Your comments are stunning. The issue isn’t preventing spilled oil. It’s protecting people’s lives and property. I live in an area of about 300,000 population. Train tracks go through the middle of the west side of town. In the north side of town, the tracks are within feet of homes. There are two small cities to the north. Those same tracks bisect those towns. It’s human lives we’re talking about.
My son works in the industry which repairs and upgrades rail cars. These old tanker cars need reinforced heads. Heads are the ends of the cars right above the point where the cars link together. Sudden impacts, even sudden stops, can cause parts of one car to pierce the head of the car ahead or behind and cause an inferno. Needs fixing.
Remember the Keystone Pipeline? Don’t you get a feeling there is an effort by the Carbon Nuts to pinch off our distribution of domestic oil production? Michael Whatley thinks so:
Michael Whatley, executive vice president of Consumer Energy Alliance, an industry-backed group that supports Keystone, said more rail accidents can be expected with the increased use of trains to carry oil to market.
“Trains need to be a supplement, not a replacement” for pipelines, Whatley said. While both forms of transportation are safe, “we need expanded pipeline infrastructure,” he said.