http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/16/22255104-regulators-knew-about-risky-transport-of-oil-before-train-crashes-documents-show
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I wonder if all this negative publicity will end up getting the Keystone XL pipeline approved.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
GP-9_Man11786 I wonder if all this negative publicity will end up getting the Keystone XL pipeline approved.
Which makes one wonder if maybe there isn't someone behind this report, pushing an agenda.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Direct link to the FRA Report for which the article is based:
James
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/05/20343288-danger-on-the-tracks-unsafe-rail-cars-carry-oil-through-us-towns?lite
Lots of excuses, but little action in the 30 years since the DOT 111 cars were first identified as dangerous. The PHMSA has to rule, but it has stalled for several years. And the rail industry resists retrofits.
So obviously the answer is cars that would be more secure. That ain't gonna happen overnight and the cost of retrofitting cars may not be practical as many of them may be nearing the end of their service life.
Norm
With few exceptions, the rail industry does not own the cars. And they have shown a lot of concern about carrying hazmat. I don't see how you can say that they resist retrofits. If anyone is to blame, it is the petroleum and chemical industry and, perhaps, the leasing companies.
John Timm
schlimm http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/05/20343288-danger-on-the-tracks-unsafe-rail-cars-carry-oil-through-us-towns?lite Lots of excuses, but little action in the 30 years since the DOT 111 cars were first identified as dangerous. The PHMSA has to rule, but it has stalled for several years. And the rail industry resists retrofits.
The rail industry is not resisting retrofits!
The car owners (who are really financial types - not railroaders) are the ones resisting retrofitting the cars.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Yet another oil train thread by Schlimm.
Sigh.
So Schlimm - what do we do next? What should the railroads do, the shippers do, the governments do?
What should they do right now to satisfy you?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
zugmann So Schlimm - what do we do next? What should the railroads do, the shippers do, the governments do? What should they do right now to satisfy you?
You really don't get it, do you?
It's not about me, what I want , satisfying me. And it isn't about you. It's about doing all that can be done to minimize the probability that the next accident isn't 40 tank cars overfilled with Bakken crude exploding in a metro area. It's what the public wants.
Schlimm,
I want your opinion.
What do you ( a member of the public) think should be done (since you are well-read in the subject, judging from your posts).
I will answer as i wish, not as you rudely demand. I am not a technical expert. So I do not have a solution and neither do you, since you are not a technical expert either. One thing seems clear. There is a danger which has been known about the DOT 111 cars for 30 years. There has been a lot of buck-passing (RRs, leasing companies, handling shippers, oil companies, AAR, NTSB, FRA, PHMSA) and there is a lot of money involved since Bakken took off four years ago. Too bad the various industries didn't do something earlier, but that would have cut short the 40 year life of the tank cars in question. Some have said it will take 5-10 years to replace the DOT 111's, which coincidentally (?) would correspond with their normal retirement time. All the regulatory agencies, rails and oil-related companies need to sit down quickly in the DOT and arrive at a series of measures to address the problem
Dave Klepper (a retired industrial engineer) offered a suggestion based on Fred Frailey's column. Both he and Frailey were dismissed as outsiders. At least one rail CEO sees this as a crisis. But it is apparent that many on this forum to see this is a tempest in a teapot and hope it just goes away in the short news cycles. Maybe it will. Maybe not. I believe the public is tired of excuses and stalling, because it is pretty clear that has been happening for many years already.
schlimm I will answer as i wish, not as you rudely demand. I am not a technical expert. So I do not have a solution and neither do you, since you are not a technical expert either. One thing seems clear. There is a danger which has been known about the DOT 111 cars for 30 years. There has been a lot of buck-passing (RRs, leasing companies, handling shippers, oil companies, AAR, NTSB, FRA, PHMSA) and there is a lot of money involved since Bakken took off four years ago. Too bad the various industries didn't do something earlier, but that would have cut short the 40 year life of the tank cars in question. Some have said it will take 5-10 years to replace the DOT 111's, which coincidentally (?) would correspond with their normal retirement time. All the regulatory agencies, rails and oil-related companies need to sit down quickly in the DOT and arrive at a series of measures to address the problem Dave Klepper (a retired industrial engineer) offered a suggestion based on Fred Frailey's column. Both he and Frailey were dismissed as outsiders. At least one rail CEO sees this as a crisis. But it is apparent that many on this forum to see this is a tempest in a teapot and hope it just goes away in the short news cycles. Maybe it will. Maybe not. I believe the public is tired of excuses and stalling, because it is pretty clear that has been happening for many years already.
