Century-Old Bridge Supports New-Era Oil Trains

While regulators have focused on the failings of DOT-111s since Lac-Megantic, less attention has been paid to railroad infrastructure and operations.

The regulatory system’s weaknesses are apparent in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where a 116-year-old bridge supports oil trains as they cross the Black Warrior River and into the city’s downtown.

The steel bridge is buttressed by wooden trestles that rise about 40 feet above public parks and jogging trails on either side of the river. On one bank sits the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, where concert-goers can gaze up at trains silhouetted romantically against moonlit skies. Nearby is a construction site where condos are going up. Less than a mile downriver is a major oil refinery.

When InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel visited the bridge in May, a train of DOT-111s filled with crude oil happened to be parked overhead. At the base of the bridge, many of the pilings that support the trestle appeared to be rotted. Scores of pilings had what looked like makeshift concrete braces where the piling had cracked. Cross braces were hanging loose or lay on the ground beneath the structure. One stretch of the trestle had been blackened by fire.

A 116-year-old bridge supports oil trains as they cross the Black Warrior River and into the city’s downtown in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. At the base of the bridge, some of the pilings that support the trestle appear to be rotted. (Jason Rudge/The Weather Channel)

The M&O Bridge and the surrounding track are the responsibility of Alabama Southern Railway, one of 30 short-line railroads owned and operated by Watco Companies, LLC, a transportation conglomerate. Watco’s chief commercial officer, Ed McKechnie, said trains on that particular line carry heavy crude oil from Canada, not the explosive light crude from North Dakota. But Watco doesn’t rule out moving North Dakota crude across the bridge if a customer comes along, McKechnie said.

Many rail industry officials, academic engineers and regulators say that even 19th century bridges that appear rundown can be safe, because redundancy is built into the bridges and the defects are usually cosmetic. They note that rail bridge collapses are rare. According to FRA accident records, only 58 train accidents were caused by the structural failure of railroad bridges for the 27 years from 1982 through 2008. But most of the surge in oil has come since then.

For the public or even local governments, confirming that a specific bridge is safe enough to handle the new oil trains is almost impossible.

The M&O Bridge is inspected annually, McKechnie said, with the most recent inspection on June 14. But he would not disclose or summarize the results. Because railroad companies aren’t required to file that information with federal regulators, there’s no database to check.

In 2009, Congress ordered the FRA to draft railroad bridge safety regulations, but the rule that emerged in 2010 is so narrow that it provides little help. Railroad operators are required to have a maintenance plan for each bridge and conduct at least one annual inspection. But they are not required to submit those plans to the FRA or to give the FRA an inventory of the bridges unless the agency requests that information.

The only direct oversight the rule called for was having the FRA, already dreadfully short of personnel and resources, conduct spot audits of the plans—not the bridges.

A Freedom of Information Act request for any documents related to safety inspections of the M&O bridge produced a January 2006 FRA inspection that found no structural problems but noted that the railroad “has no written policy on bridge inspection and/or maintenance practices.”

An FRA inspection in January 2010 found several problems, including a crushed cap. A cap is a horizontal timber that plays a key role in supporting the elevated track. The railroad took the bridge out of service for four hours to replace the cap.

The inspection report said Alabama Southern is using an outside contractor to inspect its bridge, but noted that “with a few a exceptions” the railroad “is not following the repair recommendations….”

When asked to comment on the report, Watco’s McKechnie said, “We continue to believe that an on-going maintenance program has kept the bridge safe and in use.”

An FRA spokesman said the agency investigates every complaint about a bridge or track and invariably finds that the bridges are safe. But it’s unclear how those judgments are made, because the federal government has no engineering standards for bridges.

McKechnie said Watco abides by industry standards produced by The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA). AREMA’s Manual for Railway Engineering is available to the public for a fee, $1,370. The chapter on timber structures (purchased for $290) did not address what percentage of pilings may be rotted or otherwise defective without undermining the structural integrity of a bridge.

“It would be difficult to arrive at an allowable percentage of deteriorated piles that would cover all timber railroad bridges because of the variations in geometry, loading, and amount of deterioration among different timber structures,” an AREMA representative wrote in an email. “The decision as to what is safe is left to the bridge engineer.”

Watco’s vice president of engineering, Tony Cox, made a similar argument. He said the M&O Bridge is safe.

And what does the FRA say about the absence of federal or industry standards?

“A numerical standard for defective bridge pilings would be an insufficient standard, as every bridge is unique, and the structural integrity of every bridge must be considered in its proper context,” a spokesman for the rail agency explained by email. “Every bridge must be evaluated by an appropriate expert, and within the context of its construction, operational environment, and operational loading.”

Ultimately, the railroad decides whether a bridge is safe.