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Second CN oil train derails, catches fire in northern Ontario
I don’t know what it is going to take, but, if the railroads are going to stay in this business, the wreck-every-other-day thing has got to stop. The politicians will just ban CBR altogether and open the door for the pipelines to take it all.
Mr Benson;
Check the article in the April Trains, the 5th point spells out the economics of CBR vs pipelines.
Mr Warner; Mr Benson has the right of what is going to happen to CBR if the RR don’t stop putting CBR on the ground. Politics always overrules economics, especially when you are talking about public safety.
Rochelle Diamond work? Monday March 9 , 2015 - Trains webcam reveals work being done on the Dismond that looks like it in interrupting the “normal” flow of traffic. Trains told us in Feb issue "Diamonds Are Not A Railroads Best Friend. . . " What gives in Second week in March on that popular rail cam fan location?
E. Dean Conley
Trains Subscriber And Rochelle Webcam junkie !!!
Railroads have transported crude oil for decades but 100 car crude oil unit trains are a relatively new development. Long, heavy unit trains are not new but industry experience comes primarily from stable, non-hazardous cargoes of coal, ore and grain. I have never seen any reports about railroads doing research on the best way to handle 12,000 ton trains of volatile liquid. I think the railroad industry has simply made an assumption that 100 cars of oil is no different than 100 cars of grain.
Has anyone ever instrumented a unit oil train to develop a database on the strains and stresses experienced by a fully loaded oil train? Did anyone ever develop a computer simulation of a unit oil train to examine the dynamics under different track and operating conditions? The car body of coal and grain hoppers extends downward between the trucks below the level of the bolsters but oil cars carry the load above the bolsters. Do loaded oil cars have a higher center of gravity that makes them less stable than hopper cars? Does a higher center of gravity place higher loads on the track particularly on curves?
A lot of effort is being expended on building more robust tankers but is this the best way to solve the problem? One of the recent derailments in the US was a train of 1232 specification tankers that failed just like the older style. Can anyone build a practical, affordable tanker that won’t leak if it comes off the track at line speed and slams into the concrete foundation of a line side structure or falls down an embankment? Keeping the trains on the track has to be the first high priority.
On a slightly different point, the eastern part of the continent has experienced extended periods of very cold weather. Might these cold conditions have played a role in the unit train derailments?
NPR’s Dianne Rheem show is talking about this subject right now. It is not going to be very sympathetic, I’m afraid.
@GEORGE E BENSON - The oil companies would throw a fit if oil-by-rail were eliminated. Think: this happened on Ontario. The most horrific example (MM&A) happened in Quebec. The CSX incident recently happened in West Virginia. This is three of the four major accidents we’re still talking about, and they occurred on the Eastern side of North America, far from where any pipelines are proposed.
Funny thing is I don’t think the rail industry would be that upset, with the exception of a handful of shortlines for which oil is one of the few dependable commodities they carry. As others have pointed out, Trains just carried an excellent summary of the current state of oil-by-rail by Fred Frailey. Oil transportation makes up just 3% of current rail revenues, and is a massive liability. I’d be surprised if most class As wouldn’t drop the business altogether if allowed to by the STB.
… comments, most are by arm chair quarter backs…
and if there is a National Emergency all those tanks,trucks & weapons will move by PIPELINE.You cannot run a railroad with derailments…things bust…
Cars on highways have accidents
Transport trucks have accidents
So what is the big hal-a -baloo all about
News media sensation which is perhaps 33% fact the rest inserted to sell advertising
It might behoove looking at the consists, i.e. making shorter trains, or making them travel at reduced speed. This winter has been rough on the infrastructure. Just my opinion.
Okay, the recent record for shipping oil and such by rail isn’t good. BUT why isn’t anybody telling about problems with pipeline shipping? In a 10-day period in January there were three pipeline explosions or spills - January 17 in Montana, January 22 in North Dakota, and January 26 in West Virginia (a spectacular explosion). As far as I could tell exactly one national news source reported them. Maybe Trains should??
Roger Kaey has a good point. Maybe a few loaded ballast cars spread through the train will be needed to dampen harmonic rocking.
Coal, ore and grain also don’t move around within the car.
Give me a three man crew, a caboose, a 25 mph speed limit and I can end these derailments!
And another one bits the dust… Another one goes… Another one goes… Another one blows up!
@Larry Boyd…Grain doesn’t move around in the car? How would you know that, and how would you know that oil moves around in a fully loaded tank car…remember, capacity is in gallons, if you fill it to max capacity, just how much room is there in the shell to move around. Probably as much room as grain has to move around in a fully loaded covered hopper, which is loaded to maximum weight.
Is space required in a tank car for volume changes with temperature?
Different liquids have different densities so the volume needed to fill a car to maximum allowable gross weight could be less than the volume of the car.
So, is a typical tank car of crude oil completely full or is some space left empty for expansion or because the gross weight would be exceeded?
This situation is getting dangerous in all manner of ways and the railroads need to act fast before the public starts yelling for action. Having read many of the previous comments I believe that there maybe some factors at play here; 1] a severe winter has caused many track and equipment problems. 2] load volatility, Bakken crude seems to contain particularly volatile compounds which are contributing to the accident risk. 3] Load sloshing, a number of comments have alluded to the void area in the tank cars as the weight of crude with its suspended solids would weigh out before it would max out in volume, thus leaving a greater void area for the load to move during transit. 4] Unit train size, I believe that this is a major factor when combined with the load sloshing. Dealing with one tank car sloshing is one thing but when you multiply the numbers things start to get out of control. 5] Ballast cars or grain cars as unit train dividers are a good idea and to make it work all that needs to be done is to fit dedicated cars with shelf couplers. These cars would help reduce some of the in train forces as well as provide physical barriers in the event of a derailment. 6] Mid train always seems to be where the accidents are occurring for some reason. 7] 50/50 unit trains of tank cars and grain cars, with the grain at the tail end. This solution would reduce the in train forces on the tank cars and also help to quieten down the complaints of grain farmers/shippers that they are being overlooked in favour of oil trains.
Just some observations from a keen observer from Down Under sitting in his arm chair.
Gerald L McFarlane Jr@ Oil cars are never 100% full, even if weight would allow it. This has been fully discussed in other Trains forum discussions. Being a liquid, it will slosh around when speeding up, slowing down, rounding curves, and traversing rough track. The speculation here is that this may affect the train handling with very long trains of all oil.
I grew up on a farm. Grain moves a little bit in transit, but nothing like a liquid.
Having worked unit trains of oil I know that it sloshes around a lot. It can be felt on the engine. It is only a guess, but I think the problem may be the tank car design, perhaps a lower center of gravity is needed. Not being an engineer I am not qualified to do more than guess. One thing slow speed is not the answer, the CSX wreck was at low speed, and increasing crew size only works if visibility is good, and crew is alert.