil originated in the U.S., according to the American Association of Railroads, a trade organization. That number skyrocketed to an estimated 400,000 tank cars in 2013.

It will skyrocket further with the plans of TRANS CANADA to ship by rail instead of by pipeline.

[Carmody]

I have family members who have worked for the rail companies, in rail work.

It is trivially easy to derail a train, and 99.999% of a train's travel and the given track, is outside of any form of protection from malfeasance.

About a 100lb steel bar, jammed into the ground the right way, and boom, she's off the rails.

It's bad enough that all those nasty chemicals are on the trains in the first place, never mind entire 100+ car runs of crude.

In the case of a crude run like that, they should be required to run a separate engine a few miles ahead to be sure the track is functional.

[Bob]

Posted by Carmody (here)
I have family members who have worked for the rail companies, in rail work.

It is trivially easy to derail a train, and 99.999% of a train's travel and the given track, is outside of any form of protection from malfeasance.

About a 100lb steel bar, jammed into the ground the right way, and boom, she's off the rails.

It's bad enough that all those nasty chemicals are on the trains in the first place, never mind entire 100+ car runs of crude.

In the case of a crude run like that, they should be required to run a separate engine a few miles ahead to be sure the track is functional.

Spotter cars, similar to how a "Wide Load" is run on the roadways, with the spotters, running up ahead to verify the road is "all clear", as well as check for anything coming up from behind..

Great idea, wonder if they are listening.. What is needed very much right now, is to get the older tankers, older cars OUT of the system and no longer being used.

[sigma6]

Posted by Carmody (here)
I have family members who have worked for the rail companies, in rail work.
It is trivially easy to derail a train, and 99.999% of a train's travel and the given track, is outside of any form of protection from malfeasance.
About a 100lb steel bar, jammed into the ground the right way, and boom, she's off the rails.
It's bad enough that all those nasty chemicals are on the trains in the first place, never mind entire 100+ car runs of crude.
In the case of a crude run like that, they should be required to run a separate engine a few miles ahead to be sure the track is functional.

yeah I'd say with those statistics above it's sabotage... just like the one in Canada. Notice the only derailing these days is exploding oil tankers??? O.o
The war is still on, the Elites still got a lot of money to burn yet...

[Heartsong]

It was discovered that oil from the North Dakota fraking is being carried in the old tank cars though our town. They sometimes us the old track that runs less than a quarter mile in front of our house. They say they'll use the newer safer cars "when they are available."

[Bob]

Posted by Heartsong (here)
It was discovered that oil from the North Dakota fraking is being carried in the old tank cars though our town. They sometimes us the old track that runs less than a quarter mile in front of our house. They say they'll use the newer safer cars "when they are available."

The frak'd grade of oil is a very light oil from the deep shales. Highly combustible. .

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/sto...ting-explosive is the link to the petition...

http://www.ntsb.gov/about/bio_hersman.html. Deb Hersman at the national transportation safety board is available to take phone calls, emails and or petitions about the issue..

[DeDukshyn]

Digging up an older thread ...

I've been hinting at sabotage with all these rail accidents, driven by the "pipeline / railcar" war that seems to be taking place ...

Here is another incident where a 57 car train was left at the top of a hill above the town of Revelstoke B.C. with no hand brakes applied to it. When investigated, it was revealed that a senior person with the company had ordered two newbs (engineer and conductor) directly to not set the brake, and were overruled by the senior officer when they questioned that judgement ... The cars on this particular train were carrying oil.

Article here:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cp-t...rant-1.3118752