It’s really the grace of God that we don’t get terrorist oil train assaults. Yet. When they talked about puncture resistance, I immediately thought, what might puncture it. The answer is obvious, and you’d need to be built like tanks to guard against deliberate trouble makers.
Long before considering the uparmoring of rail stock, I would be looking at the financial impact on rail companies, and the rise in price for refined products as a natural consequence to the demand for stronger cars by a federal government not known for fiscal responsibility.
Let’s just make a guess that Warren Buffett already has a contract to build them
This type of regulatory tyranny is designed to attach the weights of increased costs on our energy industry. A little oil spilled is little consequence compared to the increased costs to prevent it. There is more engine oil dripping out of our transportation vehicles than we can imagine.
Let’s be real....How many times has this happened??
Let’s be real....How many times has this happened??
The new guidelines, put forward in March 2012 but which have not yet been adopted by the Department of Transportation agency that oversees the sector, stem from a deadly ethanol train derailment and explosion in Illinois in 2009.
DOT-111 railcars ordered after October 2011 have been manufactured to the new code, but the industry has resisted spending an estimated $1 billion to retrofit nearly 300,000 existing tank cars.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/08/us-crude-train-explosion-idUSBRE9A70Q920131108
If they mandate that 85% of all tank cars get upgraded overnight, it will cause a major spike through the energy sector.
Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet) will benefit greatly if this happens as his railroads will have less risk and his rail tank car manufacturing (purchased only months before this proposed change) will boom. Win-Win.
Where is Cosmo Kramer and his bladder system when you need him?