CSX oil train derailment

[Euclid]

oltmannd

 

Euclid

Now that the carbuilders have said that it is impossible to prevent tank car breaches in high speed derailments by making the cars stronger, what is the point of new DOT standards to make the cars stonger? 

 

 

Stronger = better, not perfect.  Stonger cars will breach less often.  

 

That seems like a performance standard will be impossible to measure.  You could have ten oil train wrecks in a year, and the industry can say that it would have been worse without the new standards. 

I know that perfection is impossible, so it cannot be expected.  But when the carbuilders say that it is impossible to prevent tank car breaches in high speed derailments, that is as far from perfection as can be.

[WilliamKiesel]

It has been suggested that tank cars in and by themselves without sensors, instrmentation and communication of data are stupid containers. It is obvious from Mount Carbon, WV, Lynchburg, VA, and Aliceville, AL, that the composition of bakken crude is something to consider. Its weight allows for only about 28,000 gallons to be loaded into a tank car. That volume alone allows for slosh behavior. Until slosh is fully understood and how bakken crude behaves it appears explosions will happen.

The only safe tank car is one that is designed to deliver data about the bakken crude behavior in transit. A stronger stupid tank car is useless in identifying the factors leading to derailment and explosion. Only an intelligent design will enable prevention.

As mentioned, pipeline SCADA systems monitor stupid pipe. However, SCADA relies upon changes in pressure. The monitoring is typically too far a part than what is prudent. The intervening r.o.w. valves all too often require a person to physically activate to close. Remotely controlled valves often are often without redundant design.  So, the delay in detection and response means that an enormous column of refined or crude petroleum product is spilled and harms the envonment. Or, explodes and harms life, limb and / or property.

Polymer pipe liner with a web wrap of fiberoptic strands is available allowing for continuous analysis of pipeline r.o.w. integrity. Use of such makes the pipeline intelligent.

If a tank car was continuously equipped similarly with any and all sensor devices to measure heat, integrity, slosh, wheel rail interaction, truck stability etc. then bakken crude might likely to be transported with confidence. As it is, it might be a matter of time that a catastrophe happens in a metro area with stupid tank cars. Intelligent tank cars will measureably prevent explosions.

 

[Murphy Siding]

WilliamKiesel

If a tank car was continuously equipped similarly with any and all sensor devices to measure heat, integrity, slosh, wheel rail interaction, truck stability etc. then bakken crude might likely to be transported with confidence. As it is, it might be a matter of time that a catastrophe happens in a metro area with stupid tank cars. Intelligent tank cars will measureably prevent explosions.

 

 

   I'm not sure I understand how that would prevent a derailment, and possible explosion.  Wouldn't these sensors send off pertinent information seconds before-or after-a derailment?

     It makes me think of an auto accident in our city a couple of years back.  A Mr. Peterson had too much to drink, and crashed into a house in the wee hours of the morning.  He then fled on foot.  The Onstar system in his Cadilac SUV then automatically called 911 when he didn't respond.  "Mr. Peterson?  Are you alright?  Mr. Peterson?  Onstar will now automatically call 911 on your behalf."

     It seems to me, that the sensors will be transmitting information about a derailment taking place, but won't be capable of preventing one.  A pipeline getting warmer or losing pressure must act entirely different than a loaded oil train leaving the tracks.

[schlimm]

oltmannd

 

 

WilliamKiesel

So, is sloshing the problem? If so, what is the appropriate speed. What is the best manner for operation? What is the optimum number of tank cars? Should spacer cars with new draft gear and dampening design be interspered through the train? already suggested, might an electric controlled air brake system be part of he answer?

 

 

These are all good questions.  It's clear that the standard method of doing business is inadequate for these trains since there are so many and the danger is fairly great.  The industry better get busy figuring out the answers.

