Thousands of defects found on oil train routes

Two years of government inspections across 44 U.S. states uncovered nearly 24,000 problems.

Government inspections of railroads that haul volatile crude oil across the United States have uncovered almost 24,000 safety defects, including problems similar to those blamed in derailments that triggered massive fires or oil spills in Oregon, Virginia, Montana and elsewhere, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

The safety defects were discovered during targeted federal inspections on almost 58,000 miles of oil train routes in 44 states. The inspection program began two years ago following a string of oil train accidents across North America, including a 2013 derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people.

Federal regulators said the inspections resulted in 1,118 violation recommendations, prompting railroads to become more responsive to concerns raised by track inspectors and to improve safety.

Problems identified by federal inspectors included worn rails and other equipment; bolts meant to hold tracks in place that were broken, loosened or missing; and cracks in steel bars joining sections of track. They also noted failures by railroads to quickly fix problems identified through inspections.

Such issues are not uncommon across the nation’s 140,000mile freight rail network. But they’ve received heightened attention after rail shipments of crude oil increased and the number of major derailments spiked following a surge in domestic energy production.

A violation recommendation occurs when an inspector finds something serious enough to warrant a potential penalty, or a railroad fails to address a defect that’s been found. Federal officials declined to say how many penalties had been issued under the crude-by-rail inspection program.

Some safety gaps found by inspectors bear similarities to the circumstances surrounding prior accidents.

In Lynchburg, Va., cracks in the track that went unrepaired led to a CSX Transportation oil train coming off the rails and exploding along the James River in 2014. In Culbertson, Mont., a 2015 accident that spilled 27,000 gallons of oil from a BNSF Railway train was blamed on defective or missing fasteners used to hold the tracks in place. And in Mosier, Ore., broken rail bolts were blamed in a Union Pacific oil train derailment and fire last year.

The rail industry views safety defects as warnings from regulators that action is necessary, said Association of American Railroads spokeswoman Jessica Kahanek. She said violations are a better indicator of safety problems because not all defects pose an immediate risk. Hundreds of the violation recommendations on oil train routes were “paperwork-related,” Kahanek said, such as railroads not providing required forms to government inspectors.