[Eric in the Ozarks]

I know of no refinery or other facility that has the capacity to load or unload 1500 cars every day. There would have to be some very large discharge tanks on the unload end to accomodate the arrivals.
With the heavy gravity of this oil, the cars might have to be steamed overnight, so add four or five days of product at the off-load.
Think about the jam-up of 7500 asphalt capable jumbos... Yike !

[thackney]

With the heavy gravity of this oil

It depends if it goes through an upgrader in Canada first. The production that is shipping Bitumen is diluting it with Naphtha or the like first, referred to as Dilbit.

There have been several bitumen upgraders built in Canada and more planned. With this process a rather high grade of light Syncrude is produced.

Essentially the problems you discuss with heavies are a problem for the pipelines as well. Meaning that the heavy gravity issues are already resolved.

The volume issue still exists. This would have to be broken up to many different refineries every day to be handled. But the pipeline would do the same so also no real change.

Cheers

[Michael.SF.]

BNR has 61 loading facilities in the Bakken region alone. They are well positioned to move the oil to multiple locations. Perhaps not all of it, but a significant amount of it will move via RR.