 

As you said in a later post, better is not perfect.   Improving safety (crude oil and ethanol tank car transport, derailments, highways crossings) is always by incremental improvements, i.e., better.   Unfortunately, some posters use the unattainability of perfection as a 'straw dog' as a justification to basically keep the status quo.

[Euclid]

This is turning out to be what I expected.  I asked many times what the new tank car regulations will accomplish.  The only answer is that they will increase safety.  That is it.  There is no quantification of how much safer. 

The carbuilders are saying that the increase in safety will be non-existent with high speed derailments.  So the new tank car standards will be of no consequence.  I don’t think the public or the politicians expected such a nebulous and inconsequential result when they demanded a solution. 

I do not expect Bakken shipping to stop because of economics.  I don’t think we will have time to reach the point where economics have that effect.  I expect Bakken shipping to stop because of a direct regulation in the name of public safety.    

[Norm48327]

Perfection in any endeavour will not likely ever be attained. So, what is your point in bashing those who are in touch with reality?

[blue streak 1]

There has been a lot of posting of how these new cars did not work.  Although pictures of the remaining train are few it appears that many cars maintained integrity.  If so two main questions need to be answered.  What worked and why & what did not work and why.

[Murphy Siding]

schlimm

As you said in a later post, better is not perfect.   Improving safety (crude oil and ethanol tank car transport, derailments, highways crossings) is always by incremental improvements, i.e., better.   Unfortunately, some posters use the unattainability of perfection as a 'straw dog' as a justification to basically keep the status quo.

 

   Blah blah blah: I'm sure you have valid points and thoughts to share; but if all you want to do is joust with other posters, I can't see how you think anyone would take your points and thoughts seriously..... 'Just sayin' ....

[Murphy Siding]

     Have there been this same type of derailments causing havoc with oil coming out of other sources?

[Euclid]

I think the point is don’t let perfection become the enemy of good enough. 

[Norm48327]

Euclid

I think the point is don’t let perfection become the enemy of good enough. 

 

I think you need to reread his post.

[Euclid]

William Kiesel is on the right track with his sensor ideas.  I do agree that there are many things that might be sensed, yet not soon enough to prevent an oil train pileup.  You have to pick and choose what to sense.  I have felt that a solution might be found in a whole new generation of oil train in which I can see the role of ECP brakes and sensors. 

One of the attributes of ECP brakes is the cable being available for sensor data.  Certainly it is wise to sense components like wheels, axles, brakes, truck tracking, vibration, etc.  All of these sources can give indications long before they fail.  

But for the railroads, this pursuit of specialized trains runs against the grain.  So with improvements to oil trains by the use of special braking and electronics, it might be automatically assumed that these features must be applied to the entire rolling stock fleet.  Maybe the prevailing assumption is that everything has to be “loose car” compatible.

That leads me to wonder if the price they give for applying ECP brakes to oil trains is the price for converting the entire North American fleet. 

The government has come close to requiring ECP brakes on oil trains, and the industry seem adamantly opposed.  Perhaps they see another PTC-like mandate on the horizon in the form of an ECP mandate.

I can see the position of the industry’s trepidation because just converting the oil trains to ECP would be very costly.

It would be interesting to see a side by side comparison of various airbrake scenarios with ECP brakes and PCP brakes.    

[dehusman]

Euclid

This is turning out to be what I expected.  I asked many times what the new tank car regulations will accomplish.  The only answer is that they will increase safety.  That is it.  There is no quantification of how much safer. 

Because there are probably no measures or standards set.  As I have said about 85 times now, look at the performance of the LPG tankers 30 years ago and look at their performance now.  Just because nobody can give you a set percentage of improvement or a set standard doesn't mean that there will be NO improvement.

The carbuilders are saying that the increase in safety will be non-existent with high speed derailments. 

That's not what they said.  They said that they cannot prevent breaches in a high energy derailment.  That doesn't say that safety can't be increased, it just says that there is no way they can prevent breaches in worst case scenarios.  SUPRISE, not every accident, most accidents, are not worst case scenarios.

