1AM SATURDAY JULY 6, 2013 ~~ Eastern Quebec Town of Megantic Leveled by Crude Oil Train Derailment, Explosion. Up to 1,000 People Evacuated. Casualties Unknown. The train was heading toward Maine. The Montreal Maine & Atlantic Comany owns better than 500 miles of track. They serve Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick.
Which got me thinking about the number of oil spills from rail cars. Apparently 112 in the past two years. 2007 to 2010 there were ten. This provides some background.
BRIEF HISTORY OF PAST 2 YEARS OF OIL SPILLS FROM INCREASING NUMBER OF TRAINS, VS PIPELINE SPILLS
Oil Spills on Trains Mount (From Wall Street Journal March 27, 2013. FOR Full Article, >>>CLICK HERE<<<)
“From 2010 to 2012, 112 oil spills were reported from U.S. rail tanker cars, up from just 10 in the previous three years, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a part of the Department of Transportation that tracks most releases of hazardous materials. But the amount of crude leaked in spills has declined since 2008, when a big accident in Oklahoma released more than 1,900 barrels. On August 22, 2008, a BNSF Railway Co. train carrying crude derailed northeast of Oklahoma City; five tanker cars leaked oil that caught fire, leading to an evacuation of nearby residents.
Questions about the safest way to transport crude are bubbling up as President Barack Obama considers whether to approve an expansion of the Keystone pipeline, which would move crude from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Pipelines carry much more crude than trains and have fewer leaks per mile, though failures can be serious.”
The Hawks Perch 