So basically, you don't have even the slightest suggestion?
Interesting.
Sorry if I came off as rude.
Nah... I'm not really sorry, to be honest.
But my opinion or yours isn't worth donkey spit because we aren't technical engineers, but yet Frailey's is, even though he isn't a technical engineer either? Did I miss something?
schlimm I believe the public is tired of excuses and stalling, because it is pretty clear that has been happening for many years already.
I believe the public is tired of excuses and stalling, because it is pretty clear that has been happening for many years already.
Other than the Lac Megantic accident I don't believe there has been any major outcry from the general public regarding this. Sure the sensationalism media is playing it up, but I've not heard a single soul in my neighborhood even raise the matter.
schlimm zugmann So Schlimm - what do we do next? What should the railroads do, the shippers do, the governments do? What should they do right now to satisfy you? You really don't get it, do you? It's not about me, what I want , satisfying me. And it isn't about you. It's about doing all that can be done to minimize the probability that the next accident isn't 40 tank cars overfilled with Bakken crude exploding in a metro area. It's what the public wants.
Our modern society entails risks. There's no way around that. What the public wants is something that doesn't exist. Namely all the modern gadgets and conveniences with no risks and no pollution of any kind. I'm not saying things can't be made safer, but the goal advertised to the public by those with their own agendas (and everyone on every side of any issue has their own agenda) often are unrealistic and unachievable. That is unless everyone is willing to give up much of their modern lifestyles. That last part is never told to the public. Probably because those pushing the agendas know the public wouldn't be as willing to follow then.
No new design of construction or upgrade for existing tank cars will be ever be good enough for some. They will say they are still dangerous and liable to leak or burn or whatever. And because nothing that man builds can be made perfect, eventually a new safer tank car will be involved in a derailment and something bad will happen. But then I think the real goal for many isn't so much a safer way to transport petroleum products, but the abandonment of petroleum and all other fossil fuels. They just use the excuse of the former to try to sell the latter.
Jeff
schlimm \ And the rail industry resists retrofits.
\ And the rail industry resists retrofits.
Don't let the facts get in the way of your rant there dude....
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579196303848431002
An "expensive model collector"
While I would agree that there are some who would like to see a movement away from fossil/carbon-based fuels (and that is a significant issue), to attempt to create a straw man argument in regard to a specific issue of reasonable attention to safety is invalid. The suggestion that this is about trying to achieve some impossible level of perfection is almost silly. Questioning the seriousness of the players involved in getting improvements in cars whose unsafe design has been known for 30 years is pretty reasonable. The slowness in getting action is pretty lame. One could speculate as to the motives, but that does not advance a solution. What the public wants is some answers and action to address the problem, not miracles.
n012944 schlimm \ And the rail industry resists retrofits. Don't let the facts get in the way of your rant there dude.... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579196303848431002 "Railroads Seek Tighter Tank-Car Safety Rules"
If they really want that so much, why don't they "aggressively" be proactive instead of hiding behind regulations, rules, agencies, etc. Instead words: "Mommy, can you stop using those nasty DOT-111 tank cars? Please? Pretty please?" that cost nothing and get nothing done, two months and one more major accident later.
One may be somewhat justified in being skeptical of railroad industry commitment to promptly finding the safest possible manner in which to handle CBR. Take a look at this post on trainorders.com today:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3292600,3292615#3292615
The idea that a few new ties may suffice for safety is risible.
The risk profile of crude by rail (CBR) for all transactional parties (producers, traders, railroads, tank car companies, refineries, et al) is now paramount, obviously, and the general public's valid concerns (see the recent WSJ article) only amplify the magnitude of this issue.
One can only speculate about the actual or implicit risk profiles measured or assumed by the transactional parties, and up until the dramatic incidents of recent months it is safe to assume that the general public had no meaningful view of the risks generated by the rapidly increasing volumes of CBR passing through their vicinities.
The one somewhat relevant statistic perhaps most widely publicized came from the Association of American Railroads. In a recent AAR paper on the transportation of hazardous materials it was stated that: "Railroads have a strong record for safely moving hazardous materials (hazmat), with 99.9977 percent of all shipments reaching their destination without a release caused by an accident."
The initial simple visual impression of this statistic is, to my eyes and perhaps those of many in the general public, of a vanishingly small risk to be attached to growing volumes of CBR. And yet .... The AAR estimates that in 2013 approximately 400,000 loads of CBR moved. Apply the AAR statistical "risk profile" to that number of loads and the result is: 9 loads of CBR did not reach their destination without a release caused by an accident.
