Train Carrying Oil Derails, Catches Fire in New Brunswick, Canada.

[elleng]

Source: nyt/reuters

A Canadian National Railway train carrying propane and crude oil derailed and caught fire on Tuesday in northwest New Brunswick, Canada, the latest in a string of train accidents that have put the surging crude-by-rail business under heavy scrutiny.

No one was injured but about 45 nearby homes were evacuated when the train derailed near the village of Plaster Rock at about 7 p.m. local time (2300 GMT), local officials and the railroad said.

The train originated in Toronto and was headed to Moncton, New Brunswick, which is about 300 km (186 miles) east of the site of the accident, said Jim Feeny, director of public and government affairs at CN. . .

A series of disastrous derailments has reignited the push for tougher regulation. A surge in U.S. oil production has drastically increased the number of oil trains moving across the continent as pipelines fail to keep up with growing supply.





Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/01/08/world/americas/08reuters-train.html?hp

[annm4peace]

1. Is this the 4th train with oil that derailed?

Seems like this is the 4th train to derailed in the US or Canada in the last 6 months.

[greyl]

2. Near end of article it says five major accidents in the past year.

Not sure about the 6 month deal.

There have been five major accidents in the past year involving a train carrying crude oil. The most devastating occurred in Quebec in July last year, when a runaway train derailed and exploded in the heart of the town of Lac Megantic, killing 47.

Some U.S. politicians have called for a phase-out or retrofit of old tankers that do not meet current safety standards and are prone to puncture.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/01/08/world/americas/08reuters-train.html?hp&_r=0

[annm4peace]

6. thanks,,, tired

didn't even see it.

[tofuandbeer]

3. Crazy. Seems to be happening alot.

[lobodons]

4. Koch Brothers are behind these derailments

Koch Brothers are behind these derailments. They are financing sabotage efforts against these trains. They want the perception to be that railroad transportation of oil is bad and pipeline is the safer alternative.

[annm4peace]

7. do you have more info on this?

It wouldn't surprise me.

[dead_head]

5. Some might call me a conspiracy theorist

but this kinda thing seems to be happening a lot while there's a pipelinele project trying to get approuved.....

[alp227]

8. More coverage:

The Globe and Mail: N.B. village's residents evacuated after train derailment, fire

And Plaster Rock is about 20 miles east of the Maine border.

CBC: CN train carrying crude oil derailed, on fire near Plaster Rock

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. There's an insight from a commenter to that CBC article that is worth looking into.

There may be more to that oil than meets the eye. I started a thread over in the Economy group about it.

Crude-Oil Impurities Are Probed in Rail Blasts
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111646172

Hat tip: commenter "Underdog," in a comment to the CBC article about the derailment in New Brunswick:

CN train carrying crude oil derailed, on fire near Plaster Rock
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cn-train-carrying-crude-oil-derailed-on-fire-near-plaster-rock-1.2487977

Underdog

@BriGuyPEI - Careful with that wish for pipelines, they're made of steel, just like rail cars. Hint- here's a snippet from a WSJ article, about why Bakken crude is linked to all the explosions.

"Another possibility is that impurities are being introduced during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That process involves pumping chemicals or other additives along with water and sand into a well to free more fossil fuels. One such additive is hydrochloric acid, a highly caustic material, which federal investigators suspect could be corroding the inside of rail tank cars, weakening them. Oil from fracked wells can also be laced with benzene and other volatile and highly flammable organic compounds."

Google found the Wall Street Journal. article right away.

Crude-Oil Impurities Are Probed in Rail Blasts
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303640604579294794222692778

Fiery Accidents Attract Scrutiny From Regulators, Industry

By Russell Gold and Lynn Cook
Jan. 1, 2014 8:13 p.m. ET

After three fiery accidents involving trains carrying crude oil out of North Dakota's Bakken Shale, regulators and industry officials are trying to figure out why the oil is exploding. ... Crude is flammable, but before being refined into products such as gasoline it is rarely implicated in explosions.

Yet earlier this week, when a BNSF Railway Co. train hauling 104 tank cars filled with Bakken crude struck another train, some of the cars exploded one after the other, releasing fireballs that blazed several stories above the frozen prairie.

