Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Oil Train Derailment in Montana Closes Highway, Forces Evacuations
CULBERTSON, Mont.— Three tank cars continued to leak crude oil on Friday in rural, northeastern Montana in the wake of a 21-car derailment that downed a power line, closed a major highway and forced the evacuation of a town. Emergency workers responding to the Thursday evening derailment said cleanup of the leaking crude could not begin until the arrival of a Texas-based Burlington Northern Santa Fe hazardous materials team. The wreck is the latest in a string of derailments this year exposing the still-unchecked dangers that crude-oil trains pose to people and the environment, and how unprepared communities are to deal with the threat.
“This derailment is only the latest reminder that the dangers of transporting crude by rail are magnified by the lack of equipment and training available to local emergency workers,” said Jared Margolis, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity who focuses on the impacts of energy development on endangered species. “Communities should not be forced to wait for industry hazmat teams to travel across the country while leaking oil contaminates our water and soil.”
The accident involving the 106-car train came just hours after another derailment had shut down rail traffic through the area. The accident comes on the heels of six other major oil train derailments just this year, including several explosive spills.
The accidents have exposed the ineffectiveness of new federal regulations for oil trains that will allow dangerous, puncture-prone tank cars to remain in service for up to 10 years. The new regulations allow oil trains to move at speeds well in excess of the puncture resistance of even the newer tank cars, and fail to limit the weight and length of oil trains to prevent derailments.
“A moratorium on oil trains is needed to prevent these disasters and ensure that emergency responders can be trained and equipped to take appropriate action after derailments,” Margolis said. “It’s irresponsible to continue to allow these dangerous trains to roll through our communities and across some our most pristine landscapes.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Press Release: July 17, 2015
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/crude-oil-transport-07-17-2015.html
Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
The accident involving the 106-car train came just hours after another derailment had shut down rail traffic through the area. The accident comes on the heels of six other major oil train derailments just this year, including several explosive spills.
The accidents have exposed the ineffectiveness of new federal regulations for oil trains that will allow dangerous, puncture-prone tank cars to remain in service for up to 10 years. The new regulations allow oil trains to move at speeds well in excess of the puncture resistance of even the newer tank cars, and fail to limit the weight and length of oil trains to prevent derailments.
“A moratorium on oil trains is needed to prevent these disasters and ensure that emergency responders can be trained and equipped to take appropriate action after derailments,” Margolis said. “It’s irresponsible to continue to allow these dangerous trains to roll through our communities and across some our most pristine landscapes.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Press Release: July 17, 2015
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/crude-oil-transport-07-17-2015.html
Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
As a Blacklisted Yardforeman-Conductor Qualification it must be said that hundreds of these so-called accidents have been censored by the Railway companies and their lawyers to block the public from hearing the truth of the fact that since the sixties there has been a anti-social offensive against the workers and the ecological organic balances of the web-of-life going on in Canada, U.S.A., Mexico and the railways of the world.
This takes the form of complete reduction of crew sizes throughout the world's railways to pocket the Private profits while assaulting the living and working conditions of the OBU, the one big union of the railway workers globally.
This takes the form of automation which is nowadays called Austerity, backed by the monopoly cops and armies. This deliberate top-down policy is guilty of all these accidents, and here is the proof positive.
The freight train has because of it architechture two sides to it, a front and a back, and that requires that an engineer and a second engineer work the head end engine to cover the two sides of the trains movement, and that in a caboose on the back of the train, there be two workers to cover the movement of the train from that position. In addition there needs to be a front end switchman to handle the switches in case of CTC- Centralized Traffic Control fails and that does on occasion occur.
That makes five people per freight crew the minimum correct crew size for covering the safety and movement of trains of the railway. These longated ( trains with skeleton crew sizes) pulling out from their trainyards have been reduced from the sixties to four, then three, then two, and in the case of Lac Me'gantic Quebec (47) killed and 30 factories, town history, and peoples socializing center destoyed by explosive burning and destruction then of the ecological environment and the web-of-life in the town's center, there was only one engineer in the front to secure the safety of the train.
This he was not able to do because of the second point of throwing the safety out the window, done by the railway top officials, which was to end blasting the air, which is when securing a train in the early sixties the air brakes throughout the entire length of the train was blasted, and that put full brake application on all cars in the consist to full braking mode.
