Part of the original “wildly unsafe” oil-by-rail ‘movement’ was the perception that excess capacity existed to run these trains in common with other traffic, and that typical cost-cutting operational approaches could be used with them. Neither of those was remotely true in practice, especially as it became clear that (a) a 40mph ban on oil ‘key trains’ didn’t even begin to confer actual safety, and (b) an accident like Lac Megantic was possible.
If the “broader range of products” involves some that actually reduce ‘social benefits’ or impede overall effectiveness… do you want to prioritize them? That’s not just invoking the Blast Zone rhetoric; it’s looking down the line at what is actually involved in making oil-by-rail a safe proposition within a largely PSR-oriented general system.
Pipelines even over part of the ‘route’, while restricted to an appropriate mix of slugs, have the advantage of compromising no other traffic… except bicyclists at repair time, which could be easily mitigated if needed.
The Class Is aversion to even basic inspections and maintenance (or pretty much anything that costs additional $$$) will make most ideas non-starters unless they are forced into them.
Shipping 100% bitumen without diluent would be a good start, and this could be done entirely on the customer side without the need for railroad participation. Not sure what you’d do for lighter oils or refined fuels.
The public and national media seem to disproportionately worry about unit oil trains. We ship a lot of other commodities that are far more dangerous, like ammonia, chlorine and non-odourized LPG.
CN has been running unit trains of LPG and refined fuels from the Edmonton area to Prince Rupert and various American destinations for over a year now. Some are interchanged to BNSF at Vancouver or Emerson, MB, not sure where they go after that.
This is a bit ironic; one of Elon Musk’s “uses” for Hyperloop was expedited home delivery of autonomous vehicles…
I have always seen pipelines as complementary to railroads more than “competitive” with them – and that includes coal-slurry pipelines, which the more modern here may not realize were supposed to become a ‘thing’ in some markets.
I think it was clear that oil-by-rail out of the Bakken or Eagle Ford was being ‘expediently’ shipped – no other mode effectively serving the lanes – until the economics, political will, and time to do it at cheaper margin by pipe was there. As noted this was in part an opening-up of domestic production hand in hand with fracked gas production and the demand could cover the… well, originally cheap cost of lowball tank-car transport.
But oil trains aren’t, and I think shouldn’t be, thought of as compatible with the general system of coil and car-hauling trains… especially monstrains no matter how slow below 40mph they go. An oil train is like a little section of a pipeline on wheels, wholly occupying the blocks it sits in, requiring dedicated terminal access, and for a while forcing everything around it to a stop or crawl to prevent even low chances of some kind of damage.
Try to see it more from an opportunity cost frame of reference.
If you’re going to dedicate a swath of ground 25’ wide by 3000 miles long to build a pipeline, you’ve got a single-use scenario. While a railway on the same turf will have a wider range of utility.
Funny you brought up Elon’s whoosh tubes, because when I made the earlier post about coil steel and finished autos, I was tempted to include people was well, until I remembered the whoosh tubes. [:-^]
The XL pipeline was to go through here about 10 miles from my house. While the line was to be built, the farmers would be reimbursed quite a bit for the loss of the crops. Once the line was built, the land would be returned to its original condition, and the farmer could farm the land like normal.
We have quite a few pipelines coming through here already, and the only way you can tell is that at certain sites alongs roads, there will be a sign indicating a buried line.
Our county is a little upset because we would have gotten quite a bit of property tax paid by the pipeline company. BNSF pays the county quite a bit of tax for the double mainline that runs through here.
Pipelines have been making adjustments to handle changes in production and refining. Some pipelines have reversed flow direction from the Gulf northward, to southward toward the Gulf. Here is a recent one that will now carry heavy Canadian crude from a midwest hub near St. Louis to St James, Louisiana (there are also CBR and barge to St. James):
The high entry price of pipeline construction was referenced. Pipelines don’t get built until a satisfactory number of take-or-pay contracts are signed, that is, oil shippers will pay for at least a minimum volume of product shipped whether they have the oil to ship or not. Whereas the railroads were eager to haul crude at the beginning of the Bakken boom, they lost business as pipelines were built out. Now some railroads are insisting on some commitment before they upgrade lines into the oil patch.