Train carrying oil derails in western Pa.

[durablend]

Source: Associated Press

VANDERGRIFT, Pa.—Authorities say about five cars of a freight train carrying crude oil derailed in western Pennsylvania, striking a building.
Westmoreland County public safety officials say the derailment occurred Thursday morning on a Norfolk Southern rail line between Vandergrift and East Vandergrift.

Spokesman Dan Stevens says no injuries have been reported and there is no word of any fire or leaks, but hazardous materials crews were dispatched as a precaution.

He says some people were evacuated from a building struck by one of the cars that broke through a wall. Engineers will be sent to examine the structural integrity of the building.


Read more: http://www.ldnews.com/state/ci_25131623/train-carrying-oil-derails-western-pa

---

Awful coincidental how these keep happening, isn't it?

[Herself]

1. I suspect we will hear more of these derailings to provide motivation to sin the XL

pipeline....

[TheBlackAdder]

24. I'm starting to feel the same way. A justification for KXL. Domestic sabotage. nt

[diabeticman]

2. What do you expect. The government owns the actual railroads and they aren't keeping up with

maintenance.


I remember hearing that when people where yelling about the railways upkeep after a bunch of Amtrak crashes

[eggplant]

4. The government doesn't own the actual railroads.

The line where this happened is owned by Norfolk Southern, as noted in the article. You are probably thinking of Conrail, which was the government's "company" that had acquired much of the eastern seaboard rail lines. Conrail was purchased and its assets split between NS and CSX in 1999. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Southern_Railway for details.

[diabeticman]

9. http://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0010

[eggplant]

25. Feel free to delete your posts any time.

[Jazzgirl]

28. You are totally wrong.

The government DOES NOT own the railroads. They regulate them but don't own squat.

[Richardo]

5. The government does NOT own the railroads

The government owns Amtrak but virtually all of the railroad right-of-way and physical plant is private sector. Maintnenance is a significant part of each year's annual budget.

Many factors are at play in a derailment, not necessarily maintenance-related.

[diabeticman]

10. http://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0010

[Richardo]

15. FRA is the regulatory agency akin to the Federal Aviation Administration

FRA does not own the railroads, just as FAA does not own airlines.

[kentauros]

16. Yeah, let's just take a look at what information is available

from the Federal Railroad Administration's website about railroad ownership:

https://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0362

The Freight Rail Network

Today, the U.S. freight rail network is widely considered one of the most dynamic freight systems in the world. The $60 billion industry consists of 140,000 rail miles operated by seven Class I railroads {1} (railroads with operating revenues of $433.2 million or more), 21 regional railroads, and 510 local railroads. {2} Not only does the 140,000 mile system move more freight than any other freight rail system worldwide but it also provides 221,000 jobs {3} across the country and numerous public benefits including reductions in road congestion, highway fatalities, fuel consumption and greenhouse gasses, logistics costs, and public infrastructure maintenance costs.

The U.S. freight railroads are private organizations that are responsible for their own maintenance and improvement projects. Compared with other major industries, they invest one of the highest percentages of revenues to maintain and add capacity to their system. The majority of this investment is for upkeep to ensure a state of good repair while 15 to 20 percent of capital expenditures, on average, are used to enhance capacity. {4}

The documents Freight Railroad Background and Impact of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 offer more information about the current state of the U.S. freight rail industry. In addition, FRA's Railroad Geographic Information System provides an interactive tool that allows users to view various aspects of freight rail infrastructure in the U.S. Public datasets are available in the National Transportation Atlas Database.

{1} The seven Class I freight railroads are: BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Grand Trunk Corporation, Kansas City Southern Railway, Norfolk Southern Combined Railroad Subsidiaries, Soo Line Railroad, and Union Pacific Railroad.
{2} Federal Railroad Administration, "Freight Railroad Background", March 2012.
{3} Association of American Railroads, “An Overview of America’s Freight Railroads”, July 2012.
{4} Federal Railroad Administration, "National Rail Plan Progress Report", September 2010.

(empahsis mine)

The FRA is a regulatory agency, not an ownership arm of the federal government. The link you provided went to what they regulate, not what they own (i.e., nothing.)

[Richardo]

17. Nice work, kentauros

I'd be amazed to realize that in all the 17 years I worked in the railroad industry I was secretly a government employee.

