http://www.wowktv.com/story/28120275/train-accident-near-montgomery-wv

and the fossil fuel accidents just keep happening in WV

that's for sure.

Repugs got control the of state legislature in Nov 2014. Already mindlessly at work.

Here is what is going on right now: DOT has regulation proposals they sent to the White House and is now in the hands of the Office of Management & Regulatory Affairs with a decision announced for May 23rd. This has been something that was delayed many times up to this point.

I wouldn't expect anything sweeping to come of it. The OMRA was an agency created by Reagan.

Lobbyists Bidding to Block Government Regs Set Sights on Secretive White House Office

In early 2011, after years of study, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration moved to reduce the permissible levels of silica dust wafted into the air by industrial processes like fracking, mining or cement manufacturing. The move came after years of public comment and hearings, and reflected emerging science about the dangers posed by even low levels of dust. OSHA predicted the rule would save 700 lives annually and prevent 1,600 new cases of silicosis, an incurable, life-threatening disease.

The proposal stirred fierce opposition from an array of industries, which argued that the costs of reducing silica levels far outweighed the potential benefits. When OSHA pushed ahead, the lobbyists took their arguments to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a division of the Office of Management and Budget. Few people have ever heard of OIRA even though it is part of the White House and has broad authority to delay or suggest changes in any draft regulation.

OIRA's deliberations on the silica rule began in February 2011, and lasted two and a half years. During that time, records show, its officials held nine meetings with lobbyists and lawyers for the affected industries, but sat down only once with unions and once with health advocates.

Last August, the office sent a revised version of the rule back to OSHA; the worker protection agency has yet to act.

Labor advocates noted that the lengthy delay appeased House Republicans and pushed a decision opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce out of the 2012 presidential campaign. "During that delay thousands of workers were further exposed to silica,'' said Peg Seminario, director of safety and health at the AFL-CIO. "People have gotten sicker and some will die because of the exposures that have continued to take place."

http://www.propublica.org/article/lobbyists-bidding-block-government-regs-sights-set-secretive-white-house

Economists & lobbyists fill that government post

That 2nd explosion was 8+ hours after the first. No surprise since the shipment was of Bakken crude, which is volatile and very explosive!

And that early CSX PR news release trying to spin and minimize? that "at least one car" was involved? Now it's up to 15 cars. Swear to god, if there was a 100 car derailment, the first news release from the railroad would STILL be, "at least one car".

Rail cars on fire after crude train derails in Ontario, CN says

TORONTO Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:44pm EST

(Reuters) - Seven rail cars were on fire in northern Ontario after a train carrying crude oil derailed late on Saturday night, Canadian National Railway said on Sunday.

The train, heading from Alberta to eastern Canada, derailed shortly before midnight about 80 km (50 miles) south of Timmins, Ontario, a CN spokesman said. Canada's largest rail operator said 29 of 100 cars were involved and seven were on fire.

snip>

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/15/us-canada-derailment-idUSKBN0LJ0S920150215

Makes big problems for those close to rails.

With the BNSF in my backyard I have a vested interest in these occurrences. The number of cars marked flammable has increased astronomically since I first moved here 18 years ago.

And by pipeline is bad.

Maybe we should be working on alternatives to oil?

A pipe line completely owned and run by our government could work. We will own it and rent out its use to the oil companies. Our rent will cover construction cost, upkeep and a strict inspection policy also included will be a 20% return on investment. This is a solid free market capitalist plan.

What the oil companies want is to be given the right of way free and clear. Like they did for the rail roads.

No way should our government take any private property and turn it over to a private for profit company. Eminent Domain is not for this use. Eminent Domain is not meant to enrich private companies.

We give oil companies billions is corporate welfare every year. How about we give the same amount to alternative energy systems.

more dangerous, therefore we should build KXL pipeline (and let a foreign owned corporation destroy the water supply for millions.)

My first thought upon hearing the news was that the derailment was intentional.

Rail transport of Bakken crude oil from N.D. to Yorktown, Va is a long, dangerous haul.

but I had the same thought myself.

It isn't intentional, they just push it, ignore regulations. The proposals recommended by the DOT are now in the hands of Reagan created agency who will most likely reject them. Lobbyists & Economists fill that post.