So the new tank car standards will be of no consequence. 

You take every arguement to the absurd.

Just because a new car can still be breached, doesn't mean that there  is no improvement in safety.  A "bullet proof" vest can still be pierced by special high velocity rounds.  By your arguement, a bullet proof vest then is of no consequence.  I have relatives who are cops who will disagree with you.  Having seat belts and air bags in cars will still not prevent deaths in high energy crashes.  If you slam head on into a concrete wall at 150 mph, you will still most likely die despite the air bags and seat belts.  But that does not mean that seat belts are of no consequence in safety. 

Will the improvements completely eliminate the possibilty of a release?  No.  Will the improvements reduce the probability of a release?  Yes.  Even if it cannot be quantified to your satisfaction.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

oltmannd

Euclid

Being that the new DOT standards have not yet been released, does that mean that we have no way of knowing what those standards will require? 

I guess a surprise is always possible, but the rules usually look a lot like the drafts that circulated for comment.

Someplace else, an executive from Greenbriar (RR car mfgr.) was quoted as saying essentially "Just get the rule issued !"  [EDIT] Here it is, from: http://wvpublic.org/post/rail-car-company-urges-dot-finalize-new-safety-rules

Greg Saxton, Greenbrier’s chief engineer of manufacturing operations, said:

“Get on with it. You know this rule was supposed to be out the first of this year. Then around the first of the year, they says we’re going to get it out on May 12. Well, this has been going on a lot longer than a couple years, as I say.” . . . “I don’t know how this goes on forever, but we want it to stop.” [END EDIT]  

I haven't looked up the proposed rules myself, so I have to wonder: What is the proposed test or means to achieve better safety ?  Is it just in better materials (tougher, higher strength, more impact-resistant, etc.), or stronger assemblies (more material, maybe more support, etc.), and so on ?

In the building industry, there used to be a test to simulate the tornado impact resistance of a wall assembly, where a telephone pole was essentially shot at the wall by a compressed air cannon at a speed of like 100 MPH - really, a surrogate or substitute for the real thing.  Is something like that proposed to test tank car shells under the new regs ?  Say, shoot or drop a piece of rail on it endwise from a height of like 100 ft. to simulate the puncture-like impact forces in a derailment, and see how well the existing and proposed designs perform ?  While a simplified substitute, at least then there'd be something quantifiable to measure and use as a guide to what's 'better' and what's not.

- Paul North.     

[Euclid]

Paul,

I think those points raise a lot of good questions.  They are the questions of the hour in this oil train safety debate.    

[schlimm]

Murphy Siding

 

 

schlimm

As you said in a later post, better is not perfect.   Improving safety (crude oil and ethanol tank car transport, derailments, highways crossings) is always by incremental improvements, i.e., better.   Unfortunately, some posters use the unattainability of perfection as a 'straw dog' as a justification to basically keep the status quo.

 

 

 

 

   Blah blah blah: I'm sure you have valid points and thoughts to share; but if all you want to do is joust with other posters, I can't see how you think anyone would take your points and thoughts seriously..... 'Just sayin' ....

 

 

Well, I made a simple, declarative sentence.  And it said "some posters."  But perhaps in your need to defend a certain element on these forums who will not tolerate any criticism of the status quo, you choose to misread.  Or perhaps you consider yourself to be representative of all?  So be it.  

[schlimm]

Norm48327

Perfection in any endeavour will not likely ever be attained. So, what is your point in bashing those who are in touch with reality?

 

What is your point in posting anything?  Mostly what you do is to "bash" or threaten those who make any post which those like yourself and murphy cannot stand because you are intolerant of any criticism.

[schlimm]

dehusman

Will the improvements completely eliminate the possibilty of a release?  No.  Will the improvements reduce the probability of a release?  Yes.  Even if it cannot be quantified to your satisfaction.

