OIL TRAINS

[CLIFF COLE]

In California, we are quite concerned about the increasing number of proposed oil trains of up to and exceeding 100 units in each train.  I have noticed in the Rochelle, IL webcam that a freight car accompanies each train.  What is its purpose?

[Deggesty]

CLIFF COLE

In California, we are quite concerned about the increasing number of proposed oil trains of up to and exceeding 100 units in each train.  I have noticed in the Rochelle, IL webcam that a freight car accompanies each train.  What is its purpose?

 

Are you referring to the buffer cars (one just ahead of the tank cars and one behind the last the tank car)? These provide a buffer between the hazmat carrying cars and the engine(s); they are required by law. Incidentally, the oil carried in the tank cars is also freight.

[CLIFF COLE]

A buffer car seems logical, but it is also logical that within the car could be equipment unique to fighting an accidental derailment.

[carnej1]

CLIFF COLE

A buffer car seems logical, but it is also logical that within the car could be equipment unique to fighting an accidental derailment.

 

Very unlikely.

The FRA mandates the buffer car and that is what you are seeing.

The railroads generally rely on outside contractors to deal with environmental cleanups.

[CLIFF COLE]

I don't believe California is over-reacting to a perceived threat, but in the light of events, residents are demanding more accountability from the railroads, namely Union Pacific and BNSF to not only make schedules public but the resources to fight any accidental occurence.

[dehusman]

CLIFF COLE

I don't believe California is over-reacting to a perceived threat, but in the light of events, residents are demanding more accountability from the railroads, namely Union Pacific and BNSF to not only make schedules public but the resources to fight any accidental occurence.

 

Public schedules will be opposed by the railroads and most states, since that is percieved as a security risk and serves no real public good.

[edblysard]

Would you care to cite sources and post links to these demands and concerns?

[BaltACD]

CLIFF COLE

I don't believe California is over-reacting to a perceived threat, but in the light of events, residents are demanding more accountability from the railroads, namely Union Pacific and BNSF to not only make schedules public but the resources to fight any accidental occurence.

 

 

Schedules are numbers on paper that may or may not mean anything at anytime.  Just ask the passengers on the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited these days.  Just like the schedule for the gasoline tankers that frequent I-5, I-10 and the rest of the urban interstates.

 

[Euclid]

CLIFF COLE

I don't believe California is over-reacting to a perceived threat, but in the light of events, residents are demanding more accountability from the railroads, namely Union Pacific and BNSF to not only make schedules public but the resources to fight any accidental occurence.

 

I assume that you are referring to a call from town officials and first responders for railroads to notify them when oil or other hazmat will travel through their towns.  As I recall, that has generally been implemented in the wake of the oil train controversy, but I don’t know the details.  And along with that, there has also been a call for the railroads to provide funding for resources to deal with the increased risk of fire and explosions.  I do not know where that stands, but the new Minnesota tax on freight railroads is predicated on funding the added risk such as hiring new inspectors.

It would certainly be possible for railroads to carry firefighting equipment in the consists of oil trains, but that is not what the boxcar buffer car is for.  Aside from that is the question of how much benefit would be obtained by carrying firefighting equipment on oil trains.  I don’t see much benefit.  The equipment might be able to respond quicker, but oil fires go to full involvement almost instantly, so getting there quicker does not help much.

The main way that the industry will respond to the oil train threat is to make tank cars stronger.  I think I am the only one who has asked what that will accomplish, and I am still waiting for the answer. 

 

[Murphy Siding]

CLIFF COLE

I don't believe California is over-reacting to a perceived threat, but in the light of events, residents are demanding more accountability from the railroads, namely Union Pacific and BNSF to not only make schedules public but the resources to fight any accidental occurence.

 

    Will the same be required of trucks on the highway and the  airplanes in the sky over California?

[dehusman]

Euclid

 

The main way that the industry will respond to the oil train threat is to make tank cars stronger.  I think I am the only one who has asked what that will accomplish, and I am still waiting for the answer. 

 

Seriously?  You don't understand why the industry wants a stronger car?

