Lakeville-Middleboro Commuter Rail: Stop exploding trains

If you've taken the Lakeville-Middleboro Commuter Rail, you've seen the tank cars parked on the rail sidings, near residential neighborhoods.

Please join with others and send an email of support to DOT to improve the safety of the RAIL CARS!

Thanks for all you do!

The information below is from Sierra Club:

Deadly Train Derailment in Moscow Traps Passengers

Are you one of the 25 million Americans living in the blast zone of explosive oil trains?¹

You've probably heard about many of the recent fiery oil train accidents, but most people have no idea that huge shipments of volatile crude oil are rolling through their communities -- near their homes, their schools and the places they work -- with increasing frequency.

Lynchburg, Virginia

After a record-breaking year of oil train derailments, spills and explosions, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has called these dangerous oil trains an "imminent hazard" to the public.²

North Dakota

That's why they've proposed new standards to make these shipments safer.
But oil and rail companies don't want to pay more to make oil trains safer. Take a moment to make sure the DOT is listening to the people, not Big Oil, by urging them to protect your community from explosive oil trains!

Experts have known about these safety hazards for years. Recently, former head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Deborah Hersman warned "We are very clear that this issue needs to be acted on very quickly. There is a very high risk here that hasn't been addressed. ... They aren't moving fast enough. We don't need a higher body count before they move forward."³

It took more than a year since the tragic Lac-Mégantic disaster that killed 47 for the Department of Transportation to propose these new protections. Yet some of the most important measures -- like getting the notoriously unsafe DOT-111 tankers off the rails -- won't even go into effect until 2020! We can't wait that long to protect our communities from exploding oil trains -- not when the number of accidents is soaring around the country.

Take action now to urge the Department of Transportation to do more to improve oil train safety NOW -- not six years from now.

The danger is only going to grow as Big Oil tries to pack more and more volatile crude oil onto our railways. The only way to limit the reckless expansion of oil trains and to improve rail safety is to use people power to demand change.

Oil spill near La Salle, Colorado

Thank you for protecting our communities,

Kate Colarulli
Sierra Club Beyond Oil Associate Campaign Director

P.S. After you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends and colleagues! You can also help spread the word on your social networks with the links below:

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[1] Spencer Chumbley, Do You Live In A "Bomb Train" Blast Zone?, Vice News, July 28, 2014
[2] Jad Mouawad, U.S. Issues Safety Alert for Oil Trains, The New York Times, May 7, 2014
[3] Joan Lowy, Transportation Safety Head Calls For End To 'Tombstone Mentality', Huffington Post, April 23, 2014


Sierra Club | 85 2nd St San Francisco, CA 94105

Take action to protect your community from exploding oil trains

Trains carrying dangerous, highly explosive fuels travel through countless communities every day. You may be one of the 25 million Americans living in the blast zone of explosive oil trains without even knowing it.

After a record-breaking year of oil train derailments, spills and explosions, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has called these dangerous oil trains an "imminent hazard" to the public. That's why they've proposed new standards to make these shipments safer.

But oil and rail companies don't want to pay more to make oil trains safer. Take a moment to make sure the DOT is listening to the people, not Big Oil, by urging them to protect your community from explosive oil trains!




U.S. Department of Transportation
Docket No. PHMSA-2012-0082 (HM-251)

I applaud the Department of Transportation's efforts to address the increasing risk of crude by rail transport through its proposed rule, however the DOT's final rules must go further to ensure our communities are safe.

In particular, the slow phase-out of the notoriously unsafe DOT-111 tankers will do nothing to protect Americans from explosions and spills resulting from derailments until as late as 2020. I urge you to put in place an immediate ban on transporting flammable materials in these dangerous tankers.

High hazard flammable trains -- trains carrying 20 or more tankers of volatile oil -- should also be banned to protect our communities.

The DOT must also ensure that the final rail safety rule implements, at a minimum, all of the tank car safety standards proposed by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. I ask that the DOT takes a hard look at whether it can go further to ensure risks to public health, safety, property and environment are minimized.

I also urge the DOT to ensure that both the public and first responders are notified of dangerous crude-by-rail shipments through their communities, and that the required threshold for these public notices should be less than the current one million gallons of oil. People have a right to know when they are being put at risk by the transportation of hazardous materials.

