Courtland, Minnesota (AP) Crews were cleaning a major ethanol spill Thursday after seven tank cars were involved in a derailment Wednesday night south of this Blue Earth County town.
Kevin Schieffer, President of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad of Sioux Falls, SD, said a preliminary investigation into the derailment points to problems with the more than 50-year old railroad track in area of southern Minnesota.
The DM&E is awaiting word on a $2.3 billion dollar federal loan that would pay for part of it’s $6 billion plan to rebuild 600 miles of track across South Dakota and Minnesota and 260 miles of new track to reach Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coal mines.
Schieffer said an estimated 30,000 gallons of ethanol spilled Wednesday night. It typically takes between two and four weeks to clean up such spills, he says.
A few homes were evacuated Wednesday, but their owners were back in them by Thursday.
Schieffer said repairs to the track would probably be finished by Friday.The derailment prompted the closure of Highway 68 from Highway 15 near New Ulm to Blue Earth County Road 47 on Wednesday.
The state Transportation Department said the highway was expected to remain closed until noon Thursday. A Department map on the web showed
so, will this event HELP or HINDER the loan application?
HELP - getting the loan will allow us to improve our tracks to safely transport commodities essential to our economy (insert NATIONAL or LOCAL as appropriate to the audience…)
HINDER - If they improve the tracks, there will be more traffice and more possibilities of accidents. Let someone else transport that stuff (in someone else’s back yard…)
WE dont need that kind of ecomomic activity, let someone else do it. We like things just fine the way they are…
Makes sense, except the loan is to rebuild the line altogether. Track inspections, I imagine, would be part of their operating budget, and therefore they are already performing them.
Well, it is only the ethanol transport that is up 2000%. That may mean that is has gone from one car a week to one short unit train a week. [;)] Hardly enough to provide big bucks for track inspections if that is the case.
NO NO NO!! If this guy is gonna sensationalize about how overtaxed his railroad is with the skyrocketing volume of ethanol pounding his ballast down into the mud, and try to use that as a lever to promote his prospects for the dole he is seeking, then I’m sure it must be more than one short train a week overburdening his network.
Moreover, it’s not the ethanol business he is seeking the subsidy to support, is it? It’s the PRB business he needs the loan for.
If ethanol business is way up, then it should be able to support itself, including any needed track work.
Surely no one would be taking fat and fast profits on the ethanol traffic, depending upon the dole to make things right with the plant, that would be …presumptuous
Do you have more information on this particular move? The Kfuel website states that they have their initial plant to be started up near Gillette, which would mean the closest rail access is BNSF. I don’t know where the Buckskin and Coal Creek sites are. Will they be located near DM&E’s proposed PRB line?
I also wonder about the K-Fuel product itself. Is it moving in regular coal hoppers/gons, or is the product similar to other synthetic coal products which would require pneumatic closed top hoppers due to the risk of spontaneous combution?
And who is the K-Fuel customer in Chicago? Is it a regular coal fired power plant trying to meet emissions requirements, or is it an industrial user such as a cement plant?
Synthetic coals are said to have the even burning qualities desired by such industries, supposedly much like natural gas, and lower ash/emissions than most biomass energy sources. These qualities would also allow synthetic coals to be burned in some of our PNW waste wood burners, which would allow such facilites to ramp up to an excess of energy production and sell electricity back to the grid.
PS - Yes, I have emailed the K-Fuel website a few times regarding these questions and have gotten no response, which is why I’m hoping one of you guys might know.
Geez, you hate the DM&E more than I despise the [}:)] BNSF! At least my disgust at BNSF is based on some hard evidence (e.g. monopolistic pricing over captive Northern Tier customers, and using those obscene profits to cross subsidized overseas imports). But your constant tirade against DM&E has no merit, since DM&E is not big enough nor rich enough to have such an effect. They’re just a little guy trying to get into the game, give 'em a break for crying out loud.
Don’t you find it ironic that someone with a user name like “Anti-Gates” (implying a general disdain for dominant powerful entities, e.g. pro-David, anti-Goliath) would turn around and become more of a “Gates is God” type when it comes to dissing little ol’ DM&E as it battles for a place among the BNSF and UP Goliaths?
