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.
Commentary

Tank car builders don’t agree on DOT-111 obsolescence timeline

Tank car builder The Greenbrier Companies is urging the White House Office of Management and Budget to disregard advice by the company’s own industry trade group, the Railway Supply Institute-Committee on Tank Cars (RSI-CTC), and proceed full speed ahead with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposed schedule for fleet renewal.

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.

Oil train mishaps reveal tank car strengths and limitations

Two same-day derailments of crude oil trains in Canada and a third in West Virginia two days later illustrate the strengths and limitations of the newest general-purpose tank cars plying North American rails.

Delaware green groups target CBR activity

Two environmental groups on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015 sought legal advice from a Delaware Superior Court judge on a forum to appeal state action expanding crude-by-rail (CBR) activity in the First State.

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.

North Dakota: Treat Bakken crude for transport

North Dakota has ordered producers of oil from the Bakken shale field to begin removing flammable natural gas liquids from the product before crude-by-rail (CBR) transport to other locations.

UP begins Canada-to-California CBR service

Union Pacific’s Can-Am Corridor linking western Canada with the western U.S. entered a new era on Nov. 24, 2014, when the first unit train of Canadian crude rolled across the international border at Eastport, Idaho, headed for a distribution terminal near Bakersfield, Calif. The 97 loaded tank cars, owned by Phillips 66, were powered by two locomotives on the head end, plus a single distributed power unit on the rear.
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