US industry challenges new tank car rules

OREANDA-NEWS. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has filed a federal appeals court challenge of the timeline for conforming with new federal rules for rail cars that carry crude and other flammables.

The filing by API asks the court to set aside and remand to the Department of Transportation (DOT) the timeline for implementing the new standards and braking systems.

API, the national trade organization for crude and natural gas producers, on 11 May filed a petition for review in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The suit is the first legal challenge to the rules that were issued 1 May.

It challenges the timeline for retrofitting tank cars and the installation of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, which API and railroads say will not increase safety.

The US and Canada issued the new standards, which require sturdier tank cars and all high-hazard flammable trains to have the new braking technology after 2023. They require any 70-car train with at least one car hauling packing group I material, which includes crude, moving faster than 30mph to be equipped with the brakes by 1 January 2021. The rules have differing timelines depending on what is carried in them. Packing group I materials have tighter timelines than packing group II, which includes ethanol.

The US rule requires the oldest, non-jacketed DOT-111 cars to be removed from crude service and other packing group I materials or be retrofitted by 1 January 2018. Canada has a 1 May 2017 deadline. Non-jacketed CPC-1232 cars in crude service must be retired or retrofitted by 1 April 2020.

New tank car standards include a shell thickness of 9/16th of an inch, extra protections for valves and other top fittings, full-height head shields on both ends, exterior jackets and thermal protection for the shell and a new bottom outlet valve for any car produced after 1 October 2015.

API told Argus today that "improving on a 99.9pc safety record requires data-driven efforts to prevent derailments with enhanced inspections and maintenance, upgrade the tank car fleet and educate first responders. Our safety goal is zero incidents, so retrofit timelines, braking systems and other actions must all be based on facts and science to maximize the safety impact of this rule."

API said it has long supported upgrades to the tank car fleet and is not challenging the requirement to do that. It proposed an upgraded car design and longer retrofit timeline to DOT last September.