After three trains derailed in just more than two weeks in Grays Harbor County, and another slipped off the rails north of Centralia late Wednesday, more and more questions are being asked about safety procedures on the Puget Sound &Pacific railroad.
The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating the Grays Harbor incidents, along with Genesee &Wyoming, PSAP’s parent company.
Railroad Administration Public Affairs Specialist Mike England said he can’t comment on ongoing investigations and declined to give an estimate on how long the investigations might take.
“That’s hard to say, the length of investigations varies widely depending on the severity, complexity, etc.,” he said. “They take an average of six months, but I don’t think this one will take that long.”
“Safety is our number one priority,” England said. “The occurrence of three incidents on the same rail line operated by the same carrier merits an investigation. Our investigation will identify the root causes of the accidents and we will take all appropriate enforcement actions. In addition, we will conduct a thorough examination of the track owned by Puget Sound &Pacific Railroad in the Montesano area to ensure the track integrity is sound and to determine if further compliance or enforcement actions are warranted.”
G&W Senior Vice President of Engineering Scott Linn and Director of Corporate Communications Michael Williams talked with The Daily World this week about track inspection procedures.
The frequency of inspections required by federal law are based more on speed than the commodity being shipped, Linn explained.
“What drives the frequency of tests is the tonnage, how many cars go over the track, and the speed that they run,” he said. “Really what drives the inspection frequency by the track inspection, is the speed, that’s the big driver.”
“The maximum speed on the PSAP is 25 mph, so they’re required to inspect it once a week,” he continued, with a minimum three-day interval between inspections.
Linn said PSAP employs two inspectors, who are supervised by a road master.
“You have to physically traverse the entire line, and usually it’s an individual, and he has to have certain qualifications to be able to inspect track. He goes in a high rail vehicle, like a pick-up truck,” traveling from 5 to 10 mph.
“He has a whole set of FRA requirements that deal with the distance between the rails — that’s called gauge,” Linn continued. “There’s certain tolerances that are allowed from a design perspective for gauge” as well as alignment, whether one rail is lower than the other.
“If the standard is beyond what is allowed for 25 mph he either has to reduce the speed to where he is in compliance, or he has to fix the track to where he is in compliance, or he has to close the track,” Linn said. “He has no choice, he has to do that. He doesn’t have to ask anybody.”
Tracks are also inspected with geometry cars, which simulate the weight of a laden car and take measurements of the same thing an inspector would. Inspectors watch the results in real time.
“Almost like a heartbeat chart,” Linn said. “As it goes down the track, it’s got little lines that show where you’re in compliance and not in compliance. If they come across something that’s alarming or way out of standard, they’ll stop and look at it.”
At least once per year, the railroad conducts two different tests designed to detect flaws inside the rails themselves: ultrasonic and induction testing.
“There can be defects inside the rail that you can’t see that, over time, can cause the rail to stress and break,” Williams said.
“The ultrasonic shoots sound waves into the rail at three different angles, and each angle looks for a specific type of defect,” Linn said. “It will go down to the bottom of the rail and it will bounce back clean if there’s nothing there.”
An induction test does the same thing with a magnetic field. If those tests reveal irregularities, inspectors head out with handheld equipment and locate the defect. The rail defect tests are conducted by a third-party company.
Crude oil
Williams said Genesee &Wyoming also has other requirements for unit trains — those longer than 60 cars — which carry crude oil, including doubling the weekly inspections.
“In addition to the twice-a-week inspections, we also inspect in advance of each crude oil train,” Williams said. “Depending on the volume of crude oil trains or hazardous material, we run the geometry cars up to quarterly.”
The geometry tests are run at least twice yearly, he added, along with rail defect tests up to quarterly.
The maximum speed on G&W tracks for trains carrying crude oil is 25 mph, already the top speed on PSAP tracks. Williams noted that’s “considerably slower than the speeds at which recent crude oil train derailments have occurred on other railroads.”
That’s true in cases like Lac Megantic, Quebec, where a runaway crude oil train reached speeds of about 63 mph before derailing and exploding, killing 47 people. A more recent explosive derailment in Lynchburg, Va., however, involved a crude oil train traveling at 24 mph, according to the CSX railroad.
In February, the U.S. Department of Transportation came to an agreement with rail industry leaders on some voluntary restrictions that would go into effect July 1, including adopting higher safety standards for tank cars and a top speed of 40 mph for trains laden with crude oil traveling through major cities.
Williams said G&W is committed to meeting those requirements in addition to their own internal standards.
Bridges
The condition of local rail bridges is a perennial topic of discussion at public meetings on crude-by-rail concerns. Williams said bridges are inspected annually, but the appearance of the bridge may be deceiving to laypeople.
“The cosmetic appearance of a railroad bridge has nothing to do with its suitability to carry the traffic,” he said. “So, for example, we just had a case where maybe a couple components of a wooden truss are deteriorated and people will be all concerned about it and call the TV news, and it’s a part of the bridge that has nothing to do with load-bearing structure. So no matter how many times we assure people the bridge was just inspected and it’s perfectly safe, people don’t believe it. That’s why trained engineers need to make these assessments.”
Linn said those non-load-bearing components might be portions of a walkway meant for railroad employees, or sway braces for the bridge.
“You put what they call sway braces just to shore it up and make sure it doesn’t sway back and forth,” he explained. “You probably put five times the amount of braces you actually need to shore it up. You might have one worn … it has nothing to do with the ability to hold weight of the bridge, it just kind of keeps it in the line.”
Rust on the metal components of the bridges is another common concern, but Linn said a little rust can be a good thing.
“A lot of bridges are designed to rust,” he said. “You get that first layer of rust and it protects the bridge. It doesn’t allow any more rust.”
Linn recalled some century-old bridges in Rapid City, S.D., he inspected.
“They just have a nice thin coat of rust on them, but other than that they look pretty much like they were when they were put in,” he said.
Old bridges designed for steam engines may actually be sturdier than if they were replaced with a modern design, Williams added.
“Bridges that were designed for steam locomotives are actually way overbuilt for today’s rail traffic,” he said. “The steam locomotives imparted greater impact loads to the bridges, so they had to be designed for that.”
FRA role
In order to determine which tracks the Federal Railroad Administration should inspect, the agency uses a “safety allocation model.”
“It factors in a lot of things,” FRA spokesman England said. “It factors in, obviously, the amount of rail traffic, what’s being shipped, is it oil versus grain, population of a particular area. … It takes several factors into account and based on that we determine how we allocate our manpower.”
FRA inspectors will audit the inspection reports and do “spot checks” of the track, England said.
Local inspectors “have to keep those records, every week they’re doing the inspections,” Linn said. The federal inspectors review those reports at least annually.
“They’ll make sure you’re getting the milepost you’re supposed to, you’re complying with the frequency you’re supposed to do,” Linn said.
The PSAP track was last inspected by the FRA April 29, the same day as the first derailment in Aberdeen. Before that, it was inspected on Jan. 24, 23, 22, 8 and 7.
“Right now they’re transporting grain,” England said. “If they were to start transporting hazardous materials or oil, obviously that track would be subject to greater scrutiny by the FRA.”
Brionna Friedrich: 360-537-3933 or bfriedrich@thedailyworld.com and @DW_Brionna on Twitter.
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