The Railroad Thread.

[AndrewM]

Gotta love how oil leaks are always in litres in the news. 4800L. Next they will be writing 4,800,000mL!
For the hundreds of thousands if not millions of km’s of pipelines they are much safer with less spills compared to rail. Don’t try and convince yourself otherwise. Pipelines are more efficienct and they are safer. Rail is not better than pipelines to ship oil.

[AndrewM]

Originally Posted by pyke88

Our company relies on rail transport entirely within Alberta. Derailments result in losing 1-2% of fleet every year.

At 2-3million bbl’s of oil per day that would make a heck of a lot of spills using that 1-2% number!

[MountainTi]

Originally Posted by ice

I beg to differ....
2017: On February 17, a total of 200,000 liters of oil condensate in Strathcona County, Alberta were released from line 2A, near Anthony Henday Drive and 92 Avenue,after line was struck during 3rd party construction operations.

2018: On May 27, a Trans Mountain pipeline leaked at the company’s Darfield station north of Kamloops, British Columbia. About 4,800 liters of crude were released.
.

Litres always make it sound like a bigger leak than it is.
48000L= 10 slip tanks (crude leak is preferable as much easier to clean up)

200000L= 200m3, or 4 super B's, or less than 2 rail cars. Although leaks suck, they happen. Spills of this nature are cleaned up pretty quick and easy if not on water

[bat119]

Pipeline leaks are detected long before any product loss reaches the surface

Pipeline operating conditions are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by personnel in control centers using a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) computer system. This electronic surveillance system gathers such data as pipeline pressures, volume and flow rates and the status of pumping equipments and valves. Whenever operating conditions change, an alarm warns the operator on duty and the condition is investigated. Both automated and manual valves are strategically placed along the pipeline system to enable the pipeline to be shutdown immediately and sections to be isolated quickly, if necessary.

https://www.kindermorgan.com/pages/e...y/default.aspx

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

Not many for the amount of miles of pipe in the ground. Building the railroad would be a heck of a lot more! Haha. Rail is great to move where you need it. Still need a loading and unloading terminal though. A lot of boom and bust when it comes to oil shipped by rail. Without pipelines rail is the best bet then probably trucking. Neither are the most efficiency but will work in a bind.

Let’s have a look at Canadian Pacific.
Of the 17,000 Chinese worker’s that came to build the railroad. 600 was the fatality count.
I know even 1 is too many but in the grand scheme of thing’s no.
This is based on USA pipelines but Canada follow’s.

Since 1986, pipeline accidents have killed more than 500 people, injured over 4,000, and cost nearly seven billion dollars in property damages. Using government data, ProPublica has mapped thousands of these incidents in a new interactive news application, which provides detailed information about the cause and costs of reported incidents going back nearly three decades.

[ice]

Originally Posted by bat119

Pipeline leaks are detected long before any product loss reaches the surface

Pipeline operating conditions are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by personnel in control centers using a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) computer system. This electronic surveillance system gathers such data as pipeline pressures, volume and flow rates and the status of pumping equipments and valves. Whenever operating conditions change, an alarm warns the operator on duty and the condition is investigated. Both automated and manual valves are strategically placed along the pipeline system to enable the pipeline to be shutdown immediately and sections to be isolated quickly, if necessary.

https://www.kindermorgan.com/pages/e...y/default.aspx

Yup
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.thes...eer_river.html

[AndrewM]

Originally Posted by ice

Let’s have a look at Canadian Pacific.
Of the 17,000 Chinese worker’s that came to build the railroad. 600 was the fatality count.
I know even 1 is too many but in the grand scheme of thing’s no.
This is based on USA pipelines but Canada follow’s.

Since 1986, pipeline accidents have killed more than 500 people, injured over 4,000, and cost nearly seven billion dollars in property damages. Using government data, ProPublica has mapped thousands of these incidents in a new interactive news application, which provides detailed information about the cause and costs of reported incidents going back nearly three decades.

So if you take the deaths per km of pipe vs death per km of railroad it wouldn’t even be close
Also you cannot ship oil with H2S in it on rail so need to exclude any injuries or damage due to H2S. Rail isn’t close to pipe in safety or near as energy efficient. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

[AndrewM]

There have been no fatal accidents on a federally regulated pipeline system directly resulting from the operation of a pipeline since the inception of the TSB in 1990.

In 74 of 127 occurrences (58%), product was released. Of those, the product type most often released was hydrocarbon gas at 37% of all occurrences (Table 5). Only 3% of occurrences (5% of occurrences with release) involved a release of crude oil. A breakdown of the percentages of occurrences with and without product released is provided in Figure 3.

So at 2 per 1000km for occurances and 3% of those were crude leaks. That’s .06 oil spills per 1000km or 6 per 100,000km of pipe.

http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/stats/p...-sspo-2017.asp

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

So if you take the deaths per km of pipe vs death per km of railroad it wouldn’t even be close
Also you cannot ship oil with H2S in it on rail so need to exclude any injuries or damage due to H2S. Rail isn’t close to pipe in safety or near as energy efficient. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

Avgas often has H2s in it and is transported by rail.
I know this for a fact because I was repairingg some track’s in the loading rack’s in a refinery, we were required to have SCBA on location aswell as constant gas detection.
The people that were loading the car’s had full positive air protection while they were loading.
Bunker fuel also often has H2S In it.

