Crude Oil Trains vs Pipeline

Should crude oil trains, and all other trains, be required to stop and wait on passing sidings, to wait for passing trains to completely pass, on a first come (stop), last serve basis ? No high speed meets !

The grain train went into emergency when it derailed a grain car onto the adjacent track, where an oncoming passing crude oil train struck the derailed grain car, causing a massive explosion, and fire

What about the cost of the pipeline construction from the Dakota's to Illinois, how long will it take for the construction, vs the cost of safe train transported crude oil and cleanup from multiple catastrophic fatal derailments/explosions

See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhraoVIJ1OE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--uS_Susx3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKgDUJpr_l4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_g1NuoT6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnOKIkhwPuA

The trade offs are pipelines are much safer than train loads of oil but when they leak the volumes are higher.

Overall pipelines are safer. There is a town in Quebec that would agree with that statement.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

The trade offs are pipelines are much safer than train loads of oil but when they leak the volumes are higher.

Overall pipelines are safer. There is a town in Quebec that would agree with that statement.

Cheerio John

Click to expand...

It seems there are a few residents in California who might disagree with that. Some can't talk because like the ones in quebec, they are dead.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/tag/pipeline-explosion/

Suffice to say, both are dangerous. That's becuase oil is a volatile hydrocarbon, its flammable and its transported under pressure. I like to think of it this way...

Can a pipeline do anything else besides transport oil? Can it serve the same function as a railroad?

What happens to the pipeline when the individuals using it no longer feel the need to maintain it?

What happens to these lines once they're abandoned?

Most importantly: Which employs more? Which has a better infrastructure for dealing with wrecks and disasters? Which one is actually better for us?

Safety is procedure procedure procedure. Those who can't or don't follow it can create situations which have deadly consequences. This is also why railroading is a serious job, done by serious men. That derailment was a result of poor procedure, men were fired for what happened that day. But you did notice that there was a railroad man present to work the switches. Does the pipeline send men out as often to check their own lines?

Bob_Ross said:

snip ~ That derailment was a result of poor procedure, men were fired for what happened that day. But you did notice that there was a railroad man present to work the switches. Does the pipeline send men out as often to check their own lines?

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The RR men on site were to probably on location to just instructed to remove snow from the switch's, and to make sure the switch's heaters were working, and that the switch heaters were not fouled with ice and snow, at the switch heaters ... what if he broken axle occurred 41 car lengths past the switch ? The switch maintainers had no job to insure this did not happen .. stuff does happen ... and the switch maintainers maybe were not at fault ? You are presuming the switch maintainers were at fault

If you will notice that the crossover had no points to foul, as it was a L to R crossover, with only a frog to foul the track, and a switch lead out (which rarely causes a derailment)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhraoVIJ1OE

The switch maintainers were not at fault ... as you are surmising as you being just a lowly peanut gallery Trainzer (as YOU are a non expert, a non RR employee, a non NTSB, a non FRA employee)

The real problem is that the crude oil train presumed: that the switch would be clear in time for their HS run through, and that a derailed car would not foul their track, which it did, at HS

cascaderailroad said:

The switch maintainers were not at fault ... as you are surmising as you being just a lowly peanut gallery Trainzer (as YOU are a non expert, a non RR employee, a non NTSB, a non FRA employee)

The real problem is that the crude oil train presumed: that the switch would be clear in time for their HS run through, and that a derailed car would not foul their track, which it did, at HS

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Well you're right, I'm not anything but a peanut gallery fool. My own information came from reading through the comments section of the video. The poster did not mention the axle. That's what I get for not doing enough research on the topic.

Given this new information though, don't you think someone over at the car shop's office got a phone call?

Lastly, the mention of the switchman was to emphasize the point that at least the railroad had men on sight to observe and work on the equipment.

A broken axle can happen with no visible detectable defects at a railcar carshop, and most probably the railcar involved, was given a visual 45 second inspection per each side, of each railcar, sometime in the past 30 days, by an untrained carman inspector, in the middle of the night, who has only a dim flashlight to inspect for trainline air leak flaws, on 137 railcars per night, in a huge yard with hundreds of thousands of railcars (like Bailey classification yard in NE) ... There is no real thorough entailed inspection of railcars, and axles are only magniflux inpected 2 times in their lifetime ... once at installation to the wheel discs, and secondly when they finally fracture and cause a huge derailment

The switch heater workmen probably had very little training, and were on site ONLY to clean out snow and ice from fouled tracks and switch machines, and see that the rails points/frogs had no fouling snow and ice

I being a car inspector, was thrown out into the dark classification yard, with no training whatsoever, I dint' even know that roller bearings even had an inner rubber seal to check for wear and leakage ... I was never thoroughly trained, as was just an employee with a pulse ... a person for the Company and FRA to blame, when things went wrong

The NTSB blames a small scratch on a rail clip as the point of derailment (Ah Ha, No DaHarr) ... Even the Feds are completely guessing, like chimps, as to exactly what happened, and why

Bob_Ross said:

Does the pipeline send men out as often to check their own lines?

