Posted on 02/13/2014 2:26:42 PM PST by thackney
A 120-car Norfolk Southern Corp train carrying heavy Canadian crude oil derailed and spilled in western Pennsylvania on Thursday, adding to a string of recent accidents that have prompted calls for stronger safety standards.
There were no reports of injury or fire after 21 tank cars came off the track and crashed into a nearby industrial building at a bend by the Kiskiminetas River in the town of Vandergrift.
Nineteen of the derailed cars were carrying oil, four of which spilled between 3,000 and 4,000 gallons of oil, Norfolk Southern said. The leaks have since been plugged. The two other derailed tank cars held liquefied petroleum gas.
The train, which originated in Chicago, was destined for an asphalt plant in Paulsboro, New Jersey, owned by NuStar, a NuStar spokeswoman said.
The clean-up was under way on Thursday as a heavy winter storm gathered pace, leaving about 4 inches (10 cm) of snow on the ground by midday Thursday. An investigator from the Federal Railroad Administration was en route to the scene, the railroad regulator said.
"I heard a strange noise, a hollow, screeching sound," said Ray Cochran, who watched the train derail from his home on a hill above the tracks. "I looked out the window and saw three or four tankers turn over and one of them ran into the building."
The train, which was also carrying food products, crashed into a track-side building owned by MSI Corporation that makes metal products.
All employees had been accounted for, said Sandy Smythe, a public information officer with Westmoreland County's public safety department, which includes Vandergrift borough.
MSI declined to comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
I give up, time to go solar, getting one of those solar furnaces installed in the AM
Quick! Someone pass a law mandating more stringent safety standards and outlawing rail road wrecks! Hurry!
Here come the anti-Keystone bunch! This just gives them fuel...to pardon the pun. :)
Willie Weeps!
well, you could read the OP.
“The train, which originated in Chicago, was destined for an asphalt plant in Paulsboro, New Jersey, owned by NuStar, a NuStar spokeswoman said.”
Not really a pipeline fault this time though, you still have to get oil to a customer’s plant.
This oil came from IL headed to an asphalt maker, how else besides truck can it get to NJ? How many times has it been done in the decades before this crash, a few thousand possibly?
We ship oil all the time by rail tanker, long before Obama got into office and there have always been accidents like this, they’re just making the front page now that Keystone is so important.
(which is fine by me this time because it helps out a cause I’m all for, but many times the opposite is just as true)
Warren Buffet got this covered...
His holding company recently brought a company specializing in additives that improve the flow of oil in pipelines.
“Somebody should invent a system of underground pipes that can transport this type of product efficiently and safely.”
Somebody should invent a system of personal liberty and private property.
All true.
Just one point. We are shipping a lot more oil now due to increases in domestic production combined with a lack of approved pipelines. So while the rate of accidents may not change, the number of accidents is quite likely to be higher.
North Dakota oil rail shipments expected to spike
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3101356/posts
Study says pipeline resistance raises oil-transport risks
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3081952/posts
U.S. crude oil increasingly moves by barge, truck and rail
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3041737/posts
Completely agree with that, they have to mathematically.
I was just pointing out that in this particular case that tanker would have been on those tracks no matter how many pipelines we put in the ground.
How the oil gets to the refinery or from there to a smaller regional point is what most people were commenting on it seems. Rail is almost always the safest and most economical way for larger (but still small) end user shipments like this.
Here is what Conservatives need to do. Form a conservation group like the Sierra Club and go after everything the libs put in place that is killing people and wildlife.
Solar field killing birds? 100 million lawsuit. Train with fuel derails? 100 million lawsuit. Apply for government grants. Do everything the Sierra Club does.
Then when the government fights back, use the Sierra Club as an example and get their funding pulled.
The way to beat the left is to bankrupt them.
Rail transport is not the way to go.
I support USA energy self sufficiency for economic and security.
If foreign corporations and countries are taking land (farm or otherwise) to bring energy to the USA, or putting Americans at risk, that low cost energy needs to stay in the USA, and not be shipped to China by global corporations looking for more profits.
This was imported from Canada. The US doesn’t come close to supplying enough oil to meet our domestic demands.
Thanks Obama!
</sarcasm>
Note the media always use gallons to pump the numbers. The standard crude oil measure is the stock tank barrel (42 gallons). The total spilled is under 100 barrels. Just not a big enough number to hype, so they used 3000-4000 gallons.
They tell us that use of Canadian oil is part of the plan for US energy self sufficiency, and the economic advantages of lower energy prices. If that’s the case I can support eminent domain as being in the national interest. However if the plan is to use the USA and eminent domain so foreign corporations with ties to politicians, can use the USA as a conduit to China, then I strongly oppose seeing Americans having their land taken and devalued.
Americans have been undercut by lying politicians, corporatists and bankers with “ free trade” enough that I do not trust them. Some will do anything to sell out the USA, while patriots willingly give up their lives. I don’t trust the bxstards.
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