Free Republic

Fires at the site of an eastern Iowa freight train derailment are out but ethanol is leaking into the Mississippi River and the task turned to monitoring for environmental impact and offloading the fuel from derailed trains to empty cars. The cars went off the tracks at 11:20 a.m. Wednesday in a remote area about 10 miles north of Dubuque. Local authorities say three cars caught fire.....

Even before it begins significant construction on the bullet train route, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has violated federal protections for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox in the Central Valley, federal regulators said in a letter last week. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the authority had set up a nine-acre construction yard outside the approved footprint for the project, affecting habitat and resulting in the destruction of a kit fox den. n a Jan. 26 letter, the service said the rail agency, along with the Federal Railroad Administration and its contractors, had failed to comply with the...

BNSF Railway more than tripled the number of trains it moved through Nebraska with a million gallons of oil or more aboard late last year and has changed its route to bypass Lincoln, at least for some trains. Reports filed with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency show that late last year BNSF expanded the number of oil trains it was required to report from three per week in July to a range of seven to 14 per week. Railroads must report trains that carry at least a million gallons of oil -- about 35 tank cars -- from the Bakken...

An investigator Monday night said that it’ll be a long time before it’s known exactly what caused smoke to fill a Yellow Line train south of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station Monday afternoon. A woman died; dozens of people were taken to area hospital, including two in critical condition, and Metro service still hasn't been fully restored.

Minnesota's highway needs can't be met without more tax revenue, Gov. Mark Dayton said Tuesday -- setting him up for a possible clash with the new Republican majority in the House. Dayton is finalizing his 2016-17 budget proposal, which aims to raise what he says is the $6 billion Minnesota's roads need over the next 10 years. The plan calls for a 6.5 percent wholesale surtax on gasoline -- separate from the existing 28.5 cents-per-gallon tax already levied. That means the tax would bring in more money when gas prices increase. "Our transportation systems are getting worse," Dayton said. "Anybody...

A proposed settlement fund for victims of a fiery train derailment that claimed 47 lives in Canada is nearly halfway to a goal of $500 million in funding commitments ahead of its filing next month, the defunct railroad's bankruptcy trustee said. More than a dozen corporations that face potential liability in the Lac Megantic, Quebec, oil train disaster have agreed to pay over $200 million to the fund and that sum could more than double by the time judges in the U.S. and Canada sign off, bankruptcy trustee Robert Keach told The Associated Press. Keach, the trustee in the Montreal,...

One-third of the crude oil hauled from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale region by railcars could be forced off the tracks and into expensive truck fleets in the next four years, according to a railcar-industry trade group. The Railway Supply Institute says there aren’t enough shops to retrofit cars carrying flammable liquids in time to meet proposed federal deadlines, and that tens of thousands of cars will be idled as a result. The U.S. Department of Transportation wants tank cars carrying crude oil to be retrofitted with more puncture-resistant features in two years, and those carrying ethanol to be upgraded in...

North Dakota is poised to impose the strictest oil standards in its history on Tuesday, requiring every barrel of crude to be filtered for dangerous types of natural gas in an effort to make crude-by-rail transport safer. The new requirements come as federal, state and local officials grapple with how best to ensure the safe transport of North Dakota's crude oil, which has been linked to a string of fiery crude-by-rail explosions, including one last year in Quebec that killed 47 people. Governor Jack Dalrymple and the two other members of the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) are taking the...

DON SMITH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER An air permit issued on Nov. 6 by the state Department of Environmental Protection allows Buckeye Partners to accept large amounts of Canadian tar sands oil at its newly renovated oil terminal in Perth Amboy. As debate rages in Washington over the environmental risks of allowing Canadian tar sands oil to be pumped across the U.S. in the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the Christie administration has quietly approved a permit that essentially opens New Jersey’s rail lines to carry that kind of oil through densely populated towns, past thousands of homes and businesses.  An air permit,...

What do train whistles and Warren Buffett have in common? If you answered old-fashioned charm, you’re wrong. The Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based think tank, calls the avuncular billionaire “the man behind the exploding trains.” Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns Union Tank Car Company, North America’s largest leaser of tank cars. Berkshire also owns BNSF Railway Company, which moves many of those cars.

A hardworking father of two was killed Sunday when a stranger shoved him off a Bronx subway platform and into the path of a train — as his horrified wife looked on, family and police sources said. A suspect was spotted minutes later boarding a city bus — and then hopping off to coolly smoke a cigarette. --SNIP-- Police released surveillance video of a middle-aged, balding man dressed in a black leather jacket, black pants and white sneakers calmly sauntering outside the station after the crime.

