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Advisory on handling of defective wheels after fiery BNSF oil-train derailment in Illinois last month

By Russell Gold and Betsy Morris
Russell.Gold@wsj.com
betsy.morris@wsj.com
Updated April 17, 2015 6:25 p.m. ET

U.S. regulators are urging railroads to make dramatic operating changes, including how they deal with wheel defects, saying a wheel problem may have caused the fiery oil-train derailment in Illinois last month.

Despite multiple warning signs, a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota to Philadelphia continued to travel on a potentially faulty wheel, according to a preliminary federal investigation. ... Twenty-one cars of a BNSF Railway Co. oil train derailed near Galena, Ill., 160 miles west of Chicago. Several cars ruptured during the accident and the oil inside caught fire, generating large explosions.

On Friday, the Federal Railroad Administration issued a safety advisory pointing to a broken wheel and telling railroads to act more aggressively to fix similar defects found on other trains.

According to investigators, a trackside device flagged the oil train’s defective wheel about 130 miles before the derailment. A month before the accident, other similar devices registered a reading on this railcar’s wheel at a level that indicated there was a flat spot that made it “condemnable,” according to the safety advisory. ... Despite the reading, BNSF didn’t break any industry or federal rule. Industry guidelines suggest that the wheel be replaced the next time the tank car was sent for repairs.

In late March, BNSF began slowing down its trains that haul crude oil to 35 miles an hour in cities with over 100,000 residents, according to a letter sent to its customers. The railroad stepped up the frequency of track inspections to 2½ times the rate required by FRA regulators along certain waterways.

By JAD MOUAWADAPRIL 17, 2015



Oil fields in North Dakota. Recent derailments involving crude oil trains have often resulted in explosions and oil spills. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Responding to public pressure to act more quickly after a series of fiery train derailments involving oil shipments, the Transportation Department on Friday issued a series of emergency orders, including a 40-mile-an-hour speed limit for hazardous materials moving through urban areas.

The emergency rules also require railroads to provide detailed information about a shipment within 90 minutes of any derailment.

Federal regulators are under increasing pressure from members of Congress and local officials to publish new safety regulations for the growing business of transporting crude oil by train. Those new rules, in the works for more than two years, were sent to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget two months ago. They are expected to be made public by May 12.

In a statement, Anthony Foxx, the transportation secretary, said that the boom in crude oil transportation “poses a serious threat to public safety.” He said the orders reflected “lessons learned from recent accidents,” adding, “we are not done yet.”