You really gotta let us know the real story one of these days. Who
Sorry Solz just re reading the article again, it still sounds like he is (between the lines) trying to blame the derailment on what is perceived as tardiness in getting the loan money, and I don’t buy it.
If the track is unsafe to run ethanol trains on it, then guess what?
And if they don’t even know enough about their plant to make that decision safely, (sounds like they are just discovering this) yet run trains on it anyway, how smart is that?
The first move was on BNSF during August, but your favorite railroad wants to haul it 140 cars at a time.
From Gillette it travels by truck to Rapid City, and then by DME and IC&E to the Chicago area. 3000 loads are mentioned in the December 2006 Railfan magazine, but no time frame is given. Customers are listed as “power plants, universities and hospitals.”
So the K-Fuel plants would be located right on the Orin/DM&E rail corridors? That would seem to be the logical siting prospectus, as they would have access to all three PRB rail service providers.
Let’s not sensationalize about how the entire planned upgrades will occur to fit a negative personal agenda. The common-use meaning of the word “dole” is “receive from charity.”
In fairness, let me point out that DME is seeking a government loan, not a grant. But you knew that. The monies DME is seeking is no more a “dole” than the mortgage on your house.
Sure, I’ll give you that. He is essentially saying that if they had this loan money they would be able to fix up their tracks and prevent snafus like this one. It is a political argument, but he is taking part in a political process in trying to get this passed. If an incident like this one bears out his point, can you fault him for using it?
As for track inspections - the article reveals that the RR must be checking up on their track. How else would they know it was laid in the 50’s? In the short time that I lived on the DME line, seeing hi-rail trucks and RR MOW equipment was more common then on most other railroads. The fact remains that the tracks are in rough shape. They can replace ties and re-surface, but when the rail is worn out I think they may be delaying the inevitable. Maybe that’s the draw behind the DME - big SD 40-2’s hauling a heavy grain train on track t
OH but by all means let’s dooooooooo! [{(-_-)}] At least let’s not prohibit any contemplation that it might. [:-,]
He’s talking about how much ethanol traffic has picked up, thus overburdening his plant. So surely there must be a revenue stream there to effect inspection and preventive maintenance.
Sorry, no federal loan on my house, so you are talking apples and oranges.
No, not really,… in fact if I were in his shoes, I’d probably try the same thing. I also think that if it were I making that argument, no sooner would the words have left my lips and someone would be pointing out that I have an obligation to run a safe railroad with or without the loan, so there was zero merit in trying to argue one was in any way dependant upon the other.
Yeah, considering that there is a problem with that specific location (now), I’ll bet all kindsa paperwork is suddenly seeing the light of day. Problems have a way of drawing attention.[:)]
Ahhh… but here’s the stinker. Scheiffer would argue that in order for him to run a safe railroad he needs the loan. The fact remains that no railroad has the finances to completely rebuild its mainline. I don’t think even the mighty UP would have the funds to rebuild their transcons. In fact, the UP was only able to build their first transcon with the help of a substantial amount of government assistance. The only railroad that built a transcon on its own, the Milwaukee Road, was so strapped for cash after they got done they never fully recovered. And that railroad received all kinds of taxpayer bailouts when it went under, bailouts that were only paid back after massive liquidation and sales to competitors.
Scheiffer’s point seems to be that if you want a truly ‘safe’ railroad (one that is up to snuff with its physical plant) he needs the money to do it. They can’t attract more business if their trains are derailing all over the place, and without the nw business they don’t have the capitol to do in any major investments on their own. The government has the opportunity to get a railroad off the ground and running on its own two feet. This isn’t Amtrak or Conrail (one of those was a success, right?) but rat
So if I understand this discussion correctly, DM&E does not have the financial stability to operate the trackage that they already have. Or at least, if they are financially stable, it is only because they are neglecting infrastructure.
Then the loan isn’t just to build new trackage, it is also to maintain their existing trackage. If that is so, then that part of the loan is nothing more than a bailout.