Perhaps it is not unreasonable to attach some geography to that statistical exercise: Aliceville and Casselton.
Informal internet railroad blog commentary has suggested a not uncommon response to many accidents: It's just a "one off" thing. Won't happen again any time soon. (May one be justified in wondering if some of the CBR transactional parties may have this type of implicit risk profile?)
So, rather than simply accepting the AAR's statistical approach, revealing as it is, I did another simple desk analysis using Federal Railroad Administration accident data for Jan - Oct., 2013. Those data show a Train Accident Rate of 1.2 accidents per million train-miles on "other track", i.e., other than yard track. (I used this statistic not because accidents on yard track are of no concern, but because there is no clear statistical showing of the number of train-miles that accrue in yards. Further, I make the assumption that mainline accidents at track speed are more likely to be "catastrophic" in impact.)
Again, a vanishingly small number when applied to CBR, right?
CBR now moves mostly in unit trains. Using the AAR's stat of 400,000 loads of CBR in 2013, and an assumed average unit train size of 100 cars per train and an average loaded haul of 1,000 miles (conservative, given the many trains to East, West and Gulf Coasts), plus the return empty haul of 1,000 miles, we see that CBR generated roughly 8 million train-miles in 2013.
Apply the FRA stat of 1.2 accidents per million train-miles to 8 million CBR train-miles: ~9.6 accidents. Let's round to 10, as there are no fractional accidents. But, then, let's divide by 2, as our major concern is with loaded trains.
Statistics from AAR and FRA, massaged (or mangled) by me suggest 5 "train accidents" of loaded CBR trains in 2013.
Geography? Lac Megantic, Aliceville, Casselton. Those were the ones I am aware of, but perhaps there were less dramatic, non-explosive line-haul accidents. (Ok, I know, the Lac Megantic accident was in Canada, but it was U.S. crude from North Dakota hauled many miles in the U.S. by a U.S.-type railroad.) In any event, the statistical result appears to be roughly consonant with actual experience.
IF 2014 experience parallels that of 2013, i.e., if 2013 was not merely a "one off" year ("bad luck"?), but with 20% growth in CBR unit train miles, using the AAR metric, we will see 11 cars of CBR not reach their destination without a release caused by accident. Using the my FRA 2013 train accident experience metric, we will see approximately 6 loaded CBR train accidents.
Geography? If only that could be accurately predicted! Colorado, perhaps?
What are the risk profiles applied by the transactional parties? Would be fascinating to know.
I am reminded of the analyses done by Richard Feynman and others after the loss of the shuttle Challenger: NASA management's implicit loss ratio was around 1 lost shuttle in 100,000 missions ("airline-type safety"), while a realistic engineering risk profile suggested 1 loss every 50 to 100 missions. Actual experience: 2 lost in 130 missions.
Feynman's closing words in his "dissenting" addendum to the Challenger report: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
schlimm While I would agree that there are some who would like to see a movement away from fossil/carbon-based fuels (and that is a significant issue), to attempt to create a straw man argument in regard to a specific issue of reasonable attention to safety is invalid. The suggestion that this is about trying to achieve some impossible level of perfection is almost silly. Questioning the seriousness of the players involved in getting improvements in cars whose unsafe design has been known for 30 years is pretty reasonable. The slowness in getting action is pretty lame. One could speculate as to the motives, but that does not advance a solution. What the public wants is some answers and action to address the problem, not miracles.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
schlimmIf they really want that so much, why don't they "aggressively" be proactive instead of hiding behind regulations, rules, agencies, etc. Instead words: "Mommy, can you stop using those nasty DOT-111 tank cars? Please? Pretty please?" that cost nothing and get nothing done, two months and one more major accident later.
(edited)
Ya know what?
Believe whatever you want.
466lex, I really like and respect your analysis - thank you !
One quibble or addendum, though: Those accident rates reflect actual recent experience, not some unchangeable law of physics (except maybe human nature . . . the Challenger management succumbed to wishful thinking and pressure from above to make the launch schedule, as I understand it). Which is to say that a concerted safety improvement effort could make those statistics better - and equally valid the other way, that ignoring reality as displayed by these trends could lead to a worse track record . . . The choice is up to the effectiveness of the managements of the "transactional parties" - can they cooperate, or just point fingers and fire press releases at each other ?
- Paul North.
schlimm n012944 schlimm \ And the rail industry resists retrofits. Don't let the facts get in the way of your rant there dude.... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579196303848431002 "Railroads Seek Tighter Tank-Car Safety Rules" If they really want that so much, why don't they "aggressively" be proactive instead of hiding behind regulations, rules, agencies, etc. Instead words: "Mommy, can you stop using those nasty DOT-111 tank cars? Please? Pretty please?" that cost nothing and get nothing done, two months and one more major accident later.
