West Coast CBR shipments stable, for now
There is “big potential” to expand crude by rail shipments to West Coast ports and to California, but building the infrastructure “has proven painstakingly slow,” writes RBN Energy LLC analyst Rusty Braziel.
CBR
Drought relief, by rail
Could emergency service that’s been used worldwide be applied on a massive scale for California?
FRA issues rule preventing unattended trains carrying flammables from rolling away
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued on July 30, 2015 a final rule to prevent unattended trains that carry crude oil, ethanol, poisonous by inhalation (PIH), toxic by inhalation (TIH), and other highly flammable contents from rolling away. Railroad employees who are responsible for securing a train will now be permanently required to communicate with another qualified individual trained on the railroad’s securement requirements to verify that trains and equipment are properly secured.
Is Bakken CBR fading away?
Bakken crude oil hauled in unit trains may disappear by 2017, according to an analysis conducted by RBN Energy LLC.
DOT-117 defined
The wait for a new tank car specification is over. Now comes the “fun” part: Retrofits to older cars, and potentially onerous operating rules.
Fiery crude oil train wreck in North Dakota
A BNSF crude oil unit train derailed near the small North Dakota town of Heimdal, at 7:30 a.m. CDT on May 6, 2015, resulting in explosions and fire.
NTSB wants all tanks in a blanket
Proponents of current plans to renew the continent’s crude oil tank car fleet arrived at work April 7 to find another embarrassing egg laid at their doorstep, and not by the Easter Bunny.
Why bitumen isn’t necessarily safer than Bakken
The chain reaction fireballs that attended the Feb. 16, 2015 derailment of a CSX unit oil train in populated West Virginia probably blinded observers to the significance of the concurrent derailment and explosions of a CN oil train in a remote and uninhabited area of northern Ontario. Most reports treated the two events as equals, given that both trains consisted of recently manufactured CPC-1232 tank cars loaded with crude oil.
Hiatus in CBR mishaps ends with triplet of derailments
The vintage of the tank cars involved in a triplet of near-concurrent oil train derailments over the long President’s Day weekend are at the immediate focal point of investigators and the entire crude-by-rail sector.
RSI-CTC to PHMSA: Stronger tank cars alone won’t do it
The Railway Supply Institute Committee on Tank Cars (RSI-CTC) on Feb. 6, 2015, released a statement regarding the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) draft rule on tank cars for crude oil and ethanol going to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. RSI-CTC said that stronger tank cars are only part of the means necessary to prevent hazmat spills in a derailment.