Join the discussion on the following article:
Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Mayor: Bakken oil safety warning ‘a good start’ following wreck
So much garbage coming from government agencies. Bakken crude oil is not heavy crude. API (American Petroleum Institute) says Bakken oil is 36 to 44 gravity. The definition of heavy crude in the US is about 20 gravity. Also, are we surprised that crude oil burns? Even heavier grades usually contain dissolved methane, which is what causes explosions.
Didn’t see anything in the article about “heavy crude.” Bakken oil is considered “light, sweet crude.” But it’s unique because it contains lots of very light fractions, gases such as methane, propane, butane, pentane, etc. There’s plenty of head space in a tank car for gases to accumulate. These gases are volatile and explosive so all it takes is a sparks. There are lots of sparks when a tank car is punctured. After that the heat from burning cars can cook-off adjoining cars.
William Hays, you are a loon as well, to accuse all truck drivers of being on drugs. Are you aware that truck drivers are subjected to random drug and alcohol tests? Probably not. My guess is you probably hate truck drivers because, well, somebody told you that is the “in” thing to do and everybody is doing it. Besides, how do I know you are not the one on drugs, and from your perspective due to drug use, it appears truck drivers are on drugs?
Sometimes, even a 99.997% result makes you fail a test, if only from a public relation perspective.
We’ll see if Mr. Cook and Mr. Pumphery hold the same speech should a Bakken crude train blow up and incinerates several dozen people in their hometown.
So what, exactly, does announcing that this poisonous goop is more flammable than what we thought going to do for safety on the rails ? We need more speed restrictions on trains carrying this stuff - like down to 10MPH when going past another train or thru a populated area - and increased restrictions on the number of cars carrying this liquid DEATH allowed in a train UNTIL NEW TANK CARS ARE PUT IN SERVICE. Time to get serious.
Where is the data from the FRA regarding the broken axle they found which would correspond with the fact that the grain train car derailed on the switch in town? How long does it take for the FRA to tell everyone that the broken axle caused the wreck one or two minutes before everything was being stopped? How long will it take for the Association of American Railroads or the BNSF to tell the country how rare it is for axles to break on grain cars, even at that cold spell? Why not tell the world how rare this happened because the maintainer saw the train on inspection and radio the engineer to stop whereby he radioed the oil train to stop?
Why do the reports say that CBR is handled with 99.9977% of all shipment without incident when that was the percentage for 2008 before the following incident in 2013? What is the correct percentage after Lac Megantic, BC, and Alabama? Why does Train Magazine give this fear spreading mayor such a soapbox? The track was fine and the railroad employees did their job in an excellent manner. This should all be fixed up and forgotten if this tiny town mayor does not get it blown out of reason into a sensational issue for the hungry press.
Lac Megantic accident was caused by there being no management Train Master on 300 miles of railroad in Canada who would have done safety checks on the crew securing proper brakes on the cars stopped at Nantes. The TM was based in US and was on vacation, job blanked. The trackman that pushed the off button on the one engine was out of his authority if he could not have started another engine to maintain the same air brakes. He also said that he assumed the hand brakes were applied without check that question. A qualified trainman would have checked that. The engineer in the Hotel called his dispatcher and asked to return to the train but was told to stay at Hotel and get his rest.
McNamara: youse be a loon, methinks. Want the “goop” coming thru your town on trucks, driven by meth-addicted hypes? The Feds have, absolutely, stepped on their d**ks, inspection-wise. What were they thinking?
Let’s forget all about the thousands of oil trains that have moved over the past 6 months entirely without incident. Seriously, this last train was a victim of circumstance based on preliminary results (if a grain train had derailed into a rock train that would have only made the local paper), and the Lac-Magentic thing was due to somebody not doing their job. These trains are going to go on the ground occasionally. There isn’t a tank car you can build that will prevent spills or explosions in every imaginable sequence of events, much less one fitting that criteria that would be crash proof and still have any room left in gross weight for carrying an actual load.
Growing pains of our rapidly expanding energy sector. Incompetent leadership not allowing other avenues for petrol transport contributes to the strain placed on rail. That’s right; BUILD the da## pipeline and elect leaders!
@JEFFERY GUSE - I can’t speak for Mr Hays, but I’m sure he didn’t mean to defame such a respected and professional group of people, many of whom wouldn’t dream of using drugs on duty without good cause.
One problem with the Trains.com forums, I’m sure you’ll understand, is that the only exposure most of us have to truck drivers consists of one loudmouth poster who constantly posts bizarre political attacks that, quite honestly, are usually so illogical and incoherent that they at least sound like they’re influenced by some unholy cocktail of mind influencing chemicals.
Besides crude oil, there is a lot of really bad stuff riding around in tank cars and tank trucks. Safety improvements are much needed but unfortunately there will always be wrecks on roads and rails, and pipeline accidents as well. The most unpredictable element is the human one. As a driver, I wish I could say that I was always perfect, but I can’t and don’t know anyone else who truthfully can either.
I wonder if the people that worry about trains coming through their towns with hazardous material worry equally about trucks - ex. those carrying gasoline to every gas station in America - and the idiots that drive around them while texting and yakking on their phones? I suspect that there’s at least equal opportunity for an accident/tragedy with this scenario as their is with a train derailment.