Oil Trains (RJMA / MARJ, OI-x, etc)

Wow... given what I've heard about the restrictions beyond Waterville, that's quite an achievement.

The Press Herald has an AP story today on the hideous dangers of oil trains. Unsurprisingly, they missed the local angle entirely.

The environmental fears carry an ironic twist: Oil trains are gaining popularity in part because of a shortage of pipeline capacity -- a problem that has been worsened by environmental opposition to projects such as TransCanada's stalled Keystone XL pipeline. That project would carry Bakken and Canadian crude to the Gulf of Mexico.

Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club, described rail as "the greater of two evils" because trains pass through cities, over waterways and through wetlands that pipelines can be built to avoid.

Another interesting tidbit is that apparently, rail transport is faster than pipelines. So, at least we now know the answer to "what is freight rail faster than"?

markhb wrote:Wow... given what I've heard about the restrictions beyond Waterville, that's quite an achievement.

The Press Herald has an AP story today on the hideous dangers of oil trains. Unsurprisingly, they missed the local angle entirely.

Perhaps picking the story up was their way of speaking to the local angle. That of course would appear to imply that they don't have sufficient resources to devote to the story themselves. Not good either.

markhb wrote:

The environmental fears carry an ironic twist: Oil trains are gaining popularity in part because of a shortage of pipeline capacity -- a problem that has been worsened by environmental opposition to projects such as TransCanada's stalled Keystone XL pipeline. That project would carry Bakken and Canadian crude to the Gulf of Mexico.

Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club, described rail as "the greater of two evils" because trains pass through cities, over waterways and through wetlands that pipelines can be built to avoid.

I take this issue pretty seriously as a resident of a community through which these trains pass and as a firefighter. I was a little surprised by the Sierra Club's description. Find me a spill from a pipeline whose volume doesn't exceed that of one or maybe even two rails cars rupturing. When pipelines have major incidents the volumes involved can be absolutely enormous. Second, small pipeline leaks, over time can turn into massive undetected spills stretching over literally acres of land and causing contamination that can take decades to clean up.

Regardless, because of the effective compartmentalization of train cars, their fail safe braking systems (which are generally extremely reliable), railroad operating practices and the surface nature of railroad transportation in most areas I think moving the crude by rail is a great interim solution.

Perhaps picking the story up was their way of speaking to the local angle.

Perhaps, but it wouldn't have killed them to throw in a locally-written line about the trains that are currently heading through Maine, just to give it some context.

markhb wrote:

Perhaps picking the story up was their way of speaking to the local angle.

Perhaps, but it wouldn't have killed them to throw in a locally-written line about the trains that are currently heading through Maine, just to give it some context.

Quite true.

My guess is that there's only a skeleton staff at the paper right now due to the holiday weekend. They did do an actual article about the Maine oil trains a few months ago, so it's not as if they're totally unaware of them.

MEC407 wrote:My guess is that there's only a skeleton staff at the paper right now due to the holiday weekend. They did do an actual article about the Maine oil trains a few months ago, so it's not as if they're totally unaware of them.

I recall that as well.

As posted in the Bakken Oil Thread, North Dakota hit another production record at around 747K BPD in October. No shortage of oil to around and at this point the East Coast refineries look to be the only "relief valve" available for it.

Loaded oil train through Bangor, ME at 21:00
BNSF 4649, 9723, 7589, & MEC 610 and pushers GMTX 3003 & MEC 330

MEC&BAR wrote:Loaded oil train through Bangor, ME at 21:00
BNSF 4649, 9723, 7589, & MEC 610 and pushers GMTX 3003 & MEC 330

A 'helper'?!? Wow...

Is this needed because of track conditions (which might require lower speeds etc.)?

Wow. I don't think I've ever heard of PanAm using DPU's. That is awesome.

This must be a different LOT than the one that passed through Rigby last evening.

The helpers are manned. Not dpu. And I assume they would be needed anyhow as there are several grades in the area. Even back in. The mec days helpers were occasionally needed through the bangor area...

MEC&BAR wrote:Loaded oil train through Bangor, ME at 21:00
BNSF 4649, 9723, 7589, & MEC 610 and pushers GMTX 3003 & MEC 330

When did they start running 6 axle road units with full oil can trains beyond Waterville?

From reports I've seen, PAR used an SD40 or 2 to test 6packs east of Bangor about 2-3 weeks ago. Full oil trains have been running behind GP40's since then. This is the first BNSF powered train east of Waterville.

KSmitty wrote:From reports I've seen, PAR used an SD40 or 2 to test 6packs east of Bangor about 2-3 weeks ago. Full oil trains have been running behind GP40's since then. This is the first BNSF powered train east of Waterville.

Thanks, Kevin for that info. I assume the same power stays with the train right through to St. John, not just as far as Mattawamkeag.

Last I knew, the first BNSF power had not yet made Mattawamkeag. It seems probable that it will continue east, NBSR's track being much better and all, but its still an unknown...

The axis of curiosity and the axis of boredom finally intersected, so I checked out the PAR ETT posted online courtesy of the DE Extension documentation. Back in the not-so-distant past when six-packs were machinae non grata beyond Bangor, the tonnage rating for solo 200s, 300s, and 500s EB both between E. Deerfield and E. Gardner and between Bangor and Keag was shown as 2000 tons. Additionally, the profile between Bangor and Keag is more saw-toothy than the EB climb out of the Connecticut River Valley, so helper power for both pusher and train-control functions seems reasonable to this rank and mere-mortal civilian.