Putting a brake to oil train derailments

Bill Loveless | Special for USA TODAY

The latest derailments of trains carrying crude oil in the U.S. and Canada are putting more pressure on government officials to end the fiery crashes.

In fact, Washington is moving closer to adopting proposals that would force improvements in the tank cars and other equipment used to haul oil as well as require new restrictions on operating speeds for those trains and new assessments of rail conditions. Ottawa has taken similar steps.

But a former Obama administration official who played a key role in writing the U.S. proposals says that for all the talk about increasing the thickness and durability of tank cars, the more vital consideration may be putting better brakes on those trains.

"The more I think about it, the more I think that the ECP brakes may be more important than the tank car itself, because it would stop the pileup of the cars when there's a derailment or when there's a need to brake in a very quick fashion," Cynthia Quarterman, who stepped down last year as the head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), told me the other day.

Electronic controlled pneumatic (ECP) systems simultaneously send braking commands to all cars on a train. Compared to conventional air-brake systems, which work sequentially from car to car, ECP brakes stop entire trains sooner, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

DOT included a requirement for ECP brakes among many options in a rulemaking aimed at improving the safety of transporting oil on rail. Whether that provision will end up in the final rule, which is due out this May, is uncertain.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian officials continue to investigate the derailment of trains carrying oil in West Virginia on February 16 and in Ontario on February 14. These incidents bring to 10 the number of oil derailments in the two countries since 2013, the worst of them an explosive crash in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in July of that year that resulted in 47 fatalities and the destruction of much of the town's commercial core.

These recent occurrences are drawing that much more attention because both involved trains using later models of tank cars considered more puncture-resistant than decades-old vessels.

"When I was in government and today I continue to say that the question is more complicated than just the tank car," said Quarterman, who at PHMSA, which is part of DOT, oversaw development of the pending government policy. "It really needs a multifaceted solution."

The DOT rulemaking took such a broad approach, proposing tanker cars with thicker shells to resist puncture, new fittings to stop valves from leaking, lower speed limits for oil trains and advance notice for local safety officials when the trains are headed for their communities.

But Quarterman says she's increasingly convinced that better braking is the key to the solution.

"These brakes help stop each car individually," she said. "The big cause for these incidents when they happen is you get the pileup, all the cars run into each other, and crash one upon the other upon the other. These new ECP brakes will have control of each tank car so you won't have that kind of pileup."

The U.S. rail industry, which has taken a series of voluntary steps to improve crude-on-rail safety, including calling for the retrofit or phasing out older tank cars, agrees that better braking systems are among the answers, but not ECP brakes.

"They are very costly systems not justified in terms of improved safety benefits, and could result in negative operational impacts on the network," the American Association of Railroads says.

Still, Quarterman, now an energy specialist at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, believes the industry may come around.

"There is some expense associated with that," she said of the brake proposal. "I think in the long run they will more than pay for themselves. It makes the train easier to control, and I think it's the wave of the future."

Bill Loveless is a veteran energy journalist and television commentator in Washington. He is a former host of the TV program Platts Energy Week.