BILLINGS, Mont. — Slow progress has been made on efforts to upgrade or replace tens of thousands of rupture-prone rail cars used to transport oil and ethanol, despite numerous fiery derailments that prompted new rules for the industry, U.S. safety officials said Tuesday.
Just over 10,000 stronger tank cars mandated by the new rules are available for service, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press from the Association of American Railroads.
That’s equivalent to roughly 20 percent of the 51,500 tank cars used to haul crude and ethanol during the first quarter of 2016.
Fiery accidents and spills involving the older, rupture-prone cars have occurred in Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, Illinois, West Virginia and Canada.
In Lac-Megantic, Quebec, 47 people were killed when a runaway oil train derailed in 2013. During the most recent accident last month in Oregon, 42,000 gallons of crude oil spilled, sparking a massive fire that burned for 14 hours near the small town of Mosier in the Columbia River Gorge.
Transportation officials and rail and oil industry representatives have touted the new rules as a key piece of their efforts to prevent more accidents.
Yet National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt told the AP on Tuesday that federal regulators need to set milestones to hold the industry accountable for getting unsafe cars off the tracks.
“There’s been 28 accidents over the past 10 years. That’s almost three accidents a year,” Sumwalt said. “Unfortunately, history shows we probably will have more accidents involving flammable liquids.”
Without mandatory benchmarks for meeting the requirements of the new rules, the decision to upgrade to safer tank car designs “is left entirely to tank car fleet owners, and may be driven by market factor influences, not safety improvements,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
A meeting was planned in Washington, D.C., for today where government and industry officials were set to update the safety board on progress of the issue.
Tom Simpson with the Railway Supply Institute, which represents tank car manufacturers and owners, said the industry is committed to putting stronger cars in place. Members of the group will meet deadlines outlined last year by Congress for replacing or upgrading the cars, he said.
Congress has said the accident-prone cars do not have to be fully replaced until 2029. Most would have to come off the tracks sooner.
Demand for rail cars has eased as crude shipments decreased with lower oil prices, Simpson said.
“The need to modify or install new cars isn’t as urgent as when the rule was issued,” he said.
The railroad association said only 700 of the least resilient of the older-style tank cars remain in service. Most of the cars in current use have some improvements, such as shields at either end to help prevent punctures during derailments.
Transportation officials cautioned that thousands of idled “legacy cars” could quickly come back online if oil prices rise and shipment volumes rebound.
Railroad association spokesman Ed Greenberg declined comment on the progress being made toward replacing older cars.
