On Trains News Wire re: tank cars.and NTSB hearing

[henry6]

You’ve got to read the Trains News Wire story today about the NTSB hearing on tank cars…I posted this comment on that page:

“This is the system we regulate railroad equipment in this country: it has to meet impact and crash standards. Here that system, set up by the government and the railroads over the past 100+ years is being used against the railroads! And Dinneen seems totaly oblivious to the speed restrictions, tracks standards, and other rules governing railroads and operations. This is more comical than I had expected.”

[The_Butler]

Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Finger-pointing permeates NTSB crude and ethanol by-rail forumBy Kathi Kube

Published: April 23, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. – If only regulators adopted rules, railroads kept trains on tracks, and shippers bought tank cars that could survive wrecks, National Transportation Safety Board forums would be unneeded.

As it was, during the second of a two-day NTSB forum on safe railroad shipments of crude oil and ethanol in the U.S., industry and regulatory officials (sometimes) avoided taking or assigning responsibility for hazardous materials safety on railroads.

In one exchange with safety board members on Wednesday, Bob Dinneen, president and chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association, a U.S. ethanol industry trade group, says a push to retrofit or replace DOT-111 type tanks cars is currently unjustified.

“Calls to retrofit the entire fleet of 111s does not make sense. We repeatedly said you’ve got to keep the cars on the tracks,” Dinneen says. “Unless you address the root causes of accidents, tank car designs will not be effective.”

The ethanol advocate says that 80 percent of the 29,000 tank cars his industry uses are fewer than nine years old and that he would prefer to abide by yet-to-be released U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rules on tank cars.

“If we are going to spend millions of dollars improving tank cars we bought in good faith, we want to be sure it is for real improvement,” he says.

In responding to a question from the safety board on why regulators have yet to issue new rules, a top PHMSA official acknowledged the process of writing new safety rules is “painfully slow.”

“If it was up to me only, it would be yesterday,” says Magdy El-Sibaie, PHMSA’s associate administrator. “Let me assure you, we are extrem

[tomikawaTT]

Just looked up Bob Dineen’s credentials. Graduated with a degree in political science (isn’t that an oxymoron?) and has spent his career riding around on the coattails of various ‘green’ politicians and organizations, mostly inside the beltway. I’d be willing to wager that the only ethanol he has personal experience with ages in barrels and is poured out of a bottle.

If I was looking for expert opinion on tank car safety standards I’d look for engineers and practicing railroaders. Dineen’s remarks only reinforce my low opinion of Potomac River bottom dwellers.

Chuck (retired mechanic)

[Euclid]

[quote user=“The Butler”]

In one exchange with safety board members on Wednesday, Bob Dinneen, president and chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association, a U.S. ethanol industry trade group, says a push to retrofit or replace DOT-111 type tanks cars is currently unjustified.

“Calls to retrofit the entire fleet of 111s does not make sense. We repeatedly said you’ve got to keep the cars on the tracks,” Dinneen says. “Unless you address the root causes of accidents, tank car designs will not be effective.”

The ethanol advocate says that 80 percent of the 29,000 tank cars his industry uses are fewer than nine years old and that he would prefer to abide by yet-to-be released U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rules on tank cars.

The problem is that solving the tank car safety problem depends on how the objective is defined. With all of the input on the solution, I perceive that the solution is popularly expected to eliminate oil train accidents. Making tank cars more crashworthy will help, but it won’t come near eliminating oil train wrecks and fires. That is why there is finger pointing about whom should solve the problem. It is true that if trains never wrecked, the current tank cars would be good enough. But if there were a way to prevent train wrecks, it would be implemented by now.

[BaltACD]

And there have never been refinery fires and explosions as well as pipeline leaks and resulting fires and explosions.

When you make or move hazardous commodities bad things can, and will happen.

[dakotafred]

The problem is that solving the tank car safety problem depends on how the objective is defined. With all of the input on the solution, I perceive that the solution is popularly expected to eliminate oil train accidents. Making tank cars more crashworthy will help, but it won’t come near eliminating oil train wrecks and fires. That is why there is finger pointing about whom should solve the problem. It is true that if trains never wrecked, the current tank cars would be good enough. But if there were a way to prevent train wrecks, it would be implemented by now.

I’ll be darned if this doesn’t just about say it all. We do the best we can, but there’s no perfect safety … anywhere.