On Sunday, the twentieth, my local newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, will be presenting a twelve page spread on the hazardous chemicals being transported by rail through the crowded neighborhoods of Southern California.
The build up for the special section is how they will cover the fatal accidents that have happened in other communities. I know of only one chemical-related fatal accident in 2005 and that was in Graniteville. This article looks to be more scare tactics against the railroads or just an excuse to push for more grade separations.
You can probably find this article at their web site on Sunday. The site is pe.com
What do you think? Are the railroads being sloppy in their handling of hazardous materials?
In answer to your question, Joe, the short answer is no. The railroads are doing very well at transporting ‘toxic’ materials. Yes, accidents do happen. In any mode of transportation. But they are few and far between on the rails. There is a significant problem, but it would be unfair (at best) to say it is the railroad’s problem: determining just what is in a given shipment. This shows up with all modes of transportation, however, and is a real bear to solve. The most recent example I can think of off hand was a shipment of lithium batteries which are progibited on passenger aircraft, which wound up – improperly labeled, of course – on a passenger jet and caught fire. Scary. Another example was the derailment recently on CN in central Canada, where it was found that a shipment of liquid was incorrectly labeled – again, not by the carrier – and turned out to be hazardous.
But no, on the whole railroads are not being sloppy.
just think of the other side of the coin… worried about 1 train load HAZMAT…but dose the artical go into detail how how many trucks it will be putting on the roads to transport the same amount of product that 1 railroad tank car carries? thier is going to be risk in eveything…and in every form of transportation… its called life… but what is more risk…on train…or a few hundered trucks… each with thier own drivers…on a system where thier are thousands of other outside infulences (other drivers)… all that this argument dose is try to shift resonsiblity from one from of transportation to another…
csx engineer
A Cleveland city councilman last fall introduced an ordinance that would ban all hazartdous rail shipments through Cleveland on the NS (ex NYC) Lakefront line. While this sort of thing looks good on the surface, it fails to address a basic question: If not your back yard, then whose? What makes someone else’s community any less important than another when it comes to hazardous shipments?
The real answer here is not a patchwork of local bans (which would likely be in violation of federal interstate commerce laws), but rather continued development of safer rail cars and better procedures for transporting hazmat loads.
Shipping any hazmat is a risk, but it has to be done. The railroads seem to be doing a very good job, but when an accident occurs, the magnitude can be much larger than if the material is sent in smaller quantities by truck. At least when shipping by rail, those loads don’t have to share their path with passenger vehicles.
Fortunately the tank cars involved in this wreck outside downtown St Paul, earlier this year, were empty at the time of the accident.
By the way, the councilman in Cleveland is way off base trying to ban hazmat rail shipments. He has no idea what chemicals some of the companies in his back yard use to make the products they do.
I think we are doin a darn good job of transporting hazmat…I think the numbers are like 99.8 or 99.9% moved without any incident. I would really like to know the numbers for hiway transported hazmat goods. Annother thing to consider is when we move the hazmat, alot of our trackage is in the middle of nowhere. You don’t have to worry about a tank full of hazmat rolling up next to you at the local truckstop to top off his fuel tanks.
Ken, my guess is that the truck safety numbers will be similarly high as the rail numbers, which are excellent. The difference is the railroads probably whomp trucking in terms of ton miles of hazmat hauled.
Gasoline distribution counts for a lot of trucking hazmat. Have you ever seen a tank car pull up to your local gas station?[swg]
Quack journalism based on hysteria and dubious skewed data. (Riverside paper is famous for this)…These folks were first on the bandwagon after the Cantara loop incident and helped political quacks Boxer, Waters & Co. shoot first and think/aim later.
(former L.A. Basin roadmaster whose office was 250 feet from the loading point of the Cantara Loop chemical car and had to put up with the mindless/ arrogant politically inspired circus that followed for years )
All things being equal, shippers moving very hazmat will opt of the closed systems, that is rail or pipeline. The open systems, that is highway, air or barge, have too much going on outside the control of the carrier.
Once the shipper had decided which mode he wants to use he will look at the safety of specific routings. The models prefer rural areas to urban areas and preblocked trains with minimum enroute switching.
The other question I would ask about this is “Would you call this responsible journalism?” If you would happen to be a terrorist in the US and are planning on ways to do the most damage or cause the most death, it sounds like this article would be a great menu for you to select your entre (type of chemical), time for dinner (schedule), and choice of restaurant (where you’ll be causing the incident).
Since the rail accidents by themselves seem to pose little danger, I can’t see who else this would help.
And I’ll be willing to bet there will be no mention of the fact that you can’t hijack a train and plow it into a building (without a siding), or even go very far off the rails.
Very thoughtful responses. Of course, I agree that the railroads are doing a fine job, but consider how the Press-Enterprise article starts.
They review a derailment in San Bernardino that occured on April 4th of this year. According to a FRA report there were the following discrepancies:
uneven track that should have been caught in an inspection three days prior to the incident.
The UP’s paperwork on the hazardous cargo was incorrect, giving response crews the wrong infromation.
A tank car of pressurized chlorine had a 1 inch crack, increasing the risk of chemical release.
Authorities let people back into their neighborhoods too soon and they had to be re-evacuated again.
Of course the artilce then brings up the Graniteville disaster without mentioning that this was a rare occurance.
I am not worried, but I hate to see the railroads get bad press.
