Oil Trains Hide in Plain Sight Rail Industry’s Secret: Volatile Crude Routes Often Kept From Cities and Towns. Since Lac-Mégantic, several trains have derailed and exploded. Most of these accidents have happened in relatively rural areas like Casselton, N.D., a town of about 2,500 people 24 miles west of Fargo. But one occurred in downtown Lynchburg, Va., forcing the evacuation of much of the downtown in a city with 78,000 residents. In response, railroads agreed to slow oil trains to 40 miles an hour in urban areas, and federal regulators have proposed a broader speed limit for older tank cars carrying volatile crude oil. The rules don’t apply to other freight trains or Amtrak trains that share tracks in Newark with oil trains; about 85 Amtrak trains run through Newark every day, according to a spokesman, at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour. In addition to Norfolk Southern, which operates on the outskirts of town, CSX runs oil trains on a wholly separate track heading north toward refineries near Philadelphia online.wsj/articles/oil-trains-hide-in-plain-sight-1417663983
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:38:06 +0000
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