One recommendation is the rerouting of oil away from heavily populated areas.
In this article, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls for a fee on energy producers to improve railroads including the response to accidents.
Sounds as if the NTSB is becoming another arm of the media - the media that has one product, and one product only to sell
FEAR
And they do a very good job of selling it - Polar Vortex, Storm of the Century (every season), - Name the activity and they have a fear to sell about it.
Balt,
The NTSB has been in the fear game from the beginning.
The rerouting notion is grossly irresponsable on their part. They know, or damn well should know, full well there are virtually no ways around major transportation centers since the railroads were built to link those places.
Mac
Since Nine One One politicians and media have stepped up their rule by fear…it is easy, takes no investigation, just scream fire in the dark and you’ve got a bad guy to beat up and a couple of weeks of work done on less than a half hour.
And if railroads needed to be told this, then railroads are in bad shape. Investors and operators cannot make money when no trains are running, when equipment is damaged and either scrapped or sidelined for repairs, when employees are injured or killed. Answering to the public and politicians, the same thing applies. However, railroads also have to trust their shippers to feel the same way about transporting products. Oil and gas companies involved with Bakken Crude seem to be remiss on these matters.
Well said BaltACD, thanks
I wonder if the NTSB has tumbled to the fact that the worst oil train disaster happened outside of a major meteropolitan area.
The threshold of acceptable casualties is kinda vague isn’t it ??
More of the same old same old. [um]
Let me get this straight. People live in cities because that’s where the jobs are. Railroads link cities with production centers and other cities because that’s where the business is. So this oil is going to be routed over a railroad that serves no cities. The model railroad in my basement serves no (real) cities, so maybe that’s where they’ll route it. I guess I could move the oil from my basement stairs to the water heater or the furnace, but I don’t know why since neither one burns oil. I’ll have to think about this some more later on. My head hurts right now.
More news.
From the FRA:
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/pending-regs/196281-rail-agency-issues-new-safety-regs
And from Sen. Hoeven (R) N.D.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/195525-gop-senator-blasts-rail-cars-regs-delays