Just saw a press release on manufacturing.net about an agreement between UP and Dow Chemical to improve safety and security of chemical transport. The guts of the agreement boils down to 2 areas, “Both companies will work together to develop a new rail tank car design…” and “New communcation systems are also planned … to reduce dwell time of hazardous chemical shipments in high threat urban areas.”
dd
Union Tank Car is also involved in the design for the car.
ed
not surprised - but they didn’t get their name on the press release.
dd
It seems odd that UP would be involved in designing a tankcar. I think the writer was not careful and refered to UP for both UP and UTC.
http://www.manufacturing.net/article/CA6422355.html?text=dow
I’m not surprised. UP does plenty of chemical transport into and out of Blysard country.
Yes, all three companies are involved.
While UP and Dow got thier names in the news…it’s actually an industry working group…RRs, Shippers, Car Manufactures, the AAR and FRA that are collectivly developing the new standards.
Nick
What is that supposed to mean? High threat/low threat, from whom?
nbrodar - I appreciate knowing that this is an industry working group. That makes a lot of sense. I expect that UP is contributing their GPS experience and access to the new traffic control system recently mentioned in Trainwire.
Murphy Siding - perhaps this is the railroad industry’s response to the movement in areas like Washington DC to ban hazmat from trains in their area. Perhaps the city father’s view the railroad as a threat and the railroad views the ban as a threat. Nothing better than an industry cooperative effort to address multiple issues. And for the chemical companies - the railroads are their transportation lifeline - this is an approach to protect a key business enabler.
dd