I looked at the proposal, the pipeline avoids most of the water really is planned in a way to avoid most of the potential disasters. They wouldn't even slow down production to order the safer rail carts so they wouldn't intentional kill potential profits. The traffic on our rails is unprecedented.

...derailed legislation that would regulate them? Believe it was to require additional layers of lining?

It is my understanding the the rail road industry cannot be sued in the US. They were given a pass by congress. Can anyone confirm this.

I think there was a whole chapter about the rail industry in the book Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It

Hundreds of residents being evacuated becomes "at least one house was destroyed."


http://wvmetronews.com/2015/02/16/oil-train-derails-in-fayette-county-causing-explosion-tanker-cars-in-kanawha-river/

From today's event to 2013's massive oil train explosion in North Dakota to the 47 people who lost their lives after an oil train explosion in Quebec, it is clear that oil trains put our communities at risk for death, injury and destruction.

Incredibly, first responders and local officials aren't usually informed that these unsafe trains are cruising through through their communities carrying millions of gallons of explosive oil. Just a few examples of where these trains travel:

700,000 Philadelphians live in the evacuation zone of an oil train crash.
400,000 Pittsburghers are at risk—including 91,000 kids.

More than 40 % of Pittsburgh’s residents live in areas at risk if a train carrying crude oil through the city derails and catches fire, according to a PublicSource analysis. That # doesn't include children at 72 K-12 schools inside those areas. PublicSource created a map using a perimeter of a half-mile on each side of the rail lines known to carry crude oil in the city. A half-mile is the federal evacuation zone recommended for accidents involving crude oil trains.http://powersource.post-gazette.com/.../stories/201408100034
PublicSource: 40 percent of Pittsburgh residents in danger zone for crude oil...
powersource.post-gazette.com

http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20150216/DM01/150219449

The derailment occurred on the same CSX freight line as the April 30, 2014, crude oil train derailment in Lynchburg, Va. Thirteen cars derailed in the Lynchburg crash, three of which plunged into the James River. The Roanoke Times reported about 20,000 to 25,000 gallons of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota spilled. The train that derailed in Lynchburg was also traveling from North Dakota to Yorktown, Va.

The number of carloads of crude shipped on major US railroads skyrocketed from fewer than 10,000 in 2008 to 415,000 last year, according to the Association of American Railroads and the Federal Railroad Administration.

The largest concentration of tank cars is coming out of the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where there is limited capacity to move crude using pipelines, historically the industry’s transportation mode of choice.

Much of the oil is being hauled by a fleet of tens of thousands of flawed tank cars that are prone to rupture during derailments, according to The Associated Press. That can set off massive fires when the cars that carry more than 30,000 gallons of oil each break open and explode.

Exacerbating the potential hazard is the high volatility of oil from the Bakken — a sweet, light crude that regulators say contains higher concentrations of explosive gases than conventional heavy crudes.
- See more at: http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20150216/DM01/150219449#sthash.WQzl7CyQ.dpuf

The Lynchburg train had been here at 0900 that morning, and the train that derailed yesterday in WVa was scheduled to come through here later. This line enters Va. in Alleghany Co., where it follows the Jackson River through Covington, then Clifton Forge (my home). It then passes through the small town of Iron Gate (about 2 miles south of us).

Just below Iron Gate, the Jackson and Cowpasture Rivers join together to form the headwaters of the James River, which traverses the entire state of Va. These trains then parallel the James all the way to Yorktown. This is a favorite line for CSX as it requires very little fuel to run these trains (downhill all the way from WVa to the coast of Va). In addition to oil, these trains are composed of chemical and coal cars as far as the eye can see. There is also a Mountain Division that runs through Alleghany Co, through Charlottesville, then on to Washington, DC., but the James River Division takes these dangerous materials to the coast, where the are loaded on ships and exported.

Had that derailment yesterday happened here, I probably wouldn't be typing this today. The entire town is only a little more than a square mile and the rail yards run right between Main St. and the Jackson River. In addition, we have the world's largest railroad expansion bridge (side to side) that crosses the River. If an accident happened on that bridge, it would probably take out the entire CSX line at that point, and would certainly devastate the town.

