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A partnership of Tesoro and Savage has received a green light to take the next step towards shipping Bakken crude through the Port of Vancouver at the same time environmentalists are mounting opposition to the plan, building their case on this month’s Quebec rail disaster. The Tesoro-Savage plan to lease 41 acres of oil terminal facilities for $45 million over 10 years was approved July 22 by port commissioners and now goes to the Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, which will make a recommendation to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. The companies said they expect to spend about $100...

<p>Short AP and NYP articles must be excerpted to 50% of content.</p>

MADRID – Authorities in Spain opened a formal investigation into the train conductor in the deadly train crash that killed at least 78 in northwestern Spain Thursday after the train jumped the tracks on a curvy stretch just before arriving in the northwestern shrine city of Santiago de Compostela. Reuters reported that the conductor was not immediately identified but cited local newspapers that reported driver Francisco Jose Garzon assisted in helping the victims and yelled, “I’ve derailed! What do I do?” during a phone call. There were two drivers. One was trapped in his cabin and radioed that the train...

At least 20 people were killed and dozens more were injured in a train crash Wednesday in northwestern Spain, a senior aide to Spain's prime minister told CNN's Al Goodman. Investigators are looking at all possible causes of the crash, though their initial assessment is that it likely wasn't the result of terrorism.

A passenger train derailed in Spain yesterday, killing at least 77 people trapped inside the crushed cars and injuring 143. There were Americans among the dead, according to television reports. The tragic high-speed derailment, along a curving stretch of track in the northwestern part of the country, was Spain’s worst rail accident in decades, officials said. Bodies were covered by blankets along the tracks as rescuers used pickaxes to pry open the cars and free people inside the train cars.

There’s a skeleton in the closet that the crude oil industry would sooner not acknowledge. In the wake of the Quebec rail disaster, which is expected to cost 50 lives and untold billions of dollars in rebuilding, compensation and litigation, the crude-by-rail-or-pipeline debate is raging in backrooms and private conversations. But none of those most closely involved wants to put the issue on the table until there has been a seemly period of grieving and a chance for the 6,000 people of Lac-Megantic to reorder their lives. Moody’s Investors Service, the rating agency, said two-thirds of North Dakota’s Bakken production,...

...A fiery and fatal train derailment earlier this month in Quebec, near the Maine border, highlighted the danger of moving oil by rail. But while the practice could be made safer, it won't be stopped in its tracks. This year, more trains carrying crude will chug across North America than ever before — nearly 1,400 carloads a day. In 2009, there were just 31 carloads a day.... Even safety experts worried about the dangers of shipping oil by rail acknowledge that the safety record of railroads is good — and improving. The scope of the Lac-Megantic disaster, which is still...

The engineer who parked the oil train that rolled away, derailed and exploded in the center of a Quebec town was heard from Tuesday for the first time since the July 6 disaster that killed 50 people, with his lawyer saying he is "devastated."... Lawyer Thomas Walsh said Tom Harding needs time to recover from the shock. Walsh said he hopes to get psychological help for his client, who has been staying at an undisclosed location to stay away from the media. "I used the word 'devastated,' and I think that's one word that's applicable, but he's very, very low,"...

At least seven people have been killed and 60 seriously injured after a packed passenger train derailed south of Paris this evening. The high speed intercity train was travelling from the French capital to the city of Limoges when it derailed onto its side in a train station in the suburb of Bretigny-sur-Orge at about 3.15pm GMT. The accident has left seven people dead, with the victims being crushed to death or electrocuted. Rescue workers are now Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2362061/Seven-people-crushed-death-electrocuted-French-rail-crash-horror-train-smashes-platform-south-Paris.html#ixzz2Yraf3s12

-excerpt- The Telegraph reports that a red alert has been issued after a train accident involving a commuter train in the southern Paris suburb of Brétigny-sur-Orge. Train officials have confirmed that 350 people were on board the passenger train when it crashed shortly after 5 p.m. local time.

First it was imploding peripheral bond markets, now Europe is closing off the weak with even worse news, following reports of a burning Ethiopian Airlines plane in Heathrow as well as news of a commuter train crash in Paris with numerous trapped and 8 dead according to Parisien. Hopefully this is not an indication of what happens to global infrastructure when corporations ignore their maintenance CapEx for 4 years in a row. First this: 'Many Casualties' In Paris Train Derailment http://t.co/ix35wGZu2T — Sky News (@SkyNews) July 12, 2013 Reports of Ethiopian plane on fire at Heathrow Airport, no reports of...