What the industry and government did was apply a lot of the design features that were added to the pressurized gas cars 30 years ago.  Thicker shells for greater puncture and pressure resistance.  Improved head shields for increased puncture resistance.  Thermal insulation to increase the time the shell can be exposed to fire before it fails (by a factor of 10).  All proven safety features that are very effective.

[dehusman]

Euclid

 I assume that you are referring to a call from town officials and first responders for railroads to notify them when oil or other hazmat will travel through their towns.  As I recall, that has generally been implemented in the wake of the oil train controversy, but I don’t know the details. 

That is not correct.  There is no requirement to notify local authorities.

The requirement is for the railroads to notify states of routes that will be carrying signigficant CBR.  there is no requirement for real time notification of train movements.  Its just identifying routes.

[mudchicken]

Amused to no end that the OP thinks that this is a new thing in the great granola bowl. GATX has had tank trains running between Bakersfield and the Long Beach refineries (Union 76/ Unocal(Carson) Texaco(Wilmington) and Mobil(Torrance) since the mid 1980's.....I'd be more worried about pipelines or fuel trucks than tank trains on a per incident basis.

[Deggesty]

MC, you know that the OP has not been around as long as you and several other posters have.

[matthewsaggie]

Our FD does not want to be called for every Hazmat, we simply assume that every train through here is carrying Hazmat cars and train accordingly. 

[tomikawaTT]

Some years back, the city of Baltimore decided they wanted to know ALL ABOUT any hazmat car traveling through their fair city, and passed an ordinance to that effect.

There ensued a landslide of paper, most of it using abbreviations and terms totally unfamiliar to the city functionaries - hundreds of sheets PER HOUR.

After a rather short time they decided they really didn't need all that stuff after all.

As for the media-generated panic about oil trains, the probability that any specific Californian might be hurt, or even aware of, an oil train derailment (with or without fire) is probably on the order of 0.01% of the probability of seeing the result of a motor vehicle mishap.

Chuck (retired statistician, former Californian - until I moved to a saner location)

[Euclid]

dehusman

 

Euclid

 

The main way that the industry will respond to the oil train threat is to make tank cars stronger.  I think I am the only one who has asked what that will accomplish, and I am still waiting for the answer. 

 

 

 

Seriously?  You don't understand why the industry wants a stronger car?

What the industry and government did was apply a lot of the design features that were added to the pressurized gas cars 30 years ago.  Thicker shells for greater puncture and pressure resistance.  Improved head shields for increased puncture resistance.  Thermal insulation to increase the time the shell can be exposed to fire before it fails (by a factor of 10).  All proven safety features that are very effective.

 

 

I never said that I don’t understand why the industry wants a stronger car.  Of course it is clear why they want a stronger car.  A stronger car improves safety, and they want to improve safety. 

You speak of the need for greater puncture resistance.  All I am asking is what the specific net change will be between existing puncture resistance and “greater puncture resistance” you mention; and the same question for tear resistance and all other forms of metal failure breaching.

In other words, what exactly will the strengthening accomplish in terms of reducing breaching fires in a given derailment scenario?

 

[CLIFF COLE]

This is an excellent discussion about a very real challenge.  While it is true that hazardous train accident incidents are rare, the Sacramento BEE (October 20, 2014) in their continuing discussion cites UP's own record of  180 derailments in five years, that may only be disturbing reading until it occurs in your back yard rather than someone else's.  They list five key California rail hazard passes (Dunsmuir, Feather River, Cuesta Grade, Donner Pass and the Tehachapi Mountians) that are garnering the attention of rail inspection, a necessary and welcome step to safety of the rails.

[tree68]

Euclid

In other words, what exactly will the strengthening accomplish in terms of reducing breaching fires in a given derailment scenario?

One need only look at the results gained with pressurized gas cars to get an idea of what will be gained by initiating similar improvements on non-pressurized cars.

I'm sure that one could develop some pretty good statistical data on the pressurized cars, before and after, which could then be extrapolated to the non-pressurized cars.

As dehusman points out, the benefits have already been proven.

[Euclid]

I think you could develop some good data from other tank car improvements, or just off of the basic modeling of derailment dynamics, train weight and speed, etc.  Overall, it would definitely be a complicated calculation to say just how much tank car strength is enough. 