Russia To Revamp North Korea's Rail System, Eyes Mineral Resources By Michelle FlorCruz  October 30 2014 2:07 PM Russia and North Korea are considering a deal that would allow Russia access to the pariah nation’s mineral resources. Moscow reported that in exchange for access to the North’s mineral-rich lands, Russia would invest $25 billion into revamping the country’s dated railway network. According to Russia’s state-run Rossiskaya Gazeta, which quoted Russia’s minister for development of Far Eastern Russia, Alexander Galushka, the project would take on the task of updating roughly 3,000 km, or about 1,875 miles, of the North’s railroads...

BNSF Railway Co. plans to apply a $1,000 surcharge for each older tank car that hauls oil, as the railroad owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. encourages shippers to scrap the puncture-prone cars. The charge, which will take effect Jan. 1, will add about $1.50 per barrel to the cost of shipping oil across the country. It’s the first surcharge announced by a major U.S. railroad for older cars known as DOT-111s, and won’t apply to cars called CPC-1232s that are built to higher standards adopted in October 2011, according to a BNSF notice. The Obama administration in July...

Observers have long known that only a few options were available for the route of the privately funded high-speed train line between Houston and Dallas. Now a firmer picture of where the trains might run is emerging. (Photo courtesy of JR Central) (Photo courtesy of JR Central) As part of the federally required process to evaluate the line, the Federal Railroad Administration and Texas Department of Transportation released maps of the nine routes they are considering and the two chosen for deeper evaluation. The lines that didn’t make the final cut seem to be a bit longer, or else have...

Most members of the Metropolitan Council rarely use the public transportation system they are in charge of overseeing, based on transit pass usage and a Star Tribune survey of the 17-member body. Met Council members receive a free transit pass as part of their appointments to the board. Information obtained through an open records request shows that 10 of those passes were never used in the past year. Five council members swiped their cards between 10 and 21 times, while just two registered more than 70 rides. By comparison, a full year of two-way weekday commutes would rack up closer...

A passenger train collided with a freight train Thursday in northwest Arkansas injuring 35, five critically, 5NewsOnline.com reported. The incident occurred at about 10:30 a.m. and involved four passenger cars carrying 44 people. Emergency responders were at the scene in Washington County and transported 31 to local hospitals, the report said.

DULUTH, Minn. -- Minnesota's leaders want federal help to ease railroad delays. U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken and Gov. Mark Dayton on Monday sent a letter to the head of the Surface Transportation Board saying that rail delays are hurting many parts of the economy. "As we watch winter come to the state of Minnesota, we have become increasingly alarmed by the service failures of several railroads that serve critical industries in our state," the three Democrats wrote to board Chairman Daniel Elliott. And on Tuesday, Dayton holds what is expected to be the last of a series...

The owner of the state’s largest refinery is investing heavily in rail transportation to haul oil across the country to its Linden plant, ensuring that more trains carrying millions of gallons of volatile Bakken crude will be traveling through New Jersey. The Houston-based energy giant Phillips 66 recently opened a new rail facility at its Bayway Refinery and began accepting shipments of crude in August. The company intends to build its own rail shipping center near the abundant oil fields of North Dakota and plans to almost double its rail fleet to 3,700 tanker cars to bring more oil to...

The rate of North Dakota oil trains crossing Minnesota got another working over yesterday. At KMSP-TV, Tim Blotz says, “Bakken oil now rolls through Minnesota at a rate of more than 15 trains a day, but on a rail system that has limited space, other critical freight — including grain, Taconite, and propane — is often left off track. Rep. Joe Atkins, of Inver Grove Heights, described the issue as ‘a growing crisis’ at a packed legislative hearing. Even so, it's not a simple blame game. … The troubles for Amtrak aren't just the delays, but the length of them....

The oil and railroad industries are urging U.S. regulators to allow them as long as seven years to retrofit existing tank cars that transport highly volatile crude oil, a top oil industry official said Tuesday. The cars have ruptured and spilled oil during collisions, leading to intense fires... ...jointly asking the Department of Transportation for six to 12 months for rail tank car manufacturers to gear up to retrofit tens of thousands of cars and another three years to retrofit older cars.... ...also want three years after that to retrofit newer tank cars manufactured since 2011, known as "1232 cars,"......