[kentauros]

20. Well, you never know...

Your company could be contracting you to the government in order to make some kind of tax-loophole deal

[Jazzgirl]

29. You are still wrong. I work for a Class I.

I've worked for 40 years. I'm pretty darn sure I would know.

[elleng]

18. Ditto Ditto Ditto to other posters,

the government does NOT own the railroads, it regulates them through FRA, part of Transportation Department, and Surface Transportation Board, where I used to work. U.S. railroads are owned by their stockholders.

Some do OK with maintainance, and some don't, Amtrak runs over the freight carriers' lines, so has little control over roadbeds.

[Richardo]

21. elleng!

My favorite voice of reason.

[elleng]

22. SWEET, Richardo!

[Jazzgirl]

30. Thanks Ellen!

[mountain grammy]

3. And here, folks, is why we need the pipeline

so much easier to ignore those pesky underground spills... right?

[blm]

6. Yeah sure - right after a pipeline exploded in Kentucky. They want us to fear rail transport

of oil more than pipeline.

[olddad56]

7. Can I assume that the oil on the train was oil produced by fracking?

[KamaAina]

31. You can certainly postulate that

given that PA is the fracking capital of the East.

[Brickbat]

8. Only if you think deferred maintenance is a coincidence.

[TwilightGardener]

11. Trains derail a lot more than people hear about--it's fairly common.

Usually if it's just a few cars, and there's no hazardous materials, it doesn't make the news.

[kentauros]

19. That's true.

One of the (many) reasons why I stopped watching the local news is that here in Houston, with all the petro-chemical plants we have, and all the engineers that either work for them or know a fair amount about them, the media can't be bothered to ask any of them about any substance spilled or leaked. And so, they ramp up the fear and sensationalism whether it's a leak of vinyl chloride (justifiable fear) or a spill of liquid sulfur from a railcar (not justifiable fear.) They have no idea what's dangerous and what's ignorable.

[John1956PA]

12. WPXI New is reporting that over twenty tanker cars derailed.

VANDERGRIFT, Pa. — A train hauling crude oil and propane derailed in Vandergrift, Westmoreland County Thursday morning.

Over 20 cars on a Norfolk Southern rail line between Vandergrift and East Vandergrift derailed around 8:30 a.m.

Channel 11's Dave Bondy reported that people inside the nearby MSI Corporations building have been evacuated. No other evacuations were issued.

. . .

More at http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/breaking-news-train-derailment-vandergrift/ndM5K/

[John1956PA]

14. Coincidentally, just last evening, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an op-ed piece about this risk.

Short excerpt from the op-ed piece:

FRED MILLAR
Danger on the rails that run through Pittsburgh: Citizens should know when hazardous materials are in their midst

February 12, 2014 8:33 PM

. . .

Information on the risks and routing of some ultrahazardous cargoes has long been available publicly. It’s time to make public information about all of them, including crude oil.

Congress also should impose a very fast retrofit of the current crude oil DOT-111 railcars, known by rail agencies for 20 years to be defective. As the NTSB recently said, in a derailment or collision multiple DOT-111s “should be expected to lose” their contents.

. . . .

Fred Millar is an Arlington, Va.-based consultant on homeland security, hazardous materials transportation and chemical accident prevention whose clients include transportation unions, the District of Columbia City Council and national environmental groups.

The full op-ed piece is at http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/02/13/Danger-on-the-rails/stories/201402130140

[ebbie15644]

13. Nice what happens in MY backyard!

I live about 10 miles away.

[MicaelS]

23. No coincidence. Nothing mysterious.

Derailments are a common fact of railroading. The only reason you will hear about them is if hazardous materials are involved.

Here are the facts, hazardous materials are shipped all the time in this country. The only question is how they will be moved. Moved by truck, by train or by pipeline. All three have risks, and accidents occur with all three. The question is what is the safest method. As someone who 17 years working as a freight trainmen, I would vote pipeline.

[elleng]

27. Its an interesting and critical discussion for us to have.

I'm confident in neither.

[elleng]

26. U.S. Derailed Train Spills Up to 4,000 Gallons of Crude.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/02/13/us/13reuters-energy-crude-derailment-spill.html?hp&_r=0