Nowadays however with the reduction of crew sizes from the safe sizes, came the order from the companies to only put brakes on in the head end locomotives, that is called independent braking.
In the case of Lac Me'gantic this means that on a slope into the city center with 72 Oil tanker cars full of Bekkan fracked Crude Oil all known as 'dangerous explosive cargo' there was no brakes applied to that freight and only the head end engines had brakes. This is all coupled to the fact that the railways have not in most cases improved their equipement but are running on old trackhage with old cars. Not even when leaving the train sloping to Lac Megantic Quebec was a simple device life a Derail put in front of the locomotives in case of movement of the train.
Remember all the safety boards have been taken over by the Railway companies to the detriment of the Railway unions which require full crews and car knocker safety inspection from the intiating railyard. There is no full inspection before taking the green board for the mainline. This plan of Automation-Austerity is unsustainable, and all livability is threatened with in the right-of-ways of the Railways, and within a half mile of the tracks.
That deliberate plan is what is killing the organic balances throughout the nation.
My point is that the railways need to re-new with the electricity from renewable energy such as wind, tidal, and solar power. End dependence on non-renewable fuels such a coal, gas, oil, and atomic energy which is destroying the livability of air, land, water, and the plants, animals and peoples.
The world is upside down until the organized workers can takeover, and put into the working conditions all the safety they need to make a community ecologically sound again.
You yet have a world to win!! End pollution wars and electrifiy from renewable energy. Workers of the world unite!!
This takes the form of complete reduction of crew sizes throughout the world's railways to pocket the Private profits while assaulting the living and working conditions of the OBU, the one big union of the railway workers globally.
This takes the form of automation which is nowadays called Austerity, backed by the monopoly cops and armies. This deliberate top-down policy is guilty of all these accidents, and here is the proof positive.
The freight train has because of it architechture two sides to it, a front and a back, and that requires that an engineer and a second engineer work the head end engine to cover the two sides of the trains movement, and that in a caboose on the back of the train, there be two workers to cover the movement of the train from that position. In addition there needs to be a front end switchman to handle the switches in case of CTC- Centralized Traffic Control fails and that does on occasion occur.
That makes five people per freight crew the minimum correct crew size for covering the safety and movement of trains of the railway. These longated ( trains with skeleton crew sizes) pulling out from their trainyards have been reduced from the sixties to four, then three, then two, and in the case of Lac Me'gantic Quebec (47) killed and 30 factories, town history, and peoples socializing center destoyed by explosive burning and destruction then of the ecological environment and the web-of-life in the town's center, there was only one engineer in the front to secure the safety of the train.
This he was not able to do because of the second point of throwing the safety out the window, done by the railway top officials, which was to end blasting the air, which is when securing a train in the early sixties the air brakes throughout the entire length of the train was blasted, and that put full brake application on all cars in the consist to full braking mode.
Nowadays however with the reduction of crew sizes from the safe sizes, came the order from the companies to only put brakes on in the head end locomotives, that is called independent braking.
In the case of Lac Me'gantic this means that on a slope into the city center with 72 Oil tanker cars full of Bekkan fracked Crude Oil all known as 'dangerous explosive cargo' there was no brakes applied to that freight and only the head end engines had brakes. This is all coupled to the fact that the railways have not in most cases improved their equipement but are running on old trackhage with old cars. Not even when leaving the train sloping to Lac Megantic Quebec was a simple device life a Derail put in front of the locomotives in case of movement of the train.
Remember all the safety boards have been taken over by the Railway companies to the detriment of the Railway unions which require full crews and car knocker safety inspection from the intiating railyard. There is no full inspection before taking the green board for the mainline. This plan of Automation-Austerity is unsustainable, and all livability is threatened with in the right-of-ways of the Railways, and within a half mile of the tracks.
That deliberate plan is what is killing the organic balances throughout the nation.
My point is that the railways need to re-new with the electricity from renewable energy such as wind, tidal, and solar power. End dependence on non-renewable fuels such a coal, gas, oil, and atomic energy which is destroying the livability of air, land, water, and the plants, animals and peoples.
The world is upside down until the organized workers can takeover, and put into the working conditions all the safety they need to make a community ecologically sound again.
You yet have a world to win!! End pollution wars and electrifiy from renewable energy. Workers of the world unite!!
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$240.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network