DOT Reports on Flammable Railcar Fleet

Earlier this month the Department of Transportation (DOT) published their first report on the composition of the fleet of railcars used in the transportation of flammable liquids. This is one of the reports that was required to be prepared by DOD in the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act, PL 114-94; 129 STAT 1599).

The data reflects changes in the composition of the railcar fleet used to transport flammable liquids in response to the phase out schedule requirement of §7304 the FAST Act (129 STAT 1596) for older and less safe DOT 111 and CPC 1234 railcars. Table 1 below shows the changes in fleet composition since 2013.

Table 1: Changes if Flammable Liquid Railcar Fleet

With two years left (since the end of the reporting period) in the required phaseout of the DOT 111 tank cars, it looks like the railroad industry is well on its way to meeting the congressional mandate. A large portion of change over took place before the congressional mandate was put into place in December of 2015. In 2013 the flammable liquid shippers started replacing the unjacketed DOT 111 cars in their fleet with jacketed DOT 111’s and CPC 1234. It was only in 2015 that those railcars started to be removed from flammable liquid transportation service.

Unfortunately, it does not seem as if this phase out is being accomplished by the introduction of new (or refurbished) railcars. It looks like this is being greatly influenced by a general decline in the number of railcars in flammable liquid service. Table 2 shows the changes in types of flammable liquids being transported by the entire fleet.

  

Table 2: Changes in Flammable Liquids Being Shipped

This table shows that the changes in the number of railcars in flammable liquid service is almost entirely due to the general decline in the number of shipments of crude oil and ethanol. Both of these commodities suffered severe declines in 2014 and 2015 due to the drastic fall in crude oil pricing. That pricing stabilized in 2016 and has been gradually increasing since then. The decline in the number of crude oil shipments has almost certainly also stabilized and is probably increasing.

This means that future declines in the number of DOT 111 and CPC 1234 tank cars being phased out of flammable liquid service can no longer be sustained by just the reductions in the railcar fleet. More DOT 117 railcars are going to have to be placed into service to replace those older railcars. This report does not address the disparity between the number of DOT 111 and CPC 1234 railcars still needing to be replaced and the rate at which new/refurbished DOT 117 railcars are being introduced.

NOTE: Thanks to ProgressiveRailroading.com for pointing to this ‘public’ report.

FAST Act Rule Approved by OMB

On Friday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved the DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) direct final rule implementing the requirements of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015 (HR 22 – PL 114-94). OIRA acted fairly quickly on this rulemaking, given that it was submitted by PHMSA just back in June.

This rule implements Congressionally mandated changes to the hazardous material regulations related to railcars used to ship flammable materials. This includes changes to the DOT 111 phase-out schedule, and changes to the DOT 117 railcar standard. Since DOT was given no leeway on these changes by Congress, the rule did not require the normal publish and comment process; going instead directly to the issuing of the final rule.

This rule will almost certainly be published in the Federal Register this week.

More Information on WV Derailment

As clean up after Monday’s crude oil train derailment in West Virginia begins new information is starting to become available; some of it contradicts initial reports. As is typical for chemical related accidents in West Virginia a good source of information continues to be the Charleston Gazette.

No Water Contamination

One of the major concerns on Monday was the possible contamination of drinking water supplies by crude oil spilled into the Kanawha River. Early reports indicated that at least one crude oil tanker was in the river and there were even reports of oil burning on the river. It turns out that no tankers ended up in the water or were really even close to the river.

Given last year’s Freedom Industry spill it is understandable that local residents were concerned about drinking water contamination. Fortunately, safety procedures put into place after that spill were immediately implemented. This included shutting off water intakes on the river down stream of the accident and water testing by the West Virginia National Guard.

Newer Tank Cars

As with all of these crude oil train accidents initial concerns were focused on the relatively fragile DOT 111 railcars that make up a large portion of the crude oil transport fleet. It turns out that the cars involved in this shipment were the slightly newer CPC 1232 railcars that are supposed to hold up to derailments better than the older DOT 111 cars.

While we are still waiting on OMB to approve the PHMSA High-Hazard Flammable Trains final rule, it is interesting to note that last fall’s NPRM included upgrades to the CPC 1232 railcar design that would lessen the chance of crude oil discharges in accidents like this. We will have to wait and see if those changes made it into the final rule (I expect that they did) and what the timetable will be for their implementation.

Looking at photos of the derailment it certainly looks like the results of the accident could have been much worse if these had been DOT 111 cars; particularly if they had been the older models. One good side of the current cutback in crude oil production, many of those DOT 111 cars will be among the first idled.

Cause of Accident

We are still way early in the accident investigation process so it is premature to call out any possible cause of the derailment. I do find it interesting to look at a close up picture of a portion of the track where the accident occurred. The track is severely damaged. What is not clear is if this damage was caused by the accident or if it was the cause of the derailment. CSX is reporting that the track had been inspected just last week.

Political Fallout

As with each of these crude oil train derailments there have been numerous calls for federal action to prevent the derailments and reduce the possibility of the related spills, fires and explosions. I expect that there will be added pressure on OMB to quickly approve the PHMSA rule now under consideration.