[AndrewM]

Another article. A bit oil but lots of relevant facts. Oil spills are more common for pipelines but the spills are much smaller.
https://globalnews.ca/news/1069624/h...-be-surprised/

[AndrewM]

Originally Posted by ice

Avgas often has H2s in it and is transported by rail.
I know this for a fact because I was repairingg some track’s in the loading rack’s in a refinery, we were required to have SCBA on location aswell as constant gas detection.
The people that were loading the car’s had full positive air protection while they were loading.
Bunker fuel also often has H2S In it.

I am not talking refined products. Talking about crude oil in the current rail yards. I know the crude we ship cannot have H2S in it and it needs to be scavenged at both rail yards in Unity and Lashburn.

[AndrewM]

Did you notice in the article that it costs twice as much to ship oil by rail vs oil by pipeline?

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

There have been no fatal accidents on a federally regulated pipeline system directly resulting from the operation of a pipeline since the inception of the TSB in 1990.

In 74 of 127 occurrences (58%), product was released. Of those, the product type most often released was hydrocarbon gas at 37% of all occurrences (Table 5). Only 3% of occurrences (5% of occurrences with release) involved a release of crude oil. A breakdown of the percentages of occurrences with and without product released is provided in Figure 3.

So at 2 per 1000km for occurances and 3% of those were crude leaks. That’s .06 oil spills per 1000km or 6 per 100,000km of pipe.

http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/stats/p...-sspo-2017.asp

What system do you feel suffer’s more wear and tear?
Obviously the railroad.
10 years ago you would have oil train after oil train going over the same section of track’s. These day’s an oil train follow’s a track inspector who must deem the track safe to the RTC before the oil train even start’s its journey.
Not all fatalities on the railroad are oil train related.
CPR’s recent tripple fatality was a runaway Grain train.

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

Did you notice in the article that it costs twice as much to ship oil by rail vs oil by pipeline?

What dose cost matter? If people weren’t making money crude wouldn’t be on the rail.

[AndrewM]

Originally Posted by ice

What system do you feel suffer’s more wear and tear?
Obviously the railroad.
10 years ago you would have oil train after oil train going over the same section of track’s. These day’s an oil train follow’s a track inspector who must deem the track safe to the RTC before the oil train even start’s its journey.
Not all fatalities on the railroad are oil train related.
CPR’s recent tripple fatality was a runaway Grain train.

Tracks definitely suffer more wear and tear. Some oil lines are over 50 years old.
I understand that not all fatalities on rail are oil related. Rail can not handle all the oil we are shipping via pipeline. We would need to install new rail lines if not multiples. Will be a struggle to get the grain sold for farmers as it is. Rail is a secondary asset and that’s it. It will never replace pipelines.

[AndrewM]

Originally Posted by ice

What dose cost matter? If people weren’t making money crude wouldn’t be on the rail.

Obviously you don’t manage a company finances if cost doesn’t matter. Assume WCS is $50 per barrel. Average op cost we will assume cheap at $15/bbl. works out to $35 per barrel assuming zero royalties paid. Now if it’s $7/bbl on pipe and $14/bbl on rail you would get $28/bbl for pipe and $21/bbl for rail.
Most companies op costs are $20 per bbl or higher plus $5/bbl for royalties. WCS has been closer to $30 many times in the past few years. That $7/bbl might be the difference in a property or company being economic or not.
Alberta makes around 3,000,000bbl’s per day. At a $7 loss that is $21,000,000 per day.

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

Tracks definitely suffer more wear and tear. Some oil lines are over 50 years old.
I understand that not all fatalities on rail are oil related. Rail can not handle all the oil we are shipping via pipeline. We would need to install new rail lines if not multiples. Will be a struggle to get the grain sold for farmers as it is. Rail is a secondary asset and that’s it. It will never replace pipelines.

As i said before. I’m not contesting the fact that pipelines are more viable and efficient. I agree. They most definatly are....
All I’m getting at is that people seem to have this opinion that the rail is more Dangerous which is absolutely not true.
Talking from first hand experience, the steel is fine. It can handle the traffic. I’ve been working alongside CN Aswell as CP for the past 10 years.
From my experience they do a very good job of maintaining their tracks.
Derailment’s are funny sometimes in that everything can be up to speck but you get 1 bad car and half the train piles up. Oil tankers are obviously inspected much more closely than other freight. But that goes the same with pipe. Most of the pipe in Alberta is 50+ years old. And unfortunately the pipe usually tends to give out near bodies of water, which is much more catastrophic than an oil train piling up in the countryside somewhere.
Also I’m sure you know this but I’ll say it anyway...
Not all derailment’s result in spill’s. It’s actually quite rare. Most of the time the car’s remain structurally sound and can be re railed with the help of a locomotive.