What do you propose? As pointed out to you multiple times, the railroads can't refuse the cars as long as the regulatory agency approves their use. The railroads don't own the cars, so what do they do? Damn those nasty railroads for following the laws of this land....So please Schlimn, instead of tossing your insults, give us ideas. Please make them legal ideas though....
BTW
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/195511-dot-to-issue-regs-for-stronger-tanker-rail-cars-in-2015
"DOT to issue stronger tanker car regs in 2015"
"The AAR said it supports new regulations for rail cars carrying flammable liquids."
Good. I actually did call for ALL the parties to arrive at a solution (s) in the DOT, but your rudeness and personal attacks trump thouroughness, like actually reading carefully, . BTW, lex's post is far stronger in its prediction of bakken accidents this year.
schlimm, but your rudeness and personal attacks trump thouroughness, like actually reading carefully,
Heh.... can't make that stuff up, folks.
What's your solution? Does your union (if you are a member) have a position? Because your responses sound like they were written in corporate.
schlimm What's your solution? Does your union (if you are a member) have a position? Because your responses sound like they were written in corporate.
Ah, you caught me. I'm just a computer program. A computer program from the future where the oil trains have enslaved mankind. Hahahaha.
Probably the most stringent tank car hazards are for TIH/PIH cars. If you read some of the links in the myriad of related threads there is a study done by Harvard on the risks of TIH/PIH. They describe several accidents in which cars in carload shipments (not unit trains) of TIH/PIH were breached in an accident. If arguably the most hardened cars have been breached in accidents there is a reasonable argument that ANY car involved in the Lac Megantic accident would have been breached by the forces involved.
If you read the various attachments you would also read about several shippers, car companies and railroads that are cooperating on the design of a next generation of TIH/PIH tank car. I myself have posted about how one railroad (the UP) has been testing the prototype cars in actual train service to measure how sturdy the car is.
The railroads are more than willing to cooperate with industry to solve the problem since they know (as demonstrated in several of these threads) that they will be blamed for the problem even though most of the "solutions" proposed by the posters are out of the railroad's control or violate several Federal laws and even have precedents (cited in the threads) where the railroads have attempted some of the remedies proposed and have been stopped by a court of law.
If you want to get something done, stop harassing the railroads and go to the car leasing companies websites and harass the people who OWN the cars, who have the power over REPLACING the cars and who CONTROL the fixing of the type 111 car problem.
Complaining to the railroads is like complaining to TurboTax that the tax rates are too high.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman Complaining to the railroads is like complaining to TurboTax that the tax rates are too high.
That is a perfect analogy. No doubt it will fall on deaf ears for the railroad haters on this board.
From the NBC article linked in the original post.
The boom has left a number of companies scrambling for tank cars to move the oil, and the report says that led to several cases in which companies sent cars out that did not meet standards.
Excellent example of a reporter miss-quoting a written report to make something appear more of a concern or more dangerous than it is simply to increase the scare value of their own report.
What the report really said.
6. One transloader released loaded tank cars that were out of specification (safety appliances). The pressure to ship those cars was more than the risk of failure in transportation or discovery by FRA. (Rail car shortage is a major concern. We have had cases of cars being shipped out of specification.)
Note the part in parentheses, “Safety appliances”…, anybody out there know what that means?
Not what the reporter implies or may want you to think, or what the un informed casual reader may surmise…a safety appliance is not an appliance to make the car safe for transportation of product, but are the devices in place that allow railroaders to safely work on and with the car, grab irons, sill stirrups, cross over platforms, hand holds and side rails, pin levers and such.
Nothing whatsoever to do with ability of the car to safely carry the product inside.
And take a wild guess at who most likely discovered these cars “out of specification?
A car man or railroader at a terminal doing the normal inspection performed on all trains that pass through terminals.
Blaming the railroad for something ONE of the trans loaders and or shipping companies did makes perfect sense?
How?
Here’s some food for thought.
Bad order cars, cars with a safety appliance bad order or an actual operational bad order, (worn or missing brake shoe, bad wheel set, sharp wheel flange, broken brake rigging, stuff like that) are big dollar business.
Car departments at all major railroads love to find them, they bill repairs at the AAR Manual of Interchange rate, which specifies exactly how the cars must be repaired and what materials can be used, this thing is a seriously thick book that details down to the particular metal grade a cotter pin used to hold a cut lever handle in place can be made of….in the real world such a cotter pin might cost 99 cents, in the railroad world, it’s a $5.00 part.
