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[CNJRoss]

The Blade, Toledo, OH, 4/22:

Rail safety experts look at oil, ethanol transport
Re-routing discussed at Washington forum

The public-safety benefit from routing trains hauling crude oil or ethanol to avoid heavily populated areas could be offset by the higher risk of derailments on lesser-used tracks, a panelist at a National Transportation Safety Board rail safety forum said Tuesday.

Higher-density railroad lines have lower derailment rates, and “traffic density tends to go to populated areas,” Christopher Barkan, executive director of the railroad engineering program at the University of Illinois, told the safety board’s forum on crude-oil and ethanol transport during the first of two days of panel discussions at NTSB headquarters in Washington.

“You’re exposing the populace along lower density lines to that traffic” if it is rerouted, he said, and that is “a nontrivial trade-off.”

The safety board is holding the forum Tuesday and today in response to a boom in railroad transport of ethanol and crude oil during the past 10 and five years, respectively, during which several high-profile train derailments have occurred.

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[CNJRoss]

Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN, 4/22:

Failure rates raising new fears over use of aging oil tankers
Rail industry estimated their chance of leaking in derailments at 1 in 4.


WASHINGTON - Tens of thousands of older tanker cars used to haul North Dakota crude oil and Midwestern ethanol run a one-in-four risk of leaking if they derail, railroad officials told the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Tuesday.

The failure rate, estimated by the Rail Supply Institute and the American Association of Railroads, illustrates a growing concern for safety that has accompanied skyrocketing shipments of crude oil across the country.

Crude oil shipments originating in the United States have grown from about 6,000 carloads in 2005 to roughly 400,000 in 2013 as the United States has tapped domestic petroleum sources. At the same time, the government has yet to issue new standards for safer tanker construction.

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[CNJRoss]

Chicago Tribune, 4/22:

NTSB head: Oil tanker rail 'safety has been compromised'

The recent spate of accidents in the U.S. and Canada involving trains carrying crude oil demonstrates that “far too often, safety has been compromised,” the head of the top U.S. transportation safety agency said today.

The amount of crude oil transported on railroads — shipments that frequently pass through the Chicago area — has more than quadrupled since 2005, and some of it is especially volatile, said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman.

That extra volatility increases the likelihood of a violent fire in a derailment, Hersman said. The transport of ethanol, the most frequently shipped hazardous material in the railway system, has also boomed, she said.

“With so much flammable liquid carried by rail, it is incumbent upon the rail industry, shippers, and regulators to ensure that these hazardous materials are being moved safely,” Hersman said. She spoke in Washington D.C. at the opening of a two-day forum on improving the safety of crude oil and ethanol shipments.

The NTSB believes that older models of the type of tank car used to transport crude oil and ethanol, known as the DOT-111, are not safe to carry hazardous liquids.

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[CNJRoss]

AP via WTOP radio, 4/24:

Rail safety effort marred by squabbling

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Spurred by a series of fiery train crashes, a push by government and industry to make safer tank cars used for shipping crude oil and ethanol has bogged down in squabbling and finger-pointing over whether they're needed and if so, who should pay.

The Transportation Department, worried about the potential for catastrophic accidents involving oil and ethanol trains that are sometimes as many as 100 cars long, is drafting new tank-car regulations aimed at making the cars less likely to spill their contents in the event of a crash. But final rules aren't expected until late this year at the earliest, and it is common for such government rulemaking to drag on for years.

But one safety official said urgent action is needed.

The Obama administration needs to take steps immediately to protect the public from potentially catastrophic oil train accidents even if it means using emergency authority, Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Wednesday.

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[CNJRoss]

The Hill, Washington, DC, 4/23:

Outgoing NTSB chief leery of oil train safety

The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) warned in one of her final public appearances that the safety of freight rail trains carrying crude oil has been compromised “far too often" recently.

The comments from Deborah Hersman came during a public forum the NTSB was holding Tuesday on the transportation of crude oil and ethanol by freight rail.

Hersman said in her remarks that recent accidents in the United States and Canada, including a December train derailment in North Dakota that spilled 400,000 gallons of crude oil, demonstrate that "far too often, safety has been compromised” in oil train shipments.

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