Please finalize these important rules as quickly as possible, and keep the implementation phase-in period as short as possible. As shipments of crude-by-rail soar around the country, we cannot wait years for new safety standards to take effect.

Not only is my community as risk because of TANKERS parked near residential neighborhoods, but riding the commuter train into Boston reveals many more parked on sidings threatening others. 

Explosive Crude-By-Rail Rolls Into Main Street America

The article below from EarthJustice highlights the growing alarm and opposition to the skyrocketing threat of rail transport of hazardous cargo through densely populated areas and fragile lands.

Please note that great concern was raised about the transport of  Explosive ETHANOL through Massachusetts.

Do we know what's in those rail cars?




































Explosive Crude-By-Rail Rolls Into Main Street America


Is volatile crude oil coming by rail to a town near me? For weeks, I’ve been asking myself that question as I kept hearing about the skyrocketing number of trains that are transporting potentially explosive types of crude throughout the U.S. to East and West Coast export facilities.

And I’m not alone.

Recently, I attended a protest by my fellow neighbors in Berkeley, California, to stop crude-by-rail shipments coming through our town. The crude-oil boom is brought on by fracking in North Dakota and drilling in Canada’s Alberta tar sands. Both forms of crude are hazardous—Bakken shale crude from North Dakota is highly flammable and tar sands oil is extremely corrosive and also difficult to clean up.

Not surprisingly, once people hear how explosive and dangerous this crude can be when spilled, they really don’t want it traveling through their main streets…or anywhere else. But travel it does.

Hundreds of miles, in fact, through rural towns and along main streets, along densely populated areas like Chicago and Albany, and even inside windswept and vulnerable wild lands like Montana’s Glacier National Park.

I once drove a U-Haul along Yellowstone’s winding roads in my move from New York to California.

The sun was bright and the wind was calm, but I was still gripping the steering wheel the whole time.

Now imagine a 100-foot long train filled with millions of gallons of explosive crude oil traveling through that same area—in the dead of winter with the wind howling and the snow piling up on the tracks.

Seems like an accident just waiting to happen, right? Unfortunately, it already has, time and again. In fact, more oil spilled from trains last year than in the last four decades. And these spills can be catastrophic. Last July, a crude oil train derailed in Canada, decimating a town and killing 47 people.

Residents rally outside Berkeley City Hall to show opposition to a proposed crude by rail project. (Mauricio Castillo / Earthjustice)

These and other sobering statistics are causing communities to think twice about allowing these exploding trains onto their tracks. Last month, the City Council of Berkeley voted unanimously to oppose an oil company’s plans to transport crude oil through their town and other East Bay cities to a new refinery in nearby San Luis Obispo County. The council was backed by several people who showed up before the meeting to protest the crude by rail project.

East Bay resident Margaret Rossoff, who helps support communities in fighting refineries, compared crude by rail to “transporting dynamite.” Shoshanna Howard with the Center for Biological Diversity described the project as “preposterous,” adding that “We shouldn’t continue feeding into a fossil fuel system that has proven us wrong time and again.” Their concerns were echoed by many other local residents who felt strongly that we are going in the wrong direction by allowing more crude oil transport.

They are not alone.

In addition to Berkeley, the City Council of Richmond, another Bay Area community, also voted to oppose crude-by-rail plans that involved trains running through its city. In early February, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued energy company Kinder Morgan a permit to operate its crude-by-rail project, without any notice to the public or environmental and health review. Kinder Morgan is transporting volatile Bakken crude oil to Bay Area refineries using the same unsafe train cars involved in the explosion in Canada. Members of the Richmond community, perhaps even members of the air district’s Board of Directors, did not know that a permit to transport crude oil had been issued for over a month. The community’s opposition is backed by Earthjustice, which on behalf of environmental justice and conservation groups filed a lawsuit against Kinder Morgan and the air district and asked the court to halt operations immediately while the project undergoes a full and transparent review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

On the other side of the country, residents in the county of Albany, New York, feel similarly.

Recently, the county halted plans to expand crude-by-rail operations at its port terminal. The news followed pressure by a broad coalition—including community and environmental groups like Earthjustice—against the state Department of Environmental Conservation for its dangerously lax approach to skyrocketing shipments of crude-by-rail into the Port of Albany.