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

Obviously you don’t manage a company finances if cost doesn’t matter. Assume WCS is $50 per barrel. Average op cost we will assume cheap at $15/bbl. works out to $35 per barrel assuming zero royalties paid. Now if it’s $7/bbl on pipe and $14/bbl on rail you would get $28/bbl for pipe and $21/bbl for rail.
Most companies op costs are $20 per bbl or higher plus $5/bbl for royalties. WCS has been closer to $30 many times in the past few years. That $7/bbl might be the difference in a property or company being economic or not.
Alberta makes around 3,000,000bbl’s per day. At a $7 loss that is $21,000,000 per day.

I meant for the sake of the conversation. Obviously cost matter’s to whom it may concern.
But for the sake of this conversation it has nothing to do with it

[AndrewM]

I don’t think anyone said rail isn’t safe. It’s like everything out there. There are risks but there are protocols in place to mitigate the risks.

[tbiddy]

Pipelines don’t wake me up when they drive through town 9x a night laying on their horn at a controlled intersection for what seems like 20mins at a time. A few months ago it only seemed like they woke me 4x a night. Definitely way more train traffic thru town now.

Build a pipeline and let a man get some sleep!! Haha

[ice]

Originally Posted by tbiddy

Pipelines don’t wake me up when they drive through town 9x a night laying on their horn at a controlled intersection for what seems like 20mins at a time. A few months ago it only seemed like they woke me 4x a night. Definitely way more train traffic thru town now.

Build a pipeline and let a man get some sleep!! Haha

There’s a whole god damn province and you move next to the tracks
For Shame!

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

I don’t think anyone said rail isn’t safe. It’s like everything out there. There are risks but there are protocols in place to mitigate the risks.

Read older rail thread’s. Most people’s opinions.

[tbiddy]

Originally Posted by ice

There’s a whole god damn province and you move next to the tracks
For Shame!

Not next to the tracks but a few blocks away. Don’t know how the houses right beside it stand it.

Why does train #1 give a couple short blasts and train #2 starts on the horn a mile down the track, blasts all through town and lets up about a mile outside of town? I’m assuming driver #2 is just a dick!

[ice]

Originally Posted by tbiddy

Not next to the tracks but a few blocks away. Don’t know how the houses right beside it stand it.

Why does train #1 give a couple short blasts and train #2 starts on the horn a mile down the track, blasts all through town and lets up about a mile outside of town? I’m assuming driver #2 is just a dick!

That’s a good question. I’m not 100% on this but from my understanding is that there should be 4 blast’s, 2 long, 1 short, 1 long. Some town’s/city’s have restrictions on train horn’s where they are not aloud to blow it.

[ice]

Originally Posted by sk270

I'm not trying to hijack the thread because this might be related to safety. I am old enough to remember the debate when the railroads quit running cabooses. In the last week or so, I have seen two trains with bright orange "box cars" at the end. Was this a coincidence or the start of a trend?

Thanks.

Was it a ballast train?

[ice]

Originally Posted by AndrewM

So if you take the deaths per km of pipe vs death per km of railroad it wouldn’t even be close
Also you cannot ship oil with H2S in it on rail so need to exclude any injuries or damage due to H2S. Rail isn’t close to pipe in safety or near as energy efficient. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.

You also need to take into account that it requires more men and more equipment to put in a railroad as apposed to a pipeline.

[ice]

Originally Posted by tbiddy

Not next to the tracks but a few blocks away. Don’t know how the houses right beside it stand it.

Why does train #1 give a couple short blasts and train #2 starts on the horn a mile down the track, blasts all through town and lets up about a mile outside of town? I’m assuming driver #2 is just a dick!

Are you close enough the train shakes your house? Can you feel it?

[tbiddy]

Originally Posted by ice

Are you close enough the train shakes your house? Can you feel it?

No not that close

[Silvercreek]

Originally Posted by ice

Avgas often has H2s in it and is transported by rail.
I know this for a fact because I was repairingg some track’s in the loading rack’s in a refinery, we were required to have SCBA on location aswell as constant gas detection.
The people that were loading the car’s had full positive air protection while they were loading.
Bunker fuel also often has H2S In it.

Sorry, Avgas does not have H2S in it, that is the most ridiculous statement out of all so far.

[58thecat]

Originally Posted by ice

I’m not saying pipelines aren’t a more viable option of shipping oil. Because pipelines are without a doubt more efficient.
The way I look at it is that pipelines and oil train’s go hand in hand.
Pipelines transfer oil to places where it can be refined and then distributed (often internationally back to Canadians)
A pipeline transfer’s oil to a single destination. Where say the railroad can distribute oil into part’s of the world where it’s really needed at that point in time.
If you have a solid look at the stats of ruptured pipelines vs spilled oil from derailment’s.
You’ll find that they are remarkably similar.

Ice.....all modes of oil transfer has its pro's and con's.......nothing is perfect but are limited in many situations to mode of transfer.