Precisely, as the old chestnut goes, "Perfect is the enemy of good"  or, "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."  -—Confucius, attrib 

[n012944]

Euclid

This is turning out to be what I expected.  I asked many times what the new tank car regulations will accomplish.  The only answer is that they will increase safety.  That is it.  There is no quantification of how much safer. 

 

How do you expect someone to quantify something that has not been released yet?

 

Euclid

Being that the new DOT standards have not yet been released, does that mean that we have no way of knowing what those standards will require?

 

You know that the standards have not been released, and then get upset that no one has told you how the new standards will improve safety?  

 

 

This thread is starting to have a really familiar feel to it.  Bucky/Euclid asking the same questions over and over, with slightly different wording, talking in circles.....

[dehusman]

Paul_D_North_Jr

 Is something like that proposed to test tank car shells under the new regs ?  Say, shoot or drop a piece of rail on it endwise from a height of like 100 ft. to simulate the puncture-like impact forces in a derailment, and see how well the existing and proposed designs perform ?  While a simplified substitute, at least then there'd be something quantifiable to measure and use as a guide to what's 'better' and what's not.     

Short answer, yes.  They do impact tests, they do heat tests on the thermal shields, they do stress tests on the cars, they run prototype cars in regular train service and instrument them  to see how the components perform.

For example another new tank car design is in testing.  The test cars are billed in a route that is a huge loop about 2000 miles around.  The railroads haul it in regular trains, switching in in regular yards, just like any other car.  All it does is continuously loop, racking up miles.  In a couple months it can travel more miles than a regular car moves in years.

[Norm48327]

"This thread is starting to have a really familiar feel to it.  Bucky/Euclid asking the same questions over and over, with slightly different wording, talking in circles....."

You've noticed, huh?

[oltmannd]

Euclid

The carbuilders are saying that the increase in safety will be non-existent with high speed derailments. 

That is not what they said. It isn't even what you said they said previously.  

Obviously, stonger cars at the margins of the point of derailment will fare better than weaker ones. 

Euclid

There is no quantification of how much safer. 

That you know of.  It's really difficult to do - even harder than predicting automotive collision protection prior to crash testing since derailments are far more complex than auto collisions.

[oltmannd]

Paul_D_North_Jr

Someplace else, an executive from Greenbriar (RR car mfgr.) was quoted as saying essentially "Just get the rule issued !"

I suspect he's frustrated because he's pretty much dead in the water with tank car construction.  He needs the regs to get started on the design and get the supply chain spooled up.

It's really unfair to him for the regs to be delayed this long.

[Euclid]

Quote from the Railway Age article:

“The forthcoming DOT-117 tank car specification is very much like the CPC-1232, with the probable difference of a 1/8-inch thicker tank shell. Carbuilders themselves recently warned that no amount of extra metal or sophisticated engineering will protect against breaches and fires in high-energy derailments.

The DOT-117, like its parent CPC-1232, is designed to contain its lading in slow-speed derailments and rollovers, such as the CP incident early Saturday at Crowsnest Pass in which two loaded CPC-1232 cars rolled over without breaching.

The weekend’s triplet of derailments demonstrates a profound pair of truths: First, the CPC-1232 cars performed as specified in the CP incident without spilling a drop of crude despite rolling over into a rocky debris field created 112 years ago by Canada’s deadliest landslide. Second, the CPC-1232 and its DOT-117 successor offer minimal advantage over the old DOT-111 cars in high-speed, multi-car pileups like those in Ontario and West Virginia.”

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

LOW SPEED DERAILMENTS AND ROLLOVERS:  Stronger tank cars will fix the problem.

HIGH SPEED DERAILMENT:  Stronger tank cars will offer “minimal advantage.”

HIGH ENERGY DERAILMENT:  Stronger tank cars will not fix the problem to any extent, not even one percent.

So what does this mean? 

Where is the dividing line between high speed and low speed? 

At what point does a derailment become a “high energy derailment”? 

