Fiery oil train derailment forces evacuations

Hundreds of families were evacuated and nearby water treatment plants were temporarily shut down after 19 tanker cars left the tracks and caught fire, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning a nearby house down to its foundation.

One nearby resident was treated for smoke inhalation, but no other injuries were reported, according to the train company. The two-person crew, an engineer and conductor, managed to decouple the train’s engines from the wreck behind it and walk away unharmed.

The train derailed near unincorporated Mount Carbon, two miles after passing through Montgomery, a town of 1,946, on a stretch where the rails wind along a narrow flood plain, past businesses and homes that crowd the bases of steep, tree-covered hills.

Fire crews had little choice but to let the tanker cars burn themselves out. Each carries up to 30,000 gallons of crude.

Snow was falling heavily — as much as 7 inches in some places — but it’s not clear if the weather contributed to the derailment, which happened about 30 miles southeast of Charleston.

All but two of the 109 cars were tankers, and 26 of them left the tracks. The two locomotives stayed on the track as the cars behind them began derailing, a CSX spokesman said. No cause has been determined, said CSX regional vice president Randy Cheetham. He said the tracks had been inspected just three days before the wreck.

The incident no doubt caught the attention of Montanans, who have seen the number of oil trains significantly increase on the BNSF Railway tracks that run over Marias Pass, along the southern boundary of Glacier National Park, and through the towns of Columbia Falls and Whitefish.

Rail shipments of crude oil in North America have increased from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to more than 435,000 in 2013, driven by the Bakken oil boom. With limited pipeline capacity, about 70 percent of the Bakken crude is shipped to refineries by rail, according to American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

Trains hauling Bakken crude have been involved in major accidents in Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama and Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Forty-seven people were killed by the explosive derailment in Lac-Megantic in 2013. Reports of oil leaking from railroad tank cars have increased from 12 in 2008 to 186 last year, according to U.S. Department of Transportation records.

On Feb. 14, two days before the West Virginia wreck, 29 of 100 cars in a Canadian National Railway train carrying Bakken crude derailed in a remote, wooded area about 50 miles south of Timmins, Ontario, spilling oil and catching fire.

The Canadian train was heading for Yorktown, Va., using model 1232 tank cars, which include safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the railroad  industry four years ago. An estimated $7 billion has been spent to put 57,000 of these cars into service, according to the Railway Supply Institute.

But in a train derailment last year in Lynchburg, Va., model 1232 rail cars ruptured and burned, prompting the Obama administration to consider requiring upgrades such as thicker tanks, shields to prevent tankers from crumpling, rollover protections and electronic brakes that could make cars stop simultaneously, rather than slam into each other. Some of these measures would cost billions more and have been strongly opposed by the oil and rail industries.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Feb. 17 that investigators were looking at detailed damage reports and photographs of the derailed tank cars provided by CSX and the Federal Railroad Administration.

Investigators will compare the data with tank car design specifications and similar derailments, including one near Casselton, N.D., when a train with more than 100 cars derailed, sending up a huge fireball and forcing the evacuation of the farming town, and the incident near Lynchburg, which sent three tank cars into the James River and prompted an evacuation of downtown Lynchburg.

A CSX train hauling 3 million gallons of crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota and Montana to refineries in Virginia derailed in West Virginia on Feb. 16, filling the sky with spectacular fire balls after several tank cars burst and caught fire.

Hundreds of families were evacuated and nearby water treatment plants were temporarily shut down after 19 tanker cars left the tracks and caught fire, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning a nearby house down to its foundation.

One nearby resident was treated for smoke inhalation, but no other injuries were reported, according to the train company. The two-person crew, an engineer and conductor, managed to decouple the train’s engines from the wreck behind it and walk away unharmed.

The train derailed near unincorporated Mount Carbon, two miles after passing through Montgomery, a town of 1,946, on a stretch where the rails wind along a narrow flood plain, past businesses and homes that crowd the bases of steep, tree-covered hills.

Fire crews had little choice but to let the tanker cars burn themselves out. Each carries up to 30,000 gallons of crude.

Snow was falling heavily — as much as 7 inches in some places — but it’s not clear if the weather contributed to the derailment, which happened about 30 miles southeast of Charleston.

All but two of the 109 cars were tankers, and 26 of them left the tracks. The two locomotives stayed on the track as the cars behind them began derailing, a CSX spokesman said. No cause has been determined, said CSX regional vice president Randy Cheetham. He said the tracks had been inspected just three days before the wreck.

The incident no doubt caught the attention of Montanans, who have seen the number of oil trains significantly increase on the BNSF Railway tracks that run over Marias Pass, along the southern boundary of Glacier National Park, and through the towns of Columbia Falls and Whitefish.

Rail shipments of crude oil in North America have increased from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to more than 435,000 in 2013, driven by the Bakken oil boom. With limited pipeline capacity, about 70 percent of the Bakken crude is shipped to refineries by rail, according to American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

Trains hauling Bakken crude have been involved in major accidents in Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama and Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Forty-seven people were killed by the explosive derailment in Lac-Megantic in 2013. Reports of oil leaking from railroad tank cars have increased from 12 in 2008 to 186 last year, according to U.S. Department of Transportation records.

On Feb. 14, two days before the West Virginia wreck, 29 of 100 cars in a Canadian National Railway train carrying Bakken crude derailed in a remote, wooded area about 50 miles south of Timmins, Ontario, spilling oil and catching fire.

The Canadian train was heading for Yorktown, Va., using model 1232 tank cars, which include safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the railroad  industry four years ago. An estimated $7 billion has been spent to put 57,000 of these cars into service, according to the Railway Supply Institute.

But in a train derailment last year in Lynchburg, Va., model 1232 rail cars ruptured and burned, prompting the Obama administration to consider requiring upgrades such as thicker tanks, shields to prevent tankers from crumpling, rollover protections and electronic brakes that could make cars stop simultaneously, rather than slam into each other. Some of these measures would cost billions more and have been strongly opposed by the oil and rail industries.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Feb. 17 that investigators were looking at detailed damage reports and photographs of the derailed tank cars provided by CSX and the Federal Railroad Administration.

Investigators will compare the data with tank car design specifications and similar derailments, including one near Casselton, N.D., when a train with more than 100 cars derailed, sending up a huge fireball and forcing the evacuation of the farming town, and the incident near Lynchburg, which sent three tank cars into the James River and prompted an evacuation of downtown Lynchburg.