Tank cars pop up on reports
In 1994, a CP train derailed in Lethbridge, Alta., spilling 230,700 litres of methanol outside a shopping mall.
The investigation report, completed in 1996 — Wendy Tadros’s first year on the Transportation Safety Board — cited the weaknesses of the DOT-111A tank cars, and their susceptibility to being punctured in a derailment.
Since then, accidents on different railways near La Tuque (1995, spilling 230,000 litres of sulphuric acid), Cornwall, Ont., (1999, spilling 19,000 litres of combustible liquid), Maxville, Ont., (2005, spilling 98,000 litres of alcohol) and of a train heading from Levis to Montreal (2004, 200,000 litres of gasoline and diesel fuel) have all cited the need to restrict the use of the DOT-111A tank car in transporting hazardous materials.
“Despite measures taken by the regulator and the industry, most non-pressurized tank cars used in the transport of hydrocarbons and other dangerous goods remain vulnerable to puncture and continue to present risks, even following impacts at moderate operating speeds,” the TSB concluded after the 2004 derailment.
Fast forward to July 2013, and Tadros, now the chair of the TSB, is investigating yet another accident involving the ubiquitous tank cars, only this one has devastated an entire town and cost 50 lives.
“It’s a very difficult situation. Normally when you have a transportation accident the people who were hurt or killed were on the airplane or on the train,” Tadros said Thursday. “But in this situation these are just people living their normal lives in that town and this random act comes along so that whole community is affected. That struck me as a very powerful thing.”
As head of the TSB she is taking a colder, harder look at the accident, and the risks associated with the DOT-111A, one of many still unknown variables in the crash. According to the Railway Association of Canada, there are 310,000 tank cars in today’s North American fleet of rail cars, of which 240,000 are DOT111s (as they are known in the US.) But half of those used to carry crude oil, according to the RAC, are newer models built to higher specifications.
The North American tank car committee, made up of federal regulatory bodies and industry associations, issued a directive that all DOT-111 cars ordered since October 2011 are to include thicker, puncture-resistant shells, extra protective head shields at both ends of the tank car, protection for the top fittings and higher flow capacity pressure release valves. There is no requirement, either in the U.S. or Canada, to retrofit older models, which have a lifespan of about 40 years.
The NTSB recommended all tank cars — new and existing — be made to withstand derailments, but neither the U.S. Department of Transport or Transport Canada has made the retrofit mandatory.
Industry associations have so far successfully argued against a retrofit.
According to the Railway Supply Institute, it would cost over $1 billion to retrofit all the older tank cars. Meanwhile, the Association of American Railroads concluded that from 2004 to 2008 there was only one fatality and 11 injuries due to derailments of the DOT111 tank cars, which saw 3.5 million litres of materials spilled, with associated cleanup costs of about $63 million. That was before the exponential growth in the number of shipments of crude oil by rail — from 500 carloads in 2009 to an estimated 140,000 in 2013 — and it was before LacMegantic.