"Crude oil doesn't explode like that," said Matthew Goitia, chief executive of Peaker Energy Group LLC, a Houston company that is developing crude-by-rail terminals.

The blast in Casselton, N.D., 25 miles west of Fargo, is just the latest explosion involving crude pumped out of the Bakken. Federal investigators and railroad and energy-company officials are probing whether additives to the oil or mislabeling of the liquid contributed to the series of explosions.
....

—Betsy Morris and Ben Kesling contributed to this article.

Write to Russell Gold at [e-mail] and Lynn Cook at [e-mail]

The derailment in New Brunswick is covered at DU in LBN:

Train Carrying Oil Derails, Catches Fire in New Brunswick, Canada.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014691661

Also see this post in this thread:

Preliminary Guidance from OPERATION CLASSIFICATION
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111645914#post1

Please see this thread in LBN:

After Train Fires, Feds Warn Bakken Oil May Be More Flammable Than Traditional Forms Of Oil
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014687058

I was surprised to see that the warning did not come from the Federal Railroad Administration, but the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Here it is:

Preliminary Guidance from OPERATION CLASSIFICATION
http://phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.ebdc7a8a7e39f2e55cf2031050248a0c/?vgnextoid=c6efec1c60f23410VgnVCM100000d2c97898RCRD&vgnextchannel=d248724dd7d6c010VgnVCM10000080e8a8c0RCRD&vgnextfmt=print

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is issuing this safety alert to notify the general public, emergency responders and shippers and carriers that recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude oil.

Based upon preliminary inspections conducted after recent rail derailments in North Dakota, Alabama and Lac-Megantic, Quebec involving Bakken crude oil, PHMSA is reinforcing the requirement to properly test, characterize, classify, and where appropriate sufficiently degasify hazardous materials prior to and during transportation. This advisory is a follow-up to the PHMSA and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) joint safety advisory published November 20, 2013 [78 FR 69745]. As stated in the November Safety Advisory, it is imperative that offerors properly classify and describe hazardous materials being offered for transportation. 49 CFR 173.22. As part of this process, offerors must ensure that all potential hazards of the materials are properly characterized.

Proper characterization will identify properties that could affect the integrity of the packaging or present additional hazards, such as corrosivity, sulfur content, and dissolved gas content. These characteristics may also affect classification. PHMSA stresses to offerors the importance of appropriate classification and packing group (PG) assignment of crude oil shipments, whether the shipment is in a cargo tank, rail tank car or other mode of transportation. Emergency responders should remember that light sweet crude oil, such as that coming from the Bakken region, is typically assigned a packing group I or II. The PGs mean that the material’s flashpoint is below 73 degrees Fahrenheit and, for packing group I materials, the boiling point is below 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This means the materials pose significant fire risk if released from the package in an accident.

As part of ongoing investigative efforts, PHMSA and FRA initiated “Operation Classification,” a compliance initiative involving unannounced inspections and testing of crude oil samples to verify that offerors of the materials have been properly classified and describe the hazardous materials. Preliminary testing has focused on the classification and packing group assignments that have been selected and certified by offerors of crude oil. These tests measure some of the inherent chemical properties of the crude oil collected. Nonetheless, the agencies have found it necessary to expand the scope of their testing to measure other factors that would affect the proper characterization and classification of the materials. PHMSA expects to have final test results in the near future for the gas content, corrosivity, toxicity, flammability and certain other characteristics of the Bakken crude oil, which should more clearly inform the proper characterization of the material.

“Operation Classification” will be an ongoing effort, and PHMSA will continue to collect samples and measure the characteristics of Bakken crude as well as oil from other locations. Based on initial field observations, PHMSA expanded the scope of lab testing to include other factors that affect proper characterization and classification such as Reid Vapor Pressure, corrosivity, hydrogen sulfide content and composition/concentration of the entrained gases in the material. The results of this expanded testing will further inform shippers and carriers about how to ensure that the materials are known and are properly described, classified, and characterized when being shipped. In addition, understanding any unique hazards of the materials will enable offerors, carriers, first responders, as well as PHMSA and FRA to identify any appropriate mitigating measures that need to be taken to ensure the continued safe transportation of these materials.