On my small class 3 railroad our car department routinely bills several million dollars of repairs quarterly to each of our class 1 member lines for bad order repair…trust me, not a car one can enter our railroad without being looked over at least twice, once on arrival, and once on departure at the minimum, and you can bank on the class 1 roads doing the same to these unit trains, it is big business money.
No matter how valuable or how “hot” a car might be, it will be inspected by the railroad, and cut out of the train if any bad order of any type is found.
What you are looking at is a situation being sensationalized for no other reason than it allows people with an agenda to wave their respective flags and get valuable press coverage for their 15 minutes of fame.
Be they reporters, city mayors, congressmen, the FRA or the NTSB, even a few forum members are using these few incidents to create an atmosphere of fear and misunderstanding.
The reporters of course do so to increase readership, nothing sells better than disaster beside sex and money, the FRA and NTSB are simply doing their jobs as they see it, and the forum members, well, I get the feeling they have their own agenda, and from what I gather from the majority of their postings, that agenda is that they don’t like railroaders or railroads all that much, and post here simply to cause dissent and fear, the better to allow themselves their own 15 minutes!
Now for something from the silly but relevant thought department.
Using the fear monger approach and placing things out of context to make a point and further an agenda…
I would bet that almost all of the forum members out there are going to do something tomorrow that taken out of context is extremely dangerous and possible deadly for some of you.
All of you are going to dispense and transport a hazardous liquid, one many times more volatile that this crude oil under discussion, and all of you are going to do so with no formal training on how to dispense this product, nor how to safely transport this product, much less will any of you have any type of shipping papers, nor will any of you have placards displayed to warn first responders if you have an accident that results in a release of this hazardous material.
You are going to transport this product in a single walled tank, made from mild steel easily punctured, a child can drive a screwdriver through this tank with little effort, and said tank will be held in place with two strips of plumbing strap and four mild steel bolts, and the tank will be located in such a fashion that any rear impact with the transport vehicle will easily rupture the tank, as will any large debris on the surface you use to transport this tank.
The device used to protect this tank is only required, by federal law, to withstand an impact of 5 mph or less.
You are going to transport this packing group 2 flammable liquid in close proximity to and with several thousand other people similarly un trained and not qualified, and during transport, your shipment will be subject to the random and illogical actions of these thousand others who may or may not be qualified.
Of course, I am talking about you filling your gas tank on your car…you’re going to put approximately 20 gallons of gasoline in a cheaply made tank, hung by equally cheap straps in the rear of your car, and drive around in populated areas with a thousand other people, any one of which could easily rear end you and rupture the gas tank…you see cars on fire all the time on the evening and morning news.
Yet if this was a railroad we were discussing, the person dispensing the gasoline into a tank car would be required to wear full hazmat suit, including a respirator, have the tank car properly grounded, and must have a license and be fully trained to dispense the gas.
Then the person transporting the tank car would be required to have shipping papers with all the hazmat infor, the car must be placarded, and the person must pass a federally mandated test on handling the gasoline, and have a response guide with details on what to do if an accident happens in their possession at all times.
You on the other hand, with absolutely no formal training are allowed to dispense this extremely dangerous liquid at will, you can fill your automobile fuel tank with it, you can put it in hand carried gas cans, and you transport it on freeways and roads full of other drivers busy texting their friends instead of driving their cars, and no one blinks an eye at this, yet if you think it through….
So why is it that you, totally un trained, are allowed to dispense and transport what amounts to a liquid bomb in the back of your automobile in the company of thousands of other un trained people in densely populated areas, and do so in a tank that is far more easily ruptured than a railroad tank car, often at speeds twice the speed the tank car travels, all while subject to the random and un-predictable actions of all the other drivers around you…no one seems to be bothered by that.
On the other hand, in my capacity as a freight train conductor, I am required by federal law to attend formal training on how to handle this stuff, have to follow federal laws about the documentation on the tank car and its contents, placement of this tank in my train, follow strict procedures on moving this tank, on a surface that has to meet federal requirement as to speed a am allowed to move and move only in a tightly controlled environment with almost no traffic or other trains near me at any time.
Odd double standard at work…I guess because it is convenient and almost a necessity for all of us to use and transport gasoline in our cars, and because we want to do so, then it is ok.
Of course, the solution to all the automobile fires, the death of entire families in several instances should, following the rational of the panic mongers, be to simply ban all automobile gas tanks.
Makes almost as much sense as banning all the tank cars on the rail, yes?
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