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Railroads request to limit disclosure on oil trains in Washington state
After all those incidents, fat chance!
Politics over safety. Appearances versus realities. So…what else is new?
Everybody needs to read before speaking. The issue is not that the railroads refuse to provide information to the state public safety officials. They are willing to do that. The problem is that Washington state policy would make that info available to every one.
Disclosure to the entire public up-front could allow terrorists to target oil trains. Why not just disclosure to police and firefighters?
Great PR move by UP and BNSF to try to keep the info confidential.
A definite conundrum. Revealing the information so that fire departments and emergency crews and agencies are informed on one hand while on the other hand keeping things quiet because of an uninformed and fearful public might appear trackside or worse disrupting service and endangering their own lives. But, why is it the railroads who must pay the price of doing the oil and gas companies bidding to the public. The energy companies have to step forward and help railroads deal with this matter.
The information needs to be widely available to first responders on a real-time basis. Once a train has derailed and railcars started blowing up in balls of fire is a bit late to find out there is 150-car unit train of “witches brew” in town.
A very interesting – and difficult – problem. First, a couple of responses. With regard to Mr. Nichols’ comments on terrorists. It is remarkably difficult to take down an airliner without being on it. On the other hand, if one knows that a specific train is carrying a specific mix is of hazardous materials, it is – sadly – remarkably easy to wreck it. One is not likely, however, to go about randomly wrecking trains (it is a bit risky) unless one knows one has a good target. Hence the information should be restricted on a “need to know” basis. Which brings me to Mr. Giblin’s comment. There are two prongs to the knowledge: first, one has to know what to do in the event of hazard type X. This should be – but all too often is not – part of the training of the first responders in all communities. The railroad companies put on first rate courses on how to handle various problems, but they aren’t of much use if the first responders don’t take them. Second, again most railroads are remarkably good at telling first responders what sorts of hazards are, or may be, involved in an accident. Provided they are asked.
I can see no reason, however, why the general public has any need to know the details of the manifest of all trains passing through their little burg, any more than they need to know the manifests of all the trucks passing through.
I will disagree; I do see it as a safety hazard. As some may recall, a News Wire published April 15, 2014 titled: “Protestors arrested after trying to stop coal train in Montana” stated the following safety concern in the article.
I believe BNSF is hoping to prevent another occurrence like the above; with UP following suit. If general information about the amount/type of shipment is being released to the public; I don’t see a safety concern. However, if the Date/Time of oil shipments is being released; that is a potentially safety issue.
For some reason this part of my post did not get transmitted:
The protestors sat along the tracks and held signs saying “No Coal Exports” and “We Draw The Line. No Coal On These Tracks.” After the railroad notified local law enforcement, Missoula police arrived and told the protesters that while they supported their right to protest, they were trespassing and creating a safety hazard
There’s no reason this should be confidential. A potential terrorist doesn’t need to know the exact schedule of a train to cause damage. Anybody can go to Flight Aware and watch an airliner’s radar path in real time. How many terrorist attacks have taken down an airliner since 9/11? Zero.
There’s no reason this should be confidential. A potential terrorist doesn’t need to know the exact schedule of a train to cause damage. Anybody can go to Flight Aware and watch an airliner’s radar path in real time. How many terrorist attacks have taken down an airliner since 9/11? Zero.
We have solid unit grain trains travelling around the US and it is explosive in the right environment. The same holds true for fertilizers. There is multiple household products that are inert on there own but mix them together then you can have big explosions. If you want first responders notified about explosive materials on rails then why not on the highways in trucks. Back in the 1990’s a trailer load of explosives flipped over on a ramp at the I-495 , I-395 , I-95 interchange in Northern Virgina. The entire area was shut down for 10 hours. The state demanded to know how often they shipped through the area and found out that virtually every day loaded tractor trailers of explosives were on that road.
Mr Armstrong, that was a good comment about why not trucks carrying explosives or fertilizers on trains? I surmise they do not generally report those because: 1) It is not the hot topic. 2) There is significant amount of volume difference between a tractor trailer carrying explosive material and a train. 3) Although grain/fertilizer can explode, I do not know if it keeps burning after it explodes or causes the same amount of environment contamination if the cars burst open as petroleum products do. I believe the possible remoteness of an accident is also difficult for first responders. If a truck makes a spill or has an explosion; presumably there is a road nearby. If a train derails in a remote area; how do you get the men and equipment to that location without available roads (air, rail, or military support)? I would think logistics for an accident are much different between truck and train