Crude Oil is being transported in unsafe train cars across the USA

[n2doc]

On Monday, a train hauling 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in West Virginia.The violent crash punctured several of the tankers. Eventually 19 were engulfed in flames. Now, more questions are swirling about whether these tankers are safe enough to carry crude.

Old cars, new crude
Initially, the crash had many pointing to a seemingly similar accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013, in which crude oil tankers also ignited following a derailment. In the Quebecois crash, many of the tanker cars involved were DOT-111s—a train car not designed to transport flammable crude oil, but that regularly does so on North American rail lines.

In 2009, four years before the Quebecois crash, the DOT-111 had been flagged by U.S. National Transportation Safety Board as inadequate to carry ethanol and crude oil, chiefly because of its inability to prevent a puncture in the event of a crash. But the NTSB's recommendations are not legally binding anywhere in North America. More than 100,000 DOT-111s were transporting crude across American and Canadian rails when the Quebec accident occurred, and still are today.

The CSX Corporation, the railway company that owns Monday's crashed tankers, was quick to point out that the tankers in use in the West Virginia crash were not DOT-111s, but CPC-1232s. But the fact is that a CPC-1232 tanker is just a reinforced,purportedly tougher version of the DOT-111—a redesign put in place after the NTSB's 2009 warning. The biggest difference between the DOT-111 and the CPC-1232 is that the head shields (the puncture-prone ends of the cylindrical tankers) are more heavily protected.

more

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a14177/why-we-need-better-crude-oil-train-cars/

[Brickbat]

1. It's not just the cars. It's the rest of the outdated equipment, the unmaintained tracks, and the

draconian work schedules for the crews.

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. Forget relatively benign crude. It's the hazardous stuff we should be worried about.

Realizing there are some chemicals so hazardous that they may Only be transported via Rail. The frequency of train accidents is a bit disturbing. Crude has a relatively small area of impact when an incident occurs. There are other products routinely transported that have much more significant potential.

[2naSalit]

3. So True!!

I try to stay clear of the rails whenever I have to stay somewhere and when I was still moving about, I would not rent a place within a couple miles of the rails. There are far nastier things out there, rolling down the line as it were, that would freak most of us out if we knew what they were and how close we are to them whenever in the proximity of the tracks, even when the trains aren't present.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. These were the new tank cars.

That's not saying much for their integrity.