For instance, one could consider some hypothetical benchmark, average, and most likely to occur, high speed derailment of oil trains.  If it were made up of 111cars, a fire would be almost a 100% certainty.  

So the solution has been adopted to make the cars stronger; and specific new material thickness increases are said to accomplish that solution.  The actual performance definition of “solution” would be a 0% certainty of a fire upon derailing in this test train derailment scenario.

So the problem is laid out.  How far toward zero fire will the new standards take us?  This is basically a crash test question. 

[Euclid]

dehusman

 

Euclid

 I assume that you are referring to a call from town officials and first responders for railroads to notify them when oil or other hazmat will travel through their towns.  As I recall, that has generally been implemented in the wake of the oil train controversy, but I don’t know the details. 

 

 

 

That is not correct.  There is no requirement to notify local authorities.

The requirement is for the railroads to notify states of routes that will be carrying signigficant CBR.  there is no requirement for real time notification of train movements.  Its just identifying routes.

 

 

Once again, I did not say what you say I said.  I said that there is a call for this kind of notice, and that it has been generally implemented.  The point is obvious no matter who the notification actually goes to.  The point is to help emergency officials respond to an oil train derailment.  I only mentioned it to give some background context to the comments of the OP Cliff Cole who mentioned an advocacy for such notification when he said this:

“I don't believe California is over-reacting to a perceived threat, but in the light of events, residents are demanding more accountability from the railroads, namely Union Pacific and BNSF to not only make schedules public but the resources to fight any accidental occurrence.”

This is what he is talking about: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303749904579577861760037536

From the article:

“Starting next month, the federal government will require railroads to tell states how many trains of Bakken oil from North Dakota are headed their way and which routes such pipelines-on-wheels will take. The rules, which apply to shipments of at least 1 million gallons, or roughly 23,810 barrels, say the information should be shared with government officials. Most oil trains include 100 or more tank cars, each of which holds about 30,000 gallons of crude.

The emergency order doesn't require railroads to share details about the volatility or combustibility of the crude. Nor does the order require information on what kind of railcars are transporting the oil, which has been another focus of accident investigators.

It doesn't apply to shipments of similarly volatile crude from other shale formations. Oregon's two senators, both Democrats, urged that the rule include disclosures on any train carrying crude, not only oil from North Dakota.”

 

I don’t see your point in splitting hairs over whether the notification is “real time” or not.  What is not “real time” about “telling the states how many trains of Bakken oil are headed their way”?

 

[tree68]

Euclid

What is not “real time” about “telling the states how many trains of Bakken oil are headed their way”?

To me, "real time" means notification at the time the train will pass through my area.  Being told that there will be 47 oil trains through in the next month (or even three in the next day) means virtually nothing, aside from the fact that oil trains will be passing through my area.  Unless it's new traffic, I already knew that.  Presumably, there is already a plan in place to deal with it (we don't get oil trains at present, but we do see hazmat).

As was noted in another post, the number of notifications would be cumbersome at best.  In my county alone, notifications would have to go out to at least ten fire departments, the county, a city, and half a dozen townships and villages, plus any other agencies (ie, state, DOT, DEC) that wished to be notified.  Somebody has to handle that.  

Granted, mailing lists can be useful, but in order to ensure that all of the fire departments were actually notified, it might be necessary to send out pages over the dispatch radio.  And that introduces a whole new security concern, especially mere miles from an international border.

[BaltACD]

Be careful what you ask for!  You may get it.

[Wizlish]

tree68

In my county alone, notifications would have to go out to at least ten fire departments, the county, a city, and half a dozen townships and villages, plus any other agencies (ie, state, DOT, DEC) that wished to be notified. Somebody has to handle that.

Let's discuss this.  (But if it turns into a yes-but fest, I'm invoking Shari.)

I could develop and code an application that would accomplish this 'automatically' in no more than a few days, and I am far from the best qualified person to do such a thing.  Proprietary encryption in transmission (and, perhaps, intelligent systems on the client side that help 'normal' first-responders fix problems with data integrity in realtime) is not a particularly difficult thing.

