Cry me a river. Freight trains have traveled those rails for scores of years. Grand Junction is naturally uranium city. Colorado and mining are joined at the hip.
Complaining about oil trains was so 2012ā¦
Itās true the Rio Grande did a fairly good job with running trains on these tracks. I donāt know how I would rate the risk here or how much additional risk there is. A oil unit train would be far more concentrated on one cargo obviously and the spill would be larger if it did derail. Even just one oil unit train a day I think would increase the chances of a large spill but I have no idea how all that works out statistically.
On the other side the thing to consider is the speed limit through the sensitive areas is rather slow. So might not even be a concern.
The crude out of the Uinta Basin is a high wax crude.. It doesnāt pose anywhere near the risk of Bakken Light Sweet, nor would a spill be catastrophic. Unita Waxy requires steam assisted loading and unloading as it semi-solidifies below 105F.
Of course the public has no idea crude has various grades, and comes in tens of varieties..
I know that I donāt have a clue and I probably live on top of an oil deposit.
Virtually every resource man gets out of the ground, liquid, solid or gas has a wide variety of grades that indicate its suitability to be processed into a final product.
I believe another name for Uinta Waxy would be Gilsonite. The Uintah Railway carried it in sacks loaded on flatcars.
The Colorado News Online came across as āthe sky is fallingā as opposed to doing real investigative reporting.
Modern-day environmental activists would panic if they found out just how ingrained oil is in everyday life. Asphalt roads shingles artificial tires the modern-day petrochemical industry the oil companies make more on that than they do on selling fuel. Ethylene is worth more than fuel.
Gilsoniteās āscientificā name is uintaite, so youāre onto something there.
While both Gilsonite and Uinta Waxy Crude are found in the same basin. They donāt share the same physical properties. Gilsonite being solid. Where as Uinta Waxy Crude is just a light-medium API crude (32-44 degrees) that has a very high wax content.
That article is from June, 2023. Itās almost 2 1/2 years old.
I posted that because it had a map (content). The date on the article does not change the subject matter that much. So possibly if you donāt like the date on the article post a newer dated article like the one below?
https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2025/06/13/uinta-basin-railway-funding/
Thanks for the clarification.
I assume the wax is composed of long chain hydrocarbons? Iām also guessing this is related to the oil shale deposits in Colorado and Utah.
Yep it is. Iād say Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming probably have the most diverse group of hydrocarbons on Earth.
Not to mention what their cellphone is made out of. Fortunately for them they always make a little niche for themselves so they can fly their private jets and own 4 mansions while telling us poors to take public transportation and make do with less. āDo as I say not as I do.ā is their marching song.