If we didn't have enough to worry about with the trains, now the state wants to allow fracked gas pipelines to be build in the George Washington National Forest (ancient and pristine). The proposed line will cross the watershed that provides all the drinking water for this area and ruin the GWF, which completely surrounds my hometown. If that wasn't bad enough, both of our DEM senators are in favor of drilling off the Va. coast-not like the Chesapeake isn't already threatened enough. Forget foreign threats. We're under attack from our own government.

These bomb trains go through my neighborhood several times a day, paralleling the Allegheny River, which merges just a short distance downstream into the Ohio River. I've seen the evacuation map in the event of an accident on this rail line in my township. It extends 1/2 mile on either side of the tracks. My house is 2 doors up from (outside of) the evacuation zone. However, the only exit road for my dead end street is straight down into the evac. zone, to within a block of the rail line. Also close to those tracks, senior citizen high rise apartment buildings/assisted living facilities, a major urban hospital, a grade school, a mall, several churches and lots of single family homes. And how the hell did any faceless bureaucrat determine that 1/2 mile was the correct measurement? There is such a thing as wind!

Of course, every time there's one of these bomb train disasters, the pro-frackers, pro-Keystone-pipeline, fuck-the-environment-and-the-future-of-this-planet-if-the-one-percent-can-make-yet-another-million scum crawl out from their rocks to say, "oh, oh, the pipelines are the answer!" Bull shit! The current pipelines are deteriorating and leaking - with no effective way of detecting said leaks; most of the leaks are detected by locals/farmers spotting oil in their fields/yards - NOT by either the pipeline owners OR the state agencies charged with monitoring the pipelines. And the composition of the Bakken crude oil is such that is sinks to the bottom of waterways and into the water beds - it has proven absolute impossible to clean up.

In our world, greed is indeed proving to be by far the deadliest of sins.

I live about 1/2 mile from the tracks and up on top of a large mountain, so I have better escape routes than you do, but not sure the blast wouldn't kill all of us, and am fairly certain the toxins would get us if the blast didn't. And the greedy bastards don't care. What's one more little town to them? Absoutely nothing, and that goes double for our so-called representatives who are supposed to be looking out for us. They sold us out years ago.

Charleston Gazette:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRAIN_DERAILMENT_WVOL-?SITE=WVHUN&SECTION=news&TEMPLATE=hddefault&CTIME=2015-02-17-08-38-54

"Fourteen to 17 tankers caught fire or exploded, said Jennifer Sayre, the Kanawha County manager.

West Virginia American Water shut down a water treatment plant, located about 3 miles from the derailment, spokeswoman Laura Jordan said. Another water plant downstream in the town of Cedar Grove also closed its intake but later resumed operations, Messina said."

Track inspection needs to be real time. The maintenance records of the railroad system at large is not only deficient, but have rules and technology needing to be revised and updated.

Track inspection, safety issues, and ongoing rework repair and materials replacement needs to be strictly enforced. It is often and with these shipments now with crude oil pressure for through put is likely in the system in significant ways. But many parts of the rails are way to old.

Dispatchers, conductors and engineers are pressured to move the train and in some cases violate and ignore safe conditions to do the job, to deliver “to make it happen”. Or risk being written up for insubordination, or even terminated.

In particular safety with chemicals that are used for wooden tie preservative are poison and considered carcinogens. Conductors and engineers are subjected to these hazards on a regular basis. Depreciating physical health, in particular, one chemical called Creosote is commonly used in railroad tie preservatives, yet considered a carcinogen causes cancer.

All it takes is a simple slip or fall due to poor maintenance in track operations, getting cut with direct contact to the bloodstream. Or poor cleaning of the cabin work space, in the engine where foot traffic brings in chemical residue, and or particulates. Crews are forced to work and eat food in these areas that could be contaminated, worse too many that fail sanitation conditions.

To keep the job many men deal with the personal hazards on a daily basis, however, just one time out of an ordinary day, or cold days that could crack a rail because the rail is old and overdue for replacement can cause a derailment.

It is a fact from personal experience in the Union Pacific Railroad all it takes is a small fish tail in straight track to cause a derailment even in good weather. In a special situation, a fish tail was reported and ignored for many, many months until a derailment occurred.