I see this as being a "written" system (meaning having a persistent visible display with scrollable audit trail, etc), with data integrated with local GIS, that provides a schedule of expected movements (with associated hazard classes) and indicates 'where they are' (both in written and graphical-map) format.  There would be a clear way to 'drill down' and get more specific data about position in the train, information on the particular hazard, suggestions on PPE, etc. without hiding the basic information display.

It would run continuously in the background, perhaps on a dedicated screen, even if the information were provided as a stream to mobile devices, etc.  If I had my 'druthers it would have proper mobile instantiations (so a relatively cheap OTS phone with the right permissions could access the feed, as opposed to having to integrate with a wide spectrum of existing communication equipment and protocols).

I'd also integrate things like the feed from activated repurposed red-light cameras monitoring crossing intrusion, etc. into such a system, and perhaps some quick way for 911 people to hand over calls about crossing-device failures, etc. to the system (and then get quickly 'off the line' to be able to handle general emergency calls again) rather than having to 'figure out' what railroad police or contact they have to access, etc.

If this is done right, even if its provision amounted to a kind of 'unfunded mandate' the marginal costs involved would be small (and the long-term persistence of the solution, even if it had to be run in emulation on future hardware or systems, assurable)

What other details, or methods of data gathering and presentation, etc., should a system to do this specific thing involve?  (And what functions should NOT be provided...)  For instance, I'd power all the devices off battery (perhaps with a common OTS external charge port like mini- or micro-USB), including communications equipment, so that power loss wouldn't impair either the integrity of the information or the ability of responders to read it conveniently.

[Euclid]

I am not advocating the notification of oil train passage.  I see it mainly as a bargaining strategy to promote the oil train risk as being a hardship, and to then trade on that risk.  My only point in mentioning it was to illustrate the backdrop for comments made by OP Cliff Cole about a call for railroads to make schedules public.  I assume he is referring to notifying towns when oil trains will pass.  That is the scheduling he is referring to.  This concern about a need for emergency responders to know when oil trains will pass has been widely reported over the last several months. 

[Wizlish]

Euclid

I am not advocating the notification of oil train passage

I can't imagine NOT advocating notification of hazmat passage.  Bakken oil clearly qualifies as a hazardous material.  This has nothing to do with whether there is some political hidden agenda in demonizing oil trains, or there are quick and fundamentally inane politically-expedient ideas like restricting all oil trains to 40 mph (or insert your favorite anti-oil hop-on-the-bandwagon example here).

Purely and simply, first responders need to know WHAT and WHERE a hazard is, particularly if it involves PPE or special protocols to handle.  I find it literally incredible that a good, coherent, usable system to provide that information does not exist, particularly when it seems so simple to design, roll out, instantiate, and maintain it.

I would tentatively agree with the idea that a notification system purely for oil-train movement is the wrong answer -- that would more than smack of demonizing that class of traffic when there are far more significant public dangers (derailment or otherwise) present in many trains every day.  But the right response is not to deprecate the idea of providing timely information on rail movements and consists to first responders!

[Euclid]

Well, feel free to advocate notification.  I don’t advocate it because I don’t see what is gained by notification.  It sounds wise, but what is the actual benefit?    

When I speak of a bargaining strategy, I am referring to something that is often linked to this idea of notification.  And that is that railroads should help fund the emergency response resources.  This call for notification is just a way to open the door to connecting the railroad responsibility for the danger they pose to the cost it imposes on bystanders.

[Wizlish]

Euclid

... I don’t advocate it because I don’t see what is gained by notification.  It sounds wise, but what is the actual benefit?

I honestly find that answer to be so obvious as not to require further discussion, and in fact I have already addressed some of the specific reasons I think so.  I suppose we can 'agree to disagree' here.    

When I speak of a bargaining strategy, I am referring to something that is often linked to this idea of notification.  And that is that railroads should help fund the emergency response resources.