Five locomotives, the front end of a death train, sit almost completely hidden on a shabby stretch of track nestled within lakeside bush. A person could pull the stakes out of the rotting and splintered ties with one good yank. Yet this corroded rail line held fast against the wheels of a runaway train’s forward section — the stubby head of the beast — with no engineer at the switch, no human manipulating any of the route. How this severed section of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railroad freight train got to this location remains a matter of speculation. Officials...

The deadly explosion of a derailed train carrying crude oil in the remote town of Lac-Megantic, Que., is likely to spark fresh arguments in the rancorous debate over the safety of the Keystone XL pipeline. "TransCanada and the other pipeline proponents are going to try to use this (accident) to boost their case, but it's a real double-edged sword for them," Keith Steward, the climate and energy co-ordinator at Greenpeace in Toronto, said. "Pipelines and rail both have safety issues and both can be a hell of a lot safer than they are today." The recent boom in oil production...

The president and CEO of the railway's parent company says an employee failed to properly set the brakes of the train that crashed into a town in Quebec, killing at least 15 people while another 45 remain missing. Edward Burkhardt made the comments during a visit Wednesday to the town that was devastated by the runaway oil train four days ago. 'It was questionable whether hand brakes were put I place at this time,' Burkhardt said. 'I don't think any employees removed brakes. They failed to set the brakes.' 'I think he did something wrong ...We think he applied some...

As the smoke clears (literally) in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, after a runaway train packed with crude oil tankers crashed July 6, the oil industry is coming to terms with a business that has perhaps grown too far too fast. The Lac-Megantic accident is shining an unwelcome spotlight on the lack of regulatory oversight on oil by rail in both the US and Canada. The fact that the rail cars (belonging to the Maine, Montreal & Atlantic rail company) that crashed and exploded were considered unfit to carry hazardous materials sharpens that focus. Getting landlocked crude out of newer fields in North...

Authorities were never made aware that a runaway train was on its way to levelling part of a small Quebec town, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Tuesday. Rail dispatchers had no chance to intervene during the fateful 18-minute journey because they didn’t know it was happening, TSB investigator Donald Ross told a news conference. “There were no signals nor track circuits, so the rail-traffic controller had no — and would have had no — indication that there had been a runaway train,” he said. Such systems are in place on busier rail lines including the one linking Montreal...

A n oil-laden train not unlike those rolling down American tracks derailed and exploded Saturday in a Canadian town, proving why pipelines are safer and environmentalist opposition to a pipeline from Canada is misguided. At least 13 people were reported dead and 37 missing in the charred Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, 130 miles east of Montreal, after the accident created an inferno of burning crude. Some may never be found, likely vaporized by the sheer intensity of the blaze that burned for 36 hours. Canada's oil boom, due largely to development of the oil sands in its western province of...

Police open investigation into deadly derailment in Quebec as dozens of bodies remain buried in ruins. At least 15 people were killed and many more went missing after an oil train derailed at a speed of 63mph [EPA] Canadian police have opened a criminal probe into a fatal oil train blast in the town of Lac-Megantic, following claims and counter claims by operators and firefighters over the causes.Police also raised the death toll from Saturday's blast to 15 from 13 on Tuesday and said the total number of dead and missing people was 50.Quebec police inspector Michel Forget told a...

CNN) -- The chairman of the company whose driverless train barreled into the small Quebec town of Lac-Megantic and unleashed a deadly inferno told a Montreal newspaper he believes it had been tampered with. "We have evidence of this," Ed Burkhardt said in an interview published by the Montreal Gazette. "But this is an item that needs further investigation. We need to talk to some people we believe to have knowledge of this." The company did not immediately return phone calls from CNN about the report. Burkhardt is the chief executive officer and president of Rail World, the parent company...

A deadly crude oil train disaster in Canada has brought renewed scrutiny to the growing use of rail to carry oil – including hundreds of thousands of barrels in Texas – and prompted worries that the higher volume will mean more accidents. Though rail proponents say moving crude by train is safe, federal regulators and others say that pipelines are safer, a stance that has played a role in the debate over the planned Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Texas coast. And regardless of the relative safety of the two transportation modes, the mere fact that more crude...