PHMSA will share the results of these additional tests with interested parties as they become available. PHMSA also reminds offerors that the hazardous materials regulations require offerors of hazardous materials to properly classify and describe the hazardous materials being offered for transportation. 49 CFR 173.22. Accordingly, offerors should not delay completing their own tests while PHMSA collects additional information.

For additional information regarding this safety alert, please contact Rick Raksnis, PHMSA Field Services Division, [phone] or E-mail: [e-mail]. For general information and assistance regarding the safe transport of hazardous materials, contact PHMSA’s Information Center at 1-800-467-4922 or [e-mail].

The same article by the same reporter ran in the local newspapers. Comments might be different.

Federal agency issues safety alert on Bakken crude
http://www.jamestownsun.com/content/federal-agency-issues-safety-alert-bakken-crude-5

Federal agency issues safety alert on Bakken crude
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/422533/

And, from the NYT:

Concern Over Safety Grows as More Oil Rides the Rails
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/us/concern-over-safety-grows-as-more-oil-rides-the-rails.html

By MATTHEW L. WALD JAN. 2, 2014

WASHINGTON — Safety officials have worried for years about hazardous materials carried on trains, but concern has intensified recently as a drilling surge in remote oil fields has generated heavy traffic on North America’s aging rail-freight networks.

That concern was heightened on Monday when a train of oil-tank cars near Casselton, N.D., plowed into a train carrying grain that had derailed on an adjacent track. The fire burned for more than a day. ... That accident was outside the town. But last July, in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, a similar train of tank cars that had been left unattended rolled down a grade and derailed, killing 47 people and burning down much of the downtown.

Even before the accident in Quebec, the United States Transportation Department had warned that shippers were failing to follow basic precautions, like determining the temperature at which oil will turn into a gas and burn or explode, and selecting appropriate tank cars to transport the material.

On Thursday, the department told oil shippers and railroads that it was “imperative” to test the oil being transported to determine its volatility. The department is also considering stricter requirements for the tank cars themselves, which are prone to puncture and burn in derailments. Sometimes the problem is as basic as the effect of a derailment, which can throw open valves and spill flammable contents.

[Mopar151]

9. And when the investigation is over

And it is discovered that the railroads are practicing safety protocols worse than Fung Wah Bus, innocents have died, and property damage runs in the billions - nobody in a necktie will go to jail. Nobody.
They may hang some poor trainman, like the guy in the Lac Megantic disaster - Left to lock down a mile long train in questionable condition, on a grade, alone, in the dark. The American owner, in that case, won't even show up at the hearings - he'll send his lawyers, so he does'nt have to face the music.

[Demo_Chris]

10. Accidents happen. Hopefully everyone understands this...

Which is why it is imperative that we do what we can to minimize the impact by controlling transport. I would far rather a train derail than a pipeline leak.

[Brickbat]

12. That's what you get when you don't maintain your rails.

It's that simple.

[polynomial]

13. Yes they lie about maintenance and safety

What is not funny are many situations ditched along with injuries in the railroad industry. The Union Pacific is currently caught in a safety briefing deception. An OSHA complaint is file whereas the Union Pacific with intentions lies and uses interviewing pressure in deception within safety and training meetings in the Midwest and across the system.

If a crew member questions a training issue they could get fired. Or, some managers intimidate crews even in what is called structured training programs to the point of retaliation to fire and dismiss crew persons.

Worse it was just the other year, an ethanol train, the Union Pacific calls “the Bomb” was making a return trip through the Chicago area city main tracks through western suburbs. The conductor was told of serious noises heard at the rear of that so called “Bomb train”. Upon inspection the crew found at least six tanker cars with faulty brakes so bad the train had to be stopped and a repair crew sent out to change out and repair the brakes. The fault was steel on steel for too many tanker cars.

Typical of taking short cuts in maintenance and service especially in the engines. Using duck tape to hold the electrical panels and insulation from falling apart. A lot of time panels are exposing electrical equipment worse when it rains and leaks inside.