I would agree that railroads might help fund emergency-response systems that specifically benefit themselves (as opposed to contributing to 'general welfare' systems through taxation as they and most of the rest of us already do).  I don't see ANY particular benefit to railroads providing proprietary assets like train schedules to any public entity directly ... but that's not what I consider the appropriate purpose of a 'notification' system to be.  If anything, the 'bargaining' should be the other way, with state and local authorities providing an incentive to the railroads -- which might of course be publicity-related rather than pecuniary -- to make aspects of their scheduling and consist data available to first responders and other validly concerned agencies.  This is analogous to one of my earlier proposals to implement PTC, in which the railroads would maintain a high-accuracy, secure, hack-resistant GPS instantiation, and local municipalities and such would subsidize part of the cost of that system (hopefully a significant part, perhaps all) through access to that system for GIS-related purposes.

Note that for the railroads to be able to say that they're communicating potential hazard information in realtime to responsible emergency-response agencies essentially SOLVES the meaningful question of 'public information' regarding hazmat consists.  Specifically including the question of communicating to potential terrorists and other dubious interest groups ad nauseam information they really have no business knowing, and that railroads would be extremely imprudent to 'publish'. 

This call for notification is just a way to open the door to connecting the railroad responsibility for the danger they pose to the cost it imposes on bystanders.

Could you be more specific on what you mean by this sentence?  I would have to paraphrase it for it to make sense, and we decided months ago that paraphrasing intent is not wise in these threads.

I would tentatively agree that 'notification' that led to even the potential of legal action by the general public against the railroad would be a problem.  And I would be among the first to suggest that abuse of a first-responder notification system or some of its necessary data could result in just the sort of "information" that plaintiff's bar would relish being able to exploit.  On the other hand (and with a nod to the first topic above) I don't hesitate in believing that the gains involved in having first responders actually able to make a fully-informed and safe initial response is important enough to take that risk.  I accept that you don't so believe.

[Euclid]

Wizlish

 

Euclid

... I don’t advocate it because I don’t see what is gained by notification.  It sounds wise, but what is the actual benefit?

 

 

I honestly find that answer to be so obvious as not to require further discussion, and in fact I have already addressed some of the specific reasons I think so.  I suppose we can 'agree to disagree' here.    

 

The answer is not obvious to me.  Say that the BNSF notifies the town of Casselton, ND that an oil train will pass at 12:45 pm.  What does Casselton do that they would not have done if they weren’t notified?  Be specific. 

 

[NeO6874]

Euclid

For instance, one could consider some hypothetical benchmark, average, and most likely to occur, high speed derailment of oil trains.  If it were made up of 111cars, a fire would be almost a 100% certainty.  

 

That's not how statistics work though.  Cars rupturing after a derailment are all independent scenarios, and won't add together to make the possibility of a situation happening worse -- well, the probablilty goes up, but not linearly as you seem to be implying.

 

Let's say we have 10 cars subject to failure (for whatever reason that comes up as part of a derailment). Let's also say that an individual car has a 10% chance of failure (that is, it has a 90% chance of being fine).I'm a bit rusty on the specifics, but essentially you need to calculate the inverse (i.e. what you're not looking for) and then subtract from 1.

So, 10 cars each with 90% chance of not failing = (0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 ... 10 times --- 0.9 ^10) 34.8% chance of zero cars failing.  1.00 = 0.348 = 0.652 = 65.2% chance of at least one car failing.

 

Wizlish

 

 

tree68

In my county alone, notifications would have to go out to at least ten fire departments, the county, a city, and half a dozen townships and villages, plus any other agencies (ie, state, DOT, DEC) that wished to be notified. Somebody has to handle that.

 

 

Let's discuss this.  (But if it turns into a yes-but fest, I'm invoking Shari.)

I could develop and code an application that would accomplish this 'automatically' ...

 

Or, the affected parties (or their governing body*) just need to get on-board with the carrier's EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) network, which is how large corporations (e.g. Ford or Intel or CSX or BNSF or whoever) generally go about their day-to-day business in the first place.  In simple terms, it's the big-business equivalent of us using mail-order / Amazon (and subsequent CC / check payment to the vendor).


*For example, "City Hall" or "Police Dispatch" instead of multiple fire stations/police precincts. 

 

 edit - although re-reading your post seems to imply that there's not direct cooperation between the railroad and local authorities (but rather that the locals are using some facets of existing infrastructure to simply "watch" what's coming through).