Posted on 07/19/2013 6:12:39 AM PDT by thackney
...A fiery and fatal train derailment earlier this month in Quebec, near the Maine border, highlighted the danger of moving oil by rail. But while the practice could be made safer, it won't be stopped in its tracks. This year, more trains carrying crude will chug across North America than ever before — nearly 1,400 carloads a day. In 2009, there were just 31 carloads a day....
Even safety experts worried about the dangers of shipping oil by rail acknowledge that the safety record of railroads is good — and improving. The scope of the Lac-Megantic disaster, which is still under investigation, appears to have been the result of uniquely bad circumstances, these experts say....
In the first half of this year, U.S. railroads moved 178,000 carloads of crude oil. That's double the number of the same period last year and 33 times more than the same period of 2009. The Railway Association of Canada estimates that as many as 140,000 carloads of crude oil will be shipped on Canada's tracks this year, up from 500 carloads in 2009.
Last year, 663 rail cars carrying hazardous materials derailed or were damaged in the U.S., a decline of 38 percent from 1,072 incidents in 2003, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. That's comparable to the total number of train accidents per million miles traveled, which fell 43 percent over the same period, and the number of derailments, which fell 40 percent....
Shipping crude by rail is roughly $5 to $10 per barrel more expensive than shipping it by pipeline. But pipelines require refiners to enter into long-term contracts for delivery....
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
My rail traffic manager was told by someone at the MMA that its was human error. That the engineer did not set all 11 of the hand brakes on the engines. He set the air brakes and six of the eleven hand brakes which would have held IF the fireman had not turned off the engine because of the fire. Apparently, it takes 55 minutes to apply all the hand brakes. He clocked out after 26 minutes.
Also, the train was going 63 mph when it entered town. MMA already laid off 40 people. JD Irving will most likely buy the rail line.
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