Monday, February 16, 2015

The US rails aren't maintained in a safe manner.

Feb 16 (Reuters) - A CSX Corp train (click here) hauling crude derailed in West Virginia on Monday, setting at least two cars ablaze and forcing the evacuation of two nearby towns in the second significant oil-train incident in three days....

New York State is finding faulty switches and rail cars that can cause derailment. Was the rail inspected in West Virginia after the first derailment a few days ago? I already know the answer. If the tracks and the cars were inspected after the first derailment why were more trains allowed to continue?

December 29, 2014
By Brian Nearing

Trains were slowed on tracks last week (click here) near a large Albany County industrial park — where passing trains routinely carry dozens of tankers filled with flammable crude oil — after state and federal safety inspectors found a faulty switch that could have caused a derailment.
That switch, which feeds trains into the 550-acre Northeast Industrial Park, was examined Dec. 9 as part of the eighth statewide inspection of oil trains and tracks ordered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in response to safety concerns about a surge of crude oil shipments through New York from the Bakken fields of North Dakota.
The switch is about three miles north of the village of Voorheesville and feeds trains into the park, which itself contains about 15 miles of tracks....

Building another pipeline isn't going to stop this. Building another pipeline only opens up more oil traveling across the country, not less. These rails will have oil on them anyway.