To Big Oil, these communities may look like places where it can transport millions of barrels of crude oil without drawing too much attention. But to people living near these tracks, like me and thousands of others, these communities are home. We have a right to know what hazards are moving in next door, a right to participate in decisions that impact our neighborhoods, and a right to health and environmental review of industrial activities before they happen.

We are not alone.


Related Audio Interview: Attorney Kristen Boyles discusses the fight to stop the expansion of crude-by-rail projects. Earthjustice, on behalf of communities and conservation groups, is fighting for the right of communities to stop these projects, which endanger public health and the environment. Listen to the interview:

How many communities are unprepared?

Rail Carriers DO NOT disclose their hazardous cargoes to communities that might be at risk, leaving communities unprepared. 

Climate Progress

Albany watching out for its residents.

Albany Places Moratorium On Crude Oil Port Expansion

thinkprogress.org

The terminal is near low-income communities, a playground, an elementary school, a senior facility, and a center for the disabled.

Is this your community? How are we protected?

Middleboro's freight line carries.....?

What is going through your community? and who is pretending this is 'safe'?

Peaceful Uprising shared Tar Sands Blockade's photo.

 

 

A giant fireball and huge plumes of black smoke shot into the sky today when a train carrying crude oil derailed near Casselton, North Dakota. "The sky is to...tally black from smoke,” Casselton homeowner Eva Fercho told WDAY News, and said that when a second explosion hit she "could almost feel the house shake." The derailment reportedly occurred about one mile from the city's ethanol plant. Black smoke could be seen 15 miles from the scene of the accident.

 

Read more about the dangerous transport of petrochemicals by rail: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/30-9Watch video of the derailment: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/north-dakota-freight-train-explodes-derailment-21374459

That's not all they're shipping!

Middleboro officials seek to avert dangerous train situation

Practices of CSX freight train operators pose a concern

By Alice C. Elwell

Enterprise correspondent

Posted Nov 24, 2013

MIDDLEBORO —

Could a parked train car near the town gas plant fuel a catastrophic explosion?

Town officials don’t want to wait and find out.

CSX parks freight cars carrying trash under the Center Street bridge – which is less than 200 feet from the gas plant – and town officials fear it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

“We’ve had two fires this year involving rail cars carrying trash,” said Fire Chief Lance Benjamino.
CSX operates the trains and after fires in June and August Benjamino contacted CSX officials.

“We explained the dangers of the trash cars being stationary under the bridge and in close proximity to the LNG (liquid natural gas) supply and requested they stop that practice. Obviously the practice continues as I drove by yesterday and saw the train under the bridge,” Benjamino said. “It’s very difficult to get any action.”

Benjamino closed the overpass once this year because heavy smoke posed a threat to vehicular traffic on the Center Street bridge.

The state bought the tracks from CSX, but Michael Verseckes, spokesman for the Department of Transportation said, “MassDOT does, in fact, own the railroad in this area, however the sale of the property to MassDOT included a provision that grants CSX an easement to conduct its freight operations.”

That easement gives CSX the right to operate as it sees fit and without any sort of special permission from the state to do so, Verseckes explained.

“Why put the trash train and the threat right next to the Middleboro gas plant?” said Gas & Electric Commissioner Glenn Montapert. “I don’t want to worry about the threat of fire near the gas plant, nor something hostile taking over and threatening the town.”

Verseckes said the state is willing to bring officials from Middleboro and CSX together to discuss the concerns.

Montapert agrees it’s time to sit down and talk, and he wants to tell CSX officials, “You’re right outside a gas plant, can you slide down a little further down the track?“

“We have not heard about these concerns. But let me assure you that CSX will look into this matter,” said CSX spokesman Gary Sease, in an email to The Enterprise.

Read more: http://www.enterprisenews.com/topstories/x1069226610/Middleboro-officials-seek-to-avert-dangerous-train-situation#ixzz2ld0h9r4Z
Follow us: @enterprisenews on Twitter | EnterpriseBrockton on Facebook

Stop Ethanol Trains Through Our Communities recipient of a 2013 All-Chelsea Award!

Stop Ethanol Trains Through Our Communities

Did you know that we won an award?
Our committee was a recipient of a 2013 All-Chelsea Award! At the awards ceremony on Sept 30 held at City Hall Chambers we were presented with an award for Project of the Year: "A proposal to transport millions of gallons of ethanol through Chelsea was derailed by community advocates and appointed and elected officials this past year. When first proposed, the community was told that nothing could be done. That's when advocates took up the challenge and prevailed, once again showing that Chelsea can be equal to any test." (from the awards program.)

