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Wisconsin legislators call for increased crude-by-rail oversight
Sure, Lets demonize rail shipments of crude oil. Maybe we should truck all that oil on the highways.
If oil can’t be handled safely, then it shouldn’t be handled.
The industry isn’t being demonized – the fact of the matter there have been 7 or 8 or these explosive derailments. And the amount of crude being shipped will probably double this year. Does anyone think the public will tolerate a dozen such derailments per year and subsequent explosions and fires which can’t be extinguished?
The first time one of these trains does major damage and kills people in an urban center will be the end of it. That is a simple fact. There is no need to forever be a cheerleader for the industry
From Salon:
We are sounding loud strident alarms about crude oil trains, when we should be shoulder-to-shoulder attacking only the contents of the high-volatility, eg. Bakken, “crude…” oil trains.
“Crude is inert,” well, virtually; At the well-head bakken brings extra stuff, highly volatile, flammable , violently explosive stuff, and it’s shipped with that stuff included.
Is it not a simple solution to require, demand! that shippers adjust the Bakken at the well-head to the inert(ness) of crude, defined in the haz-mat literature.
A crude oil derailment would present an oozing, stinking black mass for cleanup…
The separated volatile stuff near the well-heads
will have a market worth…
.It’s not the trains but the contents.
Rant on…
News stories about the last 3 passenger train incidents are being horribly distorted in conventional reports.
“Amtrak in North Carolina, Commute near Oxnard, SUV-vs- MU train in Valhala.
The reports say the train hit a vehicle on the track.
A different slant:
Truck driver jams into a NC crossing, gets his truck stuck:; Inevitable Collision.
Truck driver stuck driving down an Oxnard passenger train’s track: inevitable Collision.
An SUV driver blocks an MU train at Valhalla. inevitable Collision.
Drivers caused the derailments, NOT the trains.
Vehicle Drivers, not the engineers or motorman were responsible!!
Nor the trains mechanical capabilities…
.Lead the headlines with “VEHICLE DRIVER DERAILS A TRAIN” instead of train derails after hitting a vehicle on the track”, please?
These derailments would not have happened.
.
Thank you, Mr. Carlin. To hear the media tell it the big, bad train is always at fault. People (and reporters) never grasp the difficulty in slowing and stopping a train.
Mr. Carlin, crude oil is not inert, not even close. While the Bakken light crude is highly flammable, the last 2 CN derailments in Ontario involved Canadian syncrude. Another recent Canadian CBR fire carried tar sand dilbit. There were CBR firey wrecks well before the Bakken discovery. I don’t know what hazmet literature you are reading, but the official gov’t Emergency Response Guide for crude oil calls for an evacuation distance of 1/2 mile for a tank car. http://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/11018
We need to understand the causes before we can fix it. I have heard nothing regarding the cause or causes found by investigators.
A lot of other volatile liquids and gases are moved by rail safely. Why only unit crude oil trains derailing ? Maybe sabotage ?