Ethanol Trains to Revere

GP40MC1118 wrote:I see the STEP Yahoo Groups already has a posting about the CSX Maryland
wreck/explosion...and so it goes...

D

Are they going to post this too?
Tanker truck crashes, leaks fuel in Arlington neighborhood

Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro/ta ... z2UuN5gzlm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I saw this in today's Globe: "Senators try to reroute Ethanol Transports"

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/region ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

jbvb wrote:I saw this in today's Globe: "Senators try to reroute Ethanol Transports"

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/region ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And where in the hell do they propose re-routing these from? The Newburyport Branch? Saugus Branch? Portsmouth? A car float from the Eastie docks?

The only changeable routing is if the riff-raff on the Fitchburg is too much to handle and they need to switch to the NH Main. The 'other' routings avoiding Chelsea and Revere require a magic time machine.

And it continues with the Somerville mayor's Op-Ed in the Somerville News today AND

an article in the Somerville Journal (looks to be the same/similar one in the Cambridge
Chronicle 6/4

http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/n ... z2VTzv5K4K" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

D

State senator says ethanol-train company withdraws proposal
By adamg - 7/1/13 - 11:17 pm
State Sen. Sal DiDomenico reports that Global Oil has decided to cancel plans to run trains full of ethanol to a proposed "blending" facility in Revere. The decision came after the legislature approved a bill that would have basically prohibited the new facility.

http://www.universalhub.com/2013/state- ... -withdraws" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Teamdriver wrote:State senator says ethanol-train company withdraws proposal
By adamg - 7/1/13 - 11:17 pm
State Sen. Sal DiDomenico reports that Global Oil has decided to cancel plans to run trains full of ethanol to a proposed "blending" facility in Revere. The decision came after the legislature approved a bill that would have basically prohibited the new facility.

http://www.universalhub.com/2013/state- ... -withdraws" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Reading that all-caps tweet from the NIMBY lobby in response to DiDomenico's announcement made my head hurt. Is there anything left in this world that can't be reduced to sports team 'rooting for laundy' / "I won because you lost" crassness? Yikes.

Bummer. They should not have caved so easily. Maybe they should have started with smaller trains supplementing the barges and slowly built it up. The size of the trains scared people. A few tank cars may not have even been questioned . . . even welcomed over tanker trucks after the last accident.

But none the less, this sets a disturbing precedent that other municipalities may try to do the same to block all kinds of rail movements. Most people have no idea what is being hauled through their towns on the rails. Look at the hassles that G&U is facing trying to improve that moribund region.

Don''t worry , be happy! In the future ,Appel is working on an app whereby all products will be reduced to files and can be emailed. And the former industrial wastelands will be converted to sandy beach resort like laid back housing, at a low cost with provisions for perpetual rent control. There will be no need for industrial districts. And there will be a forest of money trees nearby to finance all this euphoria. People forget that those areas with the tank farms, and the shipyards , and the cargo cranes, once provided the jobs for the masses so that they could jump in the melting pot that was America.No need for all this, we have a brave new world.

bostontrainguy wrote:Bummer. They should not have caved so easily. Maybe they should have started with smaller trains supplementing the barges and slowly built it up. The size of the trains scared people. A few tank cars may not have even been questioned . . . even welcomed over tanker trucks after the last accident.

But none the less, this sets a disturbing precedent that other municipalities may try to do the same to block all kinds of rail movements. Most people have no idea what is being hauled through their towns on the rails.

It's not just that. Hazmat tanker trucks are already banned from the City of Boston during daylight hours and required to take Route 128. Mayor Menino tried to hijack the shock-and-awe over the Saugus tanker crash to take it one step further, banning ALL fuel trucks from the city 24/7 except ones that are explicitly on a delivery run to a property in the city. That one forced Global to send the entirety of its trucks through Chelsea and Revere to continue operating at all, and probably wouldn't have survived a court challenge from Global or cities of Revere/Chelsea/Everett, but it had mind-boggling margin of public support and support from local legislators. They are basically trying to legislate Global--and anyone of similar ilk--out of business, damn the consequences.

There already are more tanker trucks pounding Revere/Chelsea/Everett and stupidly dangerous parkways like 16 than ever before because Boston won the ****-swinging contest on who could ram through the arbitrarily toughest restrictions. And there already is more nighttime tanker traffic than ever because of the daytime bans, which means more trucks than ever coasting over the same black ice that caused the Santilli Circle explosion. Now the trains are banned.


The endgame of all of this is that it's open season on fuel transport on any mode, and the ante has been upped on how many restrictions can get passed before Global et al. simply cannot do business in this region anymore and close up shop. And everyone will celebrate, and the elected officials will propose a casino or something on-site...but there won't be any environmental mitigation money so it'll just be an economic dead zone for decades while pols talk of "potential". And there will be lots of talk about getting billions in fed money to build a gigantic fuel terminal way out on the islands without one thought given to how they're actually going to get shovels in the ground before fuel prices in the city hit crisis level. And all the while towns out to I-495 will get emboldened to start scorching the earth on fuel deliveries out there, meaning the supply/distribution cavity driving up fuel prices in Boston starts spreading region-wide.


Global gave up easy because it knows what the endgame is. I am pretty sure they have it scoped out to the nth degree how much they're willing to put up with getting eaten alive by nuisance NIMBY regs before they scale down ops or pull up stake altogether. Either the rail tankers gave them an opening to keep growing despite being 'landlocked' by the local restrictions on road transport, or the diminishing returns were going to take hold as they lost more and more maneuverability year by year. Since this "victory" now encourages a free-for-all for local bans, I have to wonder if long-term they are now committed to extricating themselves from the area.



But, "my local sports team beat your local sports team", so who cares.

I've been following this for the last three years in hopes of finally being able to catch a train on the old ROW that heads into East Boston. This is definitely a MAJOR bummer.

Surprised the "anti ethanol" crowd hasn't set their sites on the Worcester-> Providence trains yet.....or the Oil trains to Maine...

They've started in Maine...See Oil Train forum...Another division of this 350 Group
will be posting down at Brayton Point in Somerset, Ma. soon. Somerset PD getting
crowd control training from the State PD according to an article in the New Bedford
Standard-Times last week.

D

Global Petroleum withdraws plan to transport ethanol by rail through northern suburbs
Posted by Jeremy C. Fox July 2, 2013 02:36 PM

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

Global Petroleum has withdrawn a plan to transport ethanol by train through densely populated communities north of Boston after the state Legislature passed a budget with an amendment that would outlaw the storage of large quantities of ethanol near densely populated areas.

Does anyone know Pan Am's trackage right fee that they pay the MBTA? My rough estimate suggests that the MBTA would have gained $350k/year from this deal had it not been blocked. I'm using figures which suggest CSX pays 45 cents per car per mile when on MBTA trackage.

I believe Portland and Portsmouth have been discussed in the past as alternative sites..