Report makes recommendations to improve oil train safety in Pennsylvania

The reason, Zarrembski tells us, is because rerouting can be complex, if not impossible, when the train’s destination, the oil refineries, are inside Philadelphia.

With as many as 70 oil trains rumbling across Pennsylvania each week, the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday released a series of recommendations meant to reduce the risk of a catastrophic derailment, including reduced speeds through cities, beefed-up track inspections and a call for trackside communities to plan for an emergency. A train carrying Bakken crude derailed in Quebec two years ago, causing a fire and explosion that killed 47 people and leveled the downtown.

It also called on CSX and Norfolk Southern to voluntarily slow their trains to 35 miles per hour through Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

He recommended that the state Public Utility Commission, which inspects tracks on behalf of the FRA, focus on crude-oil routes and sidings that see a significant number of oil tank cars. Positive train control technology adds more safety margins to help prevent derailments or, in the words of the report, “is designed to automatically stop a train before certain types of accidents occur”. That speed reduction, if adopted, would further reduce a 40 m.p.h. limit set by the U.S. Transportation Department in its own updated regulations, issued in May.

“While I personally support all proven preventative measures, in this instance, the best defense for our local communities along crude by rail routes is to be prepared”.

The recommendations go beyond those minimum standards required by the Federal Railroad Administration.

The Wolf administration on Monday released the report, “Assessment of Crude by Rail Safety Issues in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”, written by Allan Zarembski, a professor of railroad engineering and safety at the University of Delaware. The proposals do not rely, for example, on technology that has not been developed yet, he said. -Tankers, railroads and bridges must meet federal safety guidelines -Railroads should work with local emergency response teams -Railroads should analyze the routes they use to transport high-hazard flammable cargo But the report does not require the railroads, which run right through the middle of Philadelphia, along the Schuylkill and into oil refineries in Southwest Philadelphia and neighboring New Jersey, to reroute through less populated areas. Critics say these recommendations are just a continuation of the status quo and fail to hold the railroads accountable on a larger scale.

“We want to reduce the risk of a crude-by-rail incident with recommendations that are not cost-prohibitive, that are implementable and have real value”, he said.

Wolf has expressed “grave concern” about the trains’ safety in the wake of several fiery crashes.

The report urges the railroad to install Positive Train Control Systems on the road, which would govern the movements of a train preventing unsafe maneuvers.

Railroad tank cars such as those pictured above are increasingly carrying crude oil from…

Neither Norfolk Southern nor CSX responded specifically to the report’s recommendations but said they are continuing to upgrade tracks and the technology that can detect any defects in the tracks or trains. In recent years, refiners have switched from overseas suppliers to U.S. shale-oil producers that transport crude by rail because of the lack of pipelines.