By
Marianne Lavelle, The
Daily Climate
As you approach Providence, note the
number of parked tanker cars all along Route 95 from Cranston stretching to
Pawtucket. Each one is an accident waiting to happen. - WC
Every week in the United States in 2014, about 16 people were
killed by trains—a 17 percent increase over the previous year and adding up to
the highest number of rail casualties since 2007, federal government
data shows.
None of these victims died in fiery crude oil explosions like
the ones visible for miles around train derailment sites this month in Illinois
and Ontario. But in some regions, there are signs that the increasing deaths
may be tied to a massive energy-driven transformation underway on U.S.
railroads. (See sidebar, "Five ways
energy is driving new railroad traffic.")
As the tracks become major conduits for oil, petroleum products,
and—not as widely noticed—materials like industrial sand, pipe, and chemicals
for the hydraulic fracturing of oil and natural gas wells, some states are
grappling with changed train routes, speeds and traffic patterns that spell new
hazards for pedestrians and motorists.
Ready for expansion?
Adding to risk are surging U.S. passenger railroads, which
typically operate on the same tracks as freight. The number of people struck
and killed by passenger trains last year, about 255, was the highest toll of
non-passenger fatalities for those railroads in 40 years of record-keeping by
the U.S. Department of
Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
The increase in fatalities raises questions whether the nation
is prepared for the massive rail expansion already underway. Railroads plan
record capital spending of $29 billion this year. They'll lay new track, double
existing track, buy locomotives and build terminals.
But the one job that won't get done is installation of a new
high-tech integrated command and control safety system, Positive Train Control
(PTC), even though Congress seven years ago mandated its deployment by the end
of 2015. A bipartisan bill already has been introduced to extend the safety
system deadline five more years. (See sidebar.)
The most populous states had the greatest number of train
fatalities. California, with 141 deaths, and Texas, with 65, together accounted
for 25 percent of the total. California was one of the few places that the
majority of fatalities were due to passenger trains. Across the country, 70
percent of those who died on railroads in 2014, some 575 people, were killed by
freight trains.
Freight rail traffic increased 4.5 percent last year, a
substantial bump after two prior years of declining carloads. That drop-off was
due mainly to falling demand for rail's longtime mainstay commodity—coal. But
freight rebounded due to strong shipping of consumer goods and its single
fastest-growing commodity, crude oil, up 20.1 percent over 2013 to 493,126
carloads in 2014, the Association of American Railroads reported.
Fracking's broad footprint
The rail industry is quick to point out that crude oil is only 2
percent of total freight traffic. But that understates the far-reaching impact
that the changing U.S. energy picture has had in reshaping the railroad
business.
Consider Wisconsin’s 16 deaths on train tracks in 2014—a 167
percent increase over the prior year and double the average of the previous six
years.
“Rail traffic in Wisconsin is growing exponentially!” says a warning on the
web site of state
Railroad Commissioner Jeff Plale. “Trains are running throughout the
state at higher speeds, more frequently, and sometimes on lines that have
either been closed or have not seen trains in years."
Wisconsin's rail resurgence is due to its status as the No. 1
state for the mining and hauling of high-quality industrial sand, which is a
crucial ingredient for hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells.
Sand is one
of rail's fastest-growing commodities, and Wisconsin tax revenue receipts from
railroads are up 90 percent since 2006. Plale did not respond to requests for
comment, but in a report last year
by WisconsinWatch.org he
said the increase was in part due to frack sand shipping. Nearly half the
freight trainloads that
originate in Wisconsin are carrying "stone, sand, and gravel," rail
industry data shows.
The industry group, the Association of American Railroads,
referred questions about motorist or pedestrian safety to Operation Lifesaver,
which is a nonprofit train safety education group. It is funded jointly by the
rail industry and the federal government.
Joyce Rose, Operation Lifesaver's president and chief executive
officer, said that outreach is important in areas where train patterns are
changing.
"Certainly when you start a service for the first time,
it's smart to reach out to people who are not used to seeing trains going 55
miles per hour, and do public education before you start," she said.
"People do not always see tracks and think, 'Train.'" We want people
to think train every time they come to a railroad crossing."
The "trespasser" problem
Last year's fatality statistics, Rose said, demonstrate the
continuing need to raise public awareness about train safety. She said
Operation Lifesaver would be working with the railroads, state and local law
enforcement, and government agencies to expand its safety campaign.
The 827 deaths nationwide due to trains in 2014 were about 15
percent above the average of the past six years, FRA figures show. But years
ago, U.S. train fatalities were far higher—averaging 1,600 annual deaths in the
1970s and 1,100 per year in the 1990s. Installation of gates and flashing light
systems, funded largely with the help of U.S. government aid, greatly reduced
hazards at highway and road crossings.
Last year's increase in rail-related deaths was not at
crossings, but among what the government calls "trespassers;" people
on or near the tracks not at crossings.
"We try to do everything we can to get word out about
trespassing and about highway grade crossings,” FRA spokesman Mike Booth said.
"The figures were down for a few years, but now they've started to come
back up." Asked whether any particular geographic areas are seeing an
unusual increase in fatalities, Booth said, "That's not something we
typically track. We are concerned with rail safety, no matter where the trains
are."
A death tax?
Robert Pottroff, a Manhattan, Kansas, lawyer who has long
specialized in representing people in injury and death lawsuits against
railroad companies, faults the railroads for not investing in and implementing
safety measures.
He said the problem is not just the need for high-tech safety
systems, but more mundane fixes, like fences to deter people from traversing
the tracks between crossings.
"They call them 'trespassers,'" Pottroff said.
"We like to call them 'pedestrians.' Sometimes we call them, 'Our
children.'"
Pottroff recently arrived at a confidential settlement on behalf
of eight Texas families who sued Union Pacific in one of the most high-profile
rail fatality cases in recent years. Four veterans were killed and a dozen
people were injured when the Veterans' Day parade float they were riding
crossed the tracks in front of a train traveling 62 miles per hour in 2012 in
Midland, Texas. The accident did not involve an oil train, although Midland is
the heart of west Texas oil country, and both the community and rail traffic
have been growing quickly.
Onus on communities
Old design plans at the crossing had called for trains to travel
25 miles per hour, but Union Pacific had raised its speed limit to 70 mph in
2006 to accommodate increasing train traffic.
In 2007, Midland gained
permission from the federal government to establish a "quiet zone" at
the crossing, to limit train horns from sounding through town. At the time of
the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded the train was
following federal regulations. The NTSB faulted the parade planners and Midland
for not taking proper safety precautions
 |
| Three of the six New England states - New Hamshire, Maine and Connecticut - are among the top ten states for increased deaths |
"Any place where there is an increase in rail traffic,
there will be a net increase in fatalities," Pottroff said. "The
reason is this is just like a cost of doing business. It's like a death
tax."
The lesson of the Midland accident may be that the burden will
be on local communities to prepare for increased train traffic. The FRA
announced last week that it would begin "a multi-faceted
campaign" to strengthen safety at grade crossings.
The
first phase will call on local police to show greater presence at crossings and
issue citations to drivers who violate rules. And the NTSB said this week that
it would hold a forum in Washington, D.C. later this month on the dangers of
rail trespassing.
In Wisconsin, the state railroad commissioner's recent case
records show that communities are struggling to mesh daily living with new rail
traffic patterns.
For example, the city of Madison recently won preliminary
approval to build a sidewalk across the Wisconsin & Southern
Railroad tracks to ease pedestrian crossings for residents of 256 new housing
units built on both sides of the tracks.
The railroad, noting a
"long-term, ongoing trespassing problem," with people crossing the
tracks near a shopping center a half-mile west, had asked a hearing examiner to
require Madison to add a fence to its plans. The hearing officer declined to
force the city to bear the additional cost; Madison hopes pedestrians will
safely use the new sidewalk at the crossing.
Links:
Marianne
Lavelle is a staff writer for The Daily Climate. Follow her on Twitter @mlavelles.
Photo
of oil train by Peter Prehn/Flickr. Photo of oil sand mine by Lukas
Keapproth/The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and
WisconsinWatch. Thanks to WCIJ for photo permissions. Read
WisconsinWatch coverage of the Wisconsin sand rush.
The
Daily Climate is an independent, foundation-funded news service covering
energy, the environment and climate change. Find us on Twitter@TheDailyClimate or
email editor Brian Bienkowski at bbienkowski [at] EHN.org.
