Crude Oil Rail Shipments On The Rise In Detroit/Suberbs

If you travel I 94 between Allen Park and Metro Airport you may have noticed a lot of tank cars on the Norfolk Southern rail line. According to Trains Magazine, crude oil shipments on Canadian Pacific rose 20 fold from 2,800 carloads in 2010 to 53,500 carloads in 2012. A lot of this is coming through the rail tunnel under the Detroit River and through Detroit and the suberbs via CP's trackage rights with NS. After last weekends derailment of oil in Quebec near the Maine border, I'm wondering if local fire departments even know about this increase. This could be a disaster waiting to happen.

A lot of stuff far worse than crude oil has been regularly shipped on train lines.

Still a *WHOLE* lot safer than trucks.

^^^Yeah that... Read the labels on some of those tankers next time you're stuck at a crossing, oil is probably one of the safer things they carry.


That being said, the increased amount of rail traffic is definitely a concern. That's a huge increase in in the number of trains and surely that increases the odds of an accident.

They're still looking for bodies in the Quebec crude oil derailment that wiped out much of a downtown area. 50 confirmed dead so far. This is a small town. The crude shipments passing through the tunnel here are going right through the middle of the Marathon refinery. A derailment there would be catastrophic. These shipments are also passing through some heavily populated areas. For sure rail is safer than trucks and some argue safer than pipelines. In fact, with all this crude moving by rail the Keystone XL pipeline project is probably dead now. There are more dangerous products being shipped by rail. I think there is still a chemical train that moves from Midland to Texas once a week. But the crude is highly flammable as the derailment in Quebec has shown. I just don't think the local authorities are prepared for this or are even aware its happening.

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Originally Posted by Downriviera

They're still looking for bodies in the Quebec crude oil derailment that wiped out much of a downtown area. 50 confirmed dead so far. This is a small town. The crude shipments passing through the tunnel here are going right through the middle of the Marathon refinery. A derailment there would be catastrophic. These shipments are also passing through some heavily populated areas. For sure rail is safer than trucks and some argue safer than pipelines. In fact, with all this crude moving by rail the Keystone XL pipeline project is probably dead now. There are more dangerous products being shipped by rail. I think there is still a chemical train that moves from Midland to Texas once a week. But the crude is highly flammable as the derailment in Quebec has shown. I just don't think the local authorities are prepared for this or are even aware its happening.

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DR, this was indeed a major catastrophe. Viewing these rail cars as moving bombs is a mistake. A derailment in the tunnel or the refinery at the speed there wouldn't be much of an explosion hazard. The train in Quebec was moving at a excessively high rate of speed down a hill. We don't have hills like that. No train here moves near that fast.

Rather than killing hte Keystone pipeline, this may have ensured its future. Pipeline movement is several orders of magnitude safer.

There's a lot of danger in the world. Managing it is important. There will be accidents.

I also wouldn't underrate the emergency response teams we have here. Since 911, emergency response has really improved. DFD has problems, but their response to major problems would be pretty good.

I believe that it is not easy to ignite the crude oil that is transported by
train. I thought that it had to be heated to about 235 degrees to burn.
Here in Michigan, most of us are reluctant to defend the safety of
pipelines after the spill of more than a million gallons into the K-Zoo
River three years ago.

It really is an effed-up world we live in. They cant put two engineers in charge of a long load of crude but in New York and London and Houston there are gold cuff linked manucured individuals making insane money dealing that stuff.

Mississauga had a major train disaster a while back and I just hope nothing happens like that here again. Some of those trains passing through with ammonnia, sulfur gases and propane are several miles long, and they are a daily occurence, many times a day in my neighborhood.