Deadly Leak Underscores Concerns About Rail Safety

["Stabin, Michael" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>]

At last! Some focused concern where concern is due. A quick call or two

to some of us could provide some pretty useful experience about safe

transit of hazmat.





Deadly Leak Underscores Concerns About Rail Safety

By WALT BOGDANICH

and CHRISTOPHER DREW 

NY Times, January 9, 2005



Ten months ago, government safety officials warned that more than half

of the nation's 60,000 pressurized rail tank cars did not meet industry

standards, and they raised questions about the safety of the rest of the

fleet as well. Their worry, that the steel tanks could rupture too

easily in an accident, proved prophetic. On Thursday, a train crash in

South Carolina caused a deadly release of chlorine: 9 people were

killed, 58 were hospitalized and hundreds more sought treatment. The

ninth body was found yesterday, and thousands of people have been kept

from their homes.



Last summer, a derailment in Texas caused a steel tank car to break

open, spewing clouds of chlorine gas that killed three people. The exact

causes of the accidents are still under investigation. But the

devastation they have wrought shows why tank cars have become an

increasing concern not just to safety investigators but also to domestic

security officials worried that terrorists could turn tank cars into

lethal weapons. The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in 2002 that

Al Qaeda might be planning to attack trains in the United States,

possibly causing derailments or blowing up tank cars laden with

hazardous materials...



Just how ruptured tank cars can endanger a community was underscored

three years ago when a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train derailed

just outside Minot, N.D. Five tank cars carrying a liquefied type of

ammonia gas broke open, releasing toxic fumes that killed one resident

and injured more than 300.



The National Transportation Safety Board, in a report on the accident

released last year, said the steel shells on the five ruptured tank cars

had become brittle, causing a "catastrophic fracture" that released

clouds of toxic vapors. Those cars, the safety board found, were built

before 1989 using steel that did not - as it does now - undergo a

special heat treatment to make it stronger and less brittle. Tank cars

built after 1989 use this specially treated steel.



The safety board warned that of the 60,000 pressurized tank cars in

operation, more than half were older cars that were not built according

to current industry standards, leaving them susceptible to rupture. And

because these cars may remain in service for up to 50 years, some older

ones could still be hauling hazardous materials until 2039.



Among the hazardous materials carried by the tank cars are liquefied

ammonia, chlorine, propane and vinyl chloride. In most cases, the cars

are owned by chemical or leasing companies, not the railroads...



Although the rail industry now requires that tank shells be made with

the special heat-treated steel, the safety board said that treatment

alone "does not guarantee" enough protection against impact. Other

manufacturing techniques should also be explored, the board said, but it

cautioned that the industry and the railroad administration "have not

established adequate testing standards to measure the impact resistance

for steels and other materials used in the construction of pressure tank

cars."



Steven W. Kulm, a spokesman for the railroad administration, said, "We

have a long history of activities and actions that have improved the

integrity of tank car construction." Mr. Kulm said that since 1994

accidents "have been few in number," though even one death, he added,

was too many. "Tank cars are more crashworthy and puncture resistant in

train derailments today than ever before," he said.



In the Texas crash last summer, the tank car that ruptured and released

poisonous gas was made before 1989, though federal investigators have

not yet concluded whether brittle steel played a role in that accident.

The South Carolina crash involved the rupture of a newer tank car

manufactured in 1993, said Richard Koch, vice president for public

affairs at the Olin Corporation, a diversified manufacturing company

that owned the car...



The danger of such an attack has been a major concern since the Sept. 11

strikes. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001,

freight railroads placed a 72-hour moratorium on carrying some hazardous

chemicals as a precaution against retaliatory strikes.



In warning in 2002 about possible attacks, the F.B.I. said, "Recently

captured Al Qaeda photographs of U.S. railroad engines, cars and

crossings heightens the intelligence community's concern of this

threat."...



Mike



Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

Vanderbilt University 

1161 21st Avenue South

Nashville, TN 37232-2675 

Phone (615) 343-0068

Fax   (615) 322-3764

Pager (615) 835-5153

e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu 

internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com



 

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