Click to expand...

A pipeline has a traveling "pig" separating flows, and when a low pressure malfunction occurs, a pipeline usually stops the flow within a few seconds time ... They fly helicopters frequently with sensing equipment

Is there a picture of the axle? That would say a lot about the nature of the break. It's often easy to tell where/how a break occurred if you know what you're looking for. Unless something strange was going on, the break almost certainly stated on the surface, but depending on its location along the axle's axis (say that ten times fast) it may not have been in a spot that would be easily observed.

All that said, I suppose "why" is the more important and more difficult question.

I'm sure as that the train "was everywhere" there were many broken axles, some broken during the actual collision, and perhaps not when the grain car first derailed and toppled over, fouling the adjacent track, and the explosion and huge fire melted and damaged many clues to exactly what happened ... It looked like an absolutely frigid day in the middle of nowhere, and severe cold probably was a major factor in rail, wheel, axle, running gear flaws/failure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiMfOOyP1DM

The axle was broken in half, propagated from the inside of a visually undetectable internal flaw void, and many other axles were inspected on similar railcars, that had the same manufacturer, and many of the same internal void defects were found nationwide

I like your original post, but I feel like we've strayed from talking about pipelines vs railroads to talking about the technical points of the particular incident.

So I'll go back to your OP and discussion questions.

1. Yes I do think that oil trains should run under restrictions. A 15 mph restriction might have prevented that incident. Of course, then we wouldn't have heard such a famous line "WE ARE EVERYWHERE!"

What a great line.

To what degree they should be restricted should be determined by the track and whatever else rolls along it. Well, at least thats what this guy in the peanut gallery thinks.

Edited- Sorry for the big edit but my post was really off topic, not fair to OP.

Hi everybody.
Transporting crude oil by any other method than pipeline is inherently more hazardous. The foregoing is due the presence of hydrogen sulfide in the oil which when the crude is first extracted from the oil well is maintained in molecular form attached to the carbon atoms of the liquid.

However when beng transported by any method the hydrogen sulfide molecules become detached from the carbon due to swirl and vibration and forms into a vapour at the top of the liquid crude. When being transported by pipeline the vapour can be syphoned and removed from oil at various points alone the pipeline under controlled conditions without ventilation to the atmosphere.

In the above ensuring that no hydrogen sulfide is allowed to enter the atmosphere is essential as the vapour can be highly toxic to humans or any other life in the visinity of a vetilaltion. The foregoing sets out the problem of transportation by rail as the solphide vapour cannot be extracted or vented from the rail tanker cars during any journey and therefore the buildup of the highly infamable low ignition point vapour continues whenever the cars are traveling.

As Bob Ross advised in his posting at #3 of this thread industrial safety is a matter of procedure, procedure, procedure to which I would add the need of safe working practices backed up by thorough and competent training. Therefore, when incidents occur the cause will always be found in ether human neglect, incompetence or both.

In the above once a pipeline is constructed little human involvement is required in the day to day operation of that pipeline. However, in the day to day operation of any railroad much higher human involvement is required and if crude oil tanker cars are involved the volatility of that oil can be much greater than that being transported within a pipeline raising the hazard conditions in areas surrounding the rail tanker route.

It is always personal human error which causes industrial incidents and the greater the number of humans involved in any operation the greater the chances of an incident occurring. Therefore, inherently pipeline transportation of crude oil should always be safer than transposition by rail.

Bill

Reading up on the Dakota pipeline, it is really causing the Native Americans uproar. It may not be possible to build across their land, and by the time it is built, the Baaken oil boom may go bust, causing fracking companies to relocate, leaving many boom towns busted. BNSF was restricted to moving 26 tank cars across their land ... now there are hundreds of tank cars daily. The areas are a health disaster, ecologically and living wise ... lots of jobs ... no housing ... crime ... etc ...

But getting back on topic, I believe oil trains are having way too many derailments, traveling unsafely, at higher speeds, and should have mandatory stop signal orders on all passing sidings, making them a slow order priority 3 consist

Perhaps it is time for a return of the U-1 wheel dot: