- NTSB
- A punctured DOT-111 tanker car.
Slog tipper boygobong sends this news from the Montreal Gazette:
OTTAWAâTransport Canada has announced new regulations tightening safety on Canadaâs railways, beginning with ordering the 5,000 most dangerous tanker cars off the rails.
The new rules also cover speed limits, route assessments, emergency response plans and the phasing over of tens of thousands of dangerous railcars.
Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced the moves Wednesday, accepting major safety recommendations of the Transportation Safety Board following last summerâs tragedy in Lac-Megantic, Que., in which a train carrying 113,000 litres of crude oil derailed, exploded and killed 47 people.
About 5,000 DOT-111 tanker cars are to be removed from Canadian railways within 30 days. Another 65,000 DOT-111 cars must be removed or retrofitted within three years, a timeframe rail industry experts are calling âambitious.â
The measures didnât fully satisfy NDP leader Tom Muclair. âWhat happens in the meantime in all those communities where this very dangerous material is being transported today?â he asked. âYou canât tell us you know that theyâre dangerous and yet youâre going to continue to allow them to roll through these communities.â
The National Transportation Safety Board, as I reported in February, has warned for years that this brand of tanker car is unsafe and vulnerable to puncture during derailmentsâsee the photo from one of their presentations above.
But the American rail industry has an "aggressive timetable for phasing out older DOT-111 tank cars," Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spokesman Gus Melonas assured me earlier this year. How aggressive? Not thirty days, and not three years. Ten years, the Gazette reports, prompting Canadian concerns that the tanker cars they've banned could still sneak across their southern border and blow up and kill people.
That's another ten years during which 9-21 trainsâthe number depends on Governor Inslee's choicesâwill pass through downtown Seattle (and past Golden Gardens park in Ballard, where I saw them recently) every week, subjecting us to possible incineration in the event of an accident week in and week out.