 

 

 

Update on Lac Megantic: delays and stalled efforts to improve safety. Sound familiar?
http://tinyurl.com/lypdrwd

 

A CN locomotive passes by freight containers at the CN Taschereau yard in Montreal. (GRAHAM HUGHES/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Contract talks with CN Rail stall as union cites rail-safety concerns

 

SEAN SILCOFF

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

PublishedMonday, Oct. 14 2013, 9:20 PM EDT

 

Contract talks between Canadian National Railway Co. and the Teamsters have hit a rut, and the union is blaming an impasse over rail safety, the industry’s hot-button issue after a series of high-profile rail disasters this year.

The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents 3,300 conductors, train and yard workers and traffic co-ordinators with Canada’s largest railway company, said Monday that CN’s decision last week not to extend a conciliation process could lead to a strike or a lockout on Oct. 28. The collective agreement expired on July 22.

More Related to this Story

• LabourTalks between union and CN Rail break down, strike looms
• OilCN Rail floats idea of shipping Alberta bitumen to Prince Rupert: documents
• LitigationLac-Mégantic residents split over lawsuits against the MM&A

Multimedia

These are the lost of Lac-Mégantic

Watch

Video: Montreal Canadiens lace up in Lac-Mégantic

Watch

Video: Canada's lax safety regulations led to disaster: Mulcair

Watch

Video: Lac-Mégantic train cargo more flammable than documented: TSB

Union spokesman Roland Hackl said in a release the railway is “pointing a gun to its workers’ heads to force them to make concessions” that would require CN employees to work longer hours, with less rest time between trips. That, the union said, leaves it gearing up for a fight to ensure the safety of Canadians and rail workers.

CN spokesman Mark Hallman said “none of [CN’s] bargaining proposals would in any way compromise the health and safety” of its employees and would in fact improve health and safety, though he offered no specifics. Talks are set to resume Oct. 21 with federally appointed mediators and CN “remains optimistic” a deal can be reached without a labour disruption, he added.

Rail safety has come to the forefront since the derailment of an oil train in the heart of Lac-Mégantic, Que., and subsequent conflagration left 47 people dead. Other high-profile accidents, including a fatal train-bus collision in Ottawa last month, have led to calls for a range of measures to improve rail safety and exposed several regulatory rifts between railway companies, regulators and municipalities.

Last month, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. CEO Hunter Harrison warned another Lac-Mégantic-type disaster could happen if regulators don’t impose tougher rules for transporting hazardous materials, while a Senate report in August called on Ottawa to force railways to retire tank cars that are prone to leakage in derailments.

The issue has also taken on added prominence in the Teamsters’ communications about its talks with CN. In an update sent by the union to members on June 21, two weeks before the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, the word “safety” does not appear, with the focus instead on proposed changes that would affect scheduling, reduce staffing on trains and increase the company’s flexibility in assigning work tasks. By last month, the union had recast its dispute with CN as an issue of employee and public health, with Mr. Hackl stating “the Lac-Mégantic tragedy can’t be in vain; the health and safety of workers and the public are not negotiable. Period.”

The negotiations come after a seven-year period in which the number of rail accidents in Canada has fallen steadily.

The renewed concerns about rail safety come after a period of improving safety performance for the industry: the number of accidents in Canada fell in six of the past seven years, dropping to 1,011 incidents in 2012 from 1,476 in 2005. “What the statistics indicate is that in general the railways are getting safer,” said David Jeanes, president of Transport Action Canada, a national public transportation advocacy group.

However, he noted the number of accidents dropped only marginally in 2012 from 2011 levels, while the number of accidents as of July, 2013, was up 1.2 per cent from the same level a year earlier. “The question is, have attempts to reduce these issues gone as far as they can go, or has [the industry] in fact stopped spending enough on safety to get continuous improvement?”

More Related to this Story

• RailRailway in Lac-Mégantic disaster granted operating extension
• TrainsOliver pushes for oil to be shipped by train on west coast, Lac-Megantic notwithstanding
• InsuranceRailways face higher insurance costs in review of Lac-Mégantic crash