Video: After all the train derailments and massive explosions in this country, experts from Canada’s rail industry are trying to work out how to make rail transport safe. Jacques Bourbeau reports.
They’re not much to look at. But the jet black tubes of metal travelling along the country’s web of railroads are at the centre of the rail safety debate raging in the wake a recent string of high-profile derailments.
Accidents such as last summer’s tragedy in Lac-Megantic, Que. and the more recent explosive derailment in northern New Brunswick have raised questions about the safety of shipping combustible crude by rail—specifically in those now-familiar black tankers, officially called DOT-111 and used frequently to move dangerous goods despite their history of rupturing during derailments.
Why we’re talking about them:
After the inferno was extinguished in Lac-Megantic, aerial photos of the incinerated downtown showed the charred tankers piled over one another, like burned matches tossed into an ashtray.
In New Brunswick, a similar image, only with fewer tankers and lives lost.
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The DOT-111 is a staple of Canadian and American rail fleets, and its flaws are recorded as far back as 1991. Problems identified include a steel shell too thin to effectively resist puncturing in accidents, creating a situation in which a derailment will almost inevitably cause the tankers to tear open and spill cargo. If that cargo is a volatile oil, that opens the door to fire, explosions and environmental contamination.
The data:
The overall rate of rail accidents involving crude oil remains low, with more than 99.9 per cent of trains hauling that cargo arriving at their destination without incident. But with a lack of pipeline infrastructure creating a bottleneck for booming oil production in North America, companies are increasingly looking at railways as a means to ship oil.
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Prior to 2009, hardly any oil—just 8,000 metric tonnes—was shipped along rail lines. But with pipelines at capacity, companies have turned to trains. So in 2011, nearly 375,000 metric tonnes of oil were travelling along Canada’s rails, and in 2012, the quantity skyrocketed to 4.3 million metric tonnes.
Out of 335,000 tank cars of all types in use in North America, 228,000 are the model known as DOT-111, according to the Association of American Railroads. About 92,000 DOT-111s are used to carry flammable liquids, and only 14,000 of those are the new, stronger cars built after October 2011. That means 78,000 older DOT-111s remain the workhorse of the oil-by-rail boom.
The plan for new cars:
There are plans to make DOT-111 cars safer, but that doesn’t address the thousands of old tankers rolling along North American railroads and passing through towns like Lac-Megantic and cities like Toronto and Chicago.
Transport Minister Lisa Raitt last week proposed amendments to make the cars safer. The new regulations would, for example, require any new DOT-111s to be constructed with thicker steel.
The industry has already been voluntarily building new DOT-111s to these standards, Raitt noted, but her proposed amendments would make the standards a requirement.
WATCH: Despite the recent rash of high-profile train derailments, the system is safe, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt says, noting there is always room for improvements.
Still, her department is working on more ways of making the tankers safer, she said, since railways are relying on them more and more.
In November, the minister asked one of her advisory committees, the dangerous goods advisory committee, to offer proposals specific to ensuring the DOT-111 cars can transport dangerous goods as safely as possible.
Raitt said she expects to hear back from the committee later this month.
The minister also said she is working closely with her U.S. counterparts to ensure both countries, which operate symbiotically, are in step with one another.
What of the older DOT-111 tankers?
The higher demand for tankers to haul oil across the continent means quickly retiring the more than 100,000 older and weaker DOT-111 cars is not necessarily feasible. The government has made no such commitment or offered any timeline for getting the cars off the railroads.
In an interview on The West Block with Tom Clark this week, the minister said there are three options: retrofitting the old cars, taking them out of rotation, or something in between those two choices.
Two of the cars carrying crude oil that derailed in New Brunswick last week were the older model of DOT-111 cars, while three were ones built to the newer standards.
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As of yet, however, there is still no proof the newer tankers are safer than their predecessors, said David Jean, president of Transport Action Canada, a group that advocates improved public transportation.
Investigation results for a number of rail accidents, both in the U.S. and in Canada, have yet to be released, he noted.
“So we don’t yet know for sure that the car design changes … are sufficient,” he said. “Also, so far, only a small number of cars have been modified. So the real question is, if it’s of great value to modify a larger number, how quickly can we move?”
Either way, the phase-out won’t likely happen too quickly, said Bob Ballantyne, president of the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association
“You can’t just snap your fingers and change the fleet over night,” he said Monday, adding he expects it will happen on a “reasonable and realistic timeline.”
The tragedy at Lac-Megantic, however, could speed up the process, Ballantyne said.
“An incident like Lac-Megantic, which is terrible in every way but is unusual, certainly gets everybody going back to the drafting board to look at everything associated with something like that event to see what can and should be done,” he said. “And certainly, one of the things that will be considered is the speed with which the older cars are phased out.”
Implications of changes:
Some experts estimate the new cars across North America could cost upwards of $1 billion, a cost that could eventually be downloaded on the consumer.
Retrofitting older cars can cost more than $70,000 each, while new tank cars cost well over $100,000.
The fact the older DOT-111 cars will have to be phased out and replaced with updated or new cars will cause some cost increases for the railway companies that operate and lease the tankers (most railways don’t own the tankers, but rather lease them from leasing companies). And those costs could be added to whatever the cars are hauling—liquid cargo that range from liquid sugar to ethanol and crude oil.
But consumers may not feel too much of a pinch, said Ballantyne.
“I think the increased costs that people will see at the super market or hardware store will be minimal, not too significant,” he said.
With files from the Canadian Press and the Associated Press
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