Crude Connections: Where Do Trains Carry Crude Oil?

[JonLP24]

The amount of crude oil being carried on America’s railroads has grown enormously thanks to the recent shale boom in North Dakota. Though rail transport of flammable material is generally safe, towns and cities across America are often unaware that crude oil is being transported across their borders, and ill-equipped to handle a potential crude oil fire. Though the routes taken by crude-bearing trains is hidden from the public, safety-incident data collected by the train companies and reported to the U.S. government reveals some of the routes.
http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/oil-trains

Gov’t Data Sharpens Focus on Crude-Oil Train Routes

The oil boom underway in North Dakota has delivered jobs to local economies and helped bring the United States to the brink of being a net energy exporter for the first time in generations.

But moving that oil to the few refineries with the capacity to process it is presenting a new danger to towns and cities nationwide — a danger many appear only dimly aware of and are ill-equipped to handle.

Much of North Dakota's oil is being transported by rail, rather than through pipelines, which are the safest way to move crude. Tank carloads of crude are up 50 percent this year from last. Using rail networks has saved the oil and gas industry the time and capital it takes to build new pipelines, but the trade-off is greater risk: Researchers estimates that trains are three and a half times as likely as pipelines to suffer safety lapses.

Indeed, since 2012, when petroleum crude oil first began moving by rail in large quantities, there have been eight major accidents involving trains carrying crude in North America. In the worst of these incidents, in July, 2013, a train derailed at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and exploded, killing 47 and burning down a quarter of the town. Six months later, another crude-bearing train derailed and exploded in Casselton, North Dakota, prompting the evacuation of most of the town's 2,300 residents.

In those and other cases, local emergency responders were overwhelmed by the conflagrations resulting from these accidents. Residents often had no idea that such a dangerous cargo, and in such volume, was being transported through their towns.

http://www.propublica.org/article/govt-data-sharpens-focus-on-crude-oil-train-routes

[Odin2005]

1. Those oil trains pass just a block from my house every day here in Fargo.

[MineralMan]

2. Another factor is that freight lines almost all

go between major population centers. Since large rail yards are an urban thing, oil trains pass through and are routed into our major cities. So far, no disastrous incident has occurred in one of those cities, but such a thing could happen any time.

Yesterday, a freight train, not carrying oil fortunately, derailed south of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Where it derailed is on one of the major routes for oil tank car unit trains from North Dakota. Since the track was badly damaged, multiple oil trains will stack up in St. Paul's enormous rail yard until the track can be repaired.

[JonLP24]

3. I didn't see any of the Phoenix area mentioned

I do know we have train tracks but I see Loveland, CO (I have family there) transports to Galveston, TX & Lake Charles, LA

[MineralMan]

6. There's some oil transport by rail to Phoenix.

You can see it on the map at the link, but you'll have to click the link in the text there to see the map large enough.

Here's a direct link to the crude oil routing map I mentioned:

http://priceofoil.org/rail-map/

[JonLP24]

8. Thanks

It also travels through the heart of Steilacoom just as I suspected earlier.

[MineralMan]

9. Yes. Most cities have extensive rail yard facilities.

It's no wonder, since the rail lines were designed to transport goods and raw materials to those cities. Now, oil is also being transported on unit trains of 100 tank cars or more. Each of those unit trains carry over 1 Million gallons of crude oil.

[JonLP24]

10. Yes, I understand

Aside from the downtown area and the reason I mention Steilacoom is all that water the tracks run alongside all the way north Tacoma Narrows and back around east still running alongside a major body of water. There is plenty of opportunities for a spill to occur as well as danger to human populations.

[MineralMan]

11. That's very true. Rail lines often follow major waterways,

or are along the ocean shore. That's because industry is usually located near rivers, lakes and the ocean. Our rivers were our first transportation system, and later transportation often follows them. The potential for environmental damage is enormous, and not just from oil, but from chemicals and other hazardous materials often transported by rail.

[Fred Sanders]

4. Wait until a few dozen folk along the line are incinerated as happened last year in Quebec....

maybe flaming bodies is what it is going to take to stop the mad rush to cash in on the black gold.

[Thinkingabout]

5. This is important for safety to be Number One, I don't have any aspirations of convincing

Certain people but after ask the question of whether these same people are willing to end all of their consumption of any product coming from crude and they run off in directions but apparently they are not willing to give up the products or they would have answered they were ready to cease all connection of crude.

I was upset knowing the Koch Industries would be profiting from the KXL and the oil would be going into the world market and therefore Americans would not reap the use of the crude.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. There's a lot of river barge traffic, too, and...

the Mississippi gets shut down every so often when one hits a bridge and spills.

However, who is ultimately using all that oil?

No matter how much we complain, who is willing to park the car and take a bus, reduce home heating, or anything else mildly inconvenient to reduce oil use?