US crude train in fiery derailment: Update
The accident came two days after another fiery crude accident in northern Ontario after a Canadian National Railway (CN) train derailed. CN today said that train also was hauling CPC-1232 tank cars, which have been the industry standard since manufacturers voluntarily upgraded the old DOT-111 design in October 2011.
CSX overnight was trying to contain oil in a creek that runs parallel to the tracks near Mount Carbon, West Virginia. Fires near the cars were allowed to burn out.
Water utilities on the Kanawha river, which runs nearby, were taking precautions because of contamination fears. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin issued a state of emergency for Kanawha and Fayette counties in western West Virginia.
The unit train, which was headed from North America to the Plains All American Pipeline terminal at Yorktown, Virginia, consisted of 109 railcars and two locomotives.
Federal regulators have been working on new rules for moving crude and ethanol by rail since shortly after a runaway crude unit train crash that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013. That accident was the first of five fiery North American crude-by-rail crashes over the next year, with the last occurring at Lynchburg, Virgnia on 30 April.
But on late 14 February, 29 cars on a 100-car CN train derailed, and seven caught fire, about 30 miles north of Gogama in remote northern Ontario. Rail traffic between Montreal, Quebec, and Winnepeg, Manitoba, continued to be shut off today.
One person was treated for respiratory distress after the CSX accident, and there were no injuries reported in the CN derailment.
CN crews battling temperatures below -30°C (-22°F) today were clearing the right of way of wreckage so they could begin repairing the track. Spilled oil was contained on site.
The causes of both accidents are under investigation.
US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) earlier this month requested a federal inspector general audit of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) over its failure to propose new rules for flammable trains and other safety issues. PHMSA sent a draft of the new rules, which were not released, days later.
The regulation was "lost somewhere … between the administration and the trolls over at the Office of Management and Budget who will further delay the ruling," he said at a hearing on 3 February.
"We need a new standard for rail cars so we can move ahead with [oil] production."
Canada is waiting on the US process so it can align its rulemaking.
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