What is meant by “minimal advantage”? 

[Electroliner 1935]

Wednesday's NPR show FRESH AIR carried a discussion with Marcus Stern who has spent the past year investigating the practice  "CBR"  in collaboration with the Nation Institute's Investigative Fund. Recent accidents show cars aren't built to carry so much oil, he says. He 

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/25/389008046/a-hard-look-at-the-risks-of-transporting-oil-on-rail-tanker-cars

The significant point I picked up from this discussion is that this crude oil contains explosive gasses in solution. When it comes out of the ground, it's a mixture of oil and also what are called natural gas liquids. These are methane, butane, propane. They're gases that we all know, but they're actually suspended in the oil. And during the journey to the refinery, which can be thousands of miles, the gases begin to separate from the liquid, and you have a blanket of propane essentially sitting on top of the oil.

This is I believe the cause of the fireballs we have seen in these videos. The gasses need to stripped out of the crude prior to transport and shipped in the appropriate rail cars. 

Railroads need to realize that they need to get this Baken Crude catagorized as explosive and treat it like propane until it is stripped of the volitile components. 

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

oltmannd

  

Paul_D_North_Jr

Someplace else, an executive from Greenbriar (RR car mfgr.) was quoted as saying essentially "Just get the rule issued !"

I suspect he's frustrated because he's pretty much dead in the water with tank car construction.  He needs the regs to get started on the design and get the supply chain spooled up.

It's really unfair to him for the regs to be delayed this long. 

That's how I read the linked article, too. 

Yet in the "current" (April 2015) issue of Trains, Greenbrier has a full-page ad on the back cover captioned "THE TANK CAR OF THE FUTURE IS READY TODAY", with a tabulation of selected technical details. 

- Paul North. 

[tree68]

Just saw an article (but don't remember where) that asserted that part of the problem was that the car manufacturers and railroads wanted to go with thinner steel.  the article even went on to compute how much more oil the thinner steel cars would be able to carry.

Given that this is the first I've seen of such an assertion, I think the writer was inventing some of his information.

[BaltACD]

Paul_D_North_Jr

 

oltmannd

  

Paul_D_North_Jr

Someplace else, an executive from Greenbriar (RR car mfgr.) was quoted as saying essentially "Just get the rule issued !"

I suspect he's frustrated because he's pretty much dead in the water with tank car construction.  He needs the regs to get started on the design and get the supply chain spooled up.

It's really unfair to him for the regs to be delayed this long.  

That's how I read the linked article, too. 

 

Yet in the "current" (April 2015) issue of Trains, Greenbrier has a full-page ad on the back cover captioned "THE TANK CAR OF THE FUTURE IS READY TODAY", with a tabulation of selected technical details. 

- Paul North. 

Today's tank car is in fact tomorrow's tank car unless and until the regulations change for what tomorrow's tank car must be.

To date - the regulations (while much cussed and discussed) for tomorrow have yet to be set.

[Euclid]

The big problem with the delay in new regulations is that the existing car fleet shrinks as cars wear out every day.  And the supply of oil to be moved is probably increasing.  Investors are leery of the cost risk of replacing these retiring tank cars unless they know what the Federal rules are.  You could build a new and better tank car, and still find it renedered obsolete when the new rules are finally issued.  Delay in this case is a powerful tool.  The delay in rules will move us toward a car supply shortage.

[zugmann]

Euclid

The big problem with the delay in new regulations is that the existing car fleet shrinks as cars wear out every day.  And the supply of oil to be moved is probably increasing.  Investors are Leery of the cost risk of replacing these retiring tank cars unless they know what the Federal rules are.  You could build a new and better tank car, and still find it renedered obsolete when the new rules are finally issued.  Delay in this case is a powerful tool.  The delay in rules will move us toward a car supply shortage.

 

 

I've been seeing photos of oil trains being stored.  Low oil prices from across the pond is starting to affect oil trains, it seems.