Experts Urge Railroads to Improve Tracks, Tank Cars for Hazardous Fuel Shipments
by Bart Jansen (USA Today) Railroads need to repair tracks better and continue to upgrade tank cars as they haul more hazardous cargo such as crude oil and natural gas, says a report Wednesday from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Rural communities along the rail routes also need to improve their emergency preparedness, according to the report titled “Safely Transporting Hazardous Liquids and Gases in a Changing U.S. Energy Landscape.”
“Railroad tank cars and tank barges were hauling oil and fuel ethanol in increasingly larger quantities and over longer distances, often on routes passing through communities that had little, if any, experience with regular and large quantities of flammable liquids traffic,” the report said.
The report studied concerns about transporting crude oil and ethanol by rail, rather than barge or pipeline, because of a sharp and unexpected increase in rail service from 2005 to 2015.
But rail hasn’t proved as safe as the “exemplary” record for either pipelines or tank barges, which improved their safety after catastrophes 30 years ago, according to the report. It found no reports of ethanol or natural-gas releases when moved by waterways in the last decade, and only rare reports of crude-oil releases.
Rail accidents unintentionally released 2.6 million gallons of ethanol in 58 incidents from 2005 to 2015, according to the report. Accidents also spilled nearly 1.7 million gallons of crude oil during that period, mostly in the final three years. READ MORE Access study
RFA Responds to National Academy of Sciences Report on Rail Shipping (Biofuels Journal)
Pipelines safer than rail for fluid transportation (Biofuels International)
Loop Track Comeback (Ethanol Producer Magazine)