quarta-feira, 11 de março de 2015

Acidentes ferroviários nos USA e no Canadá - de Oxnard, na California, a Gogama, no Canadá

Resumo: - Em termos de segurança, são incompatíveis a existência de passagens de nível com a exploração de comboios suburbanos ou de alta velocidade. A segurança do transporte ferroviário de matérias inflamáveis exige elevado nível de procedimentos, infraestruturas, material circulante e manutenção.

Oxnard, Califórnia - morreu o maquinista do comboio suburbano que em fevereiro de 2015 embateu num pequeno camião com reboque, parado na via. O condutor foi enganado pela deficiente topografia do local e, numa passagem de nível muito próxima de um entroncamento de estradas, virou para a via férrea.
Mais uma vez se verifica a inconformidade da existencia de passagens de nível em vias férreas de serviço suburbano. O acidente poderia ter tido consequencias piores se as carruagens não tivessem sido construidas com zonas de deformação. No entanto, mantem-se o mau hábito nos USA de formar comboios em que a locomotiva, colovada na traseira,  empurra as carruagens, em vez de as puxar.

notar a precariedade da passagem de nível; o acidente ocorreu cerca das 6 horas da manhã


Cópia de um artigo referindo a perigosidade desta passagem de nível:

Metrolink Train Headed to Los Angeles Crashes Into Truck, Injuring Dozens
By NOAH SMITH and JACK HEALYFEB. 24, 2015

The wreck of a Metrolink passenger train that derailed Tuesday in Oxnard, Calif. Three cars tumbled onto their sides, interrupting train service for thousands of passengers. CreditMark J. Terrill/Associated Press

OXNARD, Calif. — Rail cars skidded onto their sides, a fireball lit up the dark, and nearly 30 people were injured early Tuesday when a commuter train slammed into a truck that had turned onto the railroad tracks and gotten stuck here about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
The 5:45 a.m. crash interrupted train service for thousands of passengers and transformed a morning commute to Los Angeles into a scene of chaos at a hazardous rail crossing along strawberry fields and low-slung office parks and industrial supply businesses. The intersection was the scene of a fatal collision between an Amtrak passenger train and a car seven months ago.
In the accident on Tuesday, Metrolink passengers were launched from their seats as the train struck the truck and several cars derailed. Twenty-eight people were taken to hospitals, with broken bones and head, neck and back injuries, the authorities said. Four people were critically injured, including the train’s engineer, whom the authorities credited with quickly pulling the emergency brake and slowing the train after he spotted the truck sitting on the tracks.
When rescue crews arrived minutes later, they found three of the Metrolink cars on their sides and the truck engulfed in flames.
At an afternoon news conference, officials said they did not know why the truck’s driver, a 54-year-old man from Arizona, had steered onto the tracks. Jason Benites, Oxnard’s assistant police chief, said an officer had found the driver about a mile and a half away, apparently disoriented and unsettled. He was taken to a hospital for observation and was said to be cooperating with the authorities.
The police later said the driver had been arrested on a felony hit-and-run charge.
The crash occurred at one of the potentiallydangerous crossings in California, according to an accident prediction value generated by the Federal Railroad Administration. Of the 5,858 public crossings in the state, the crossing here at Rice Avenue and Fifth Street — an intersection often filled with produce trucks and agricultural equipment — has the eighth-highest accident prediction value. Only 52 public crossings in the nation are listed with a higher accident prediction value.
The metric takes into account certain physical characteristics of crossings and recent accidents, though it is not a perfect measurement of danger. It does not account for other factors, like topography and traffic congestion.
There have been 13 crashes involving trains and pedestrians or vehicles at this crossing since 1976, according to Federal Railroad Administration records. In June 2014, two people in an Infiniti G35 were killed at the crossing when they failed to stop at the lowered crossing arms and were struck by an Amtrak train moving at 65 miles per hour. None of the train’s passengers were hurt in that accident.
Patricia Villafana, whose son Joel Arias was driving the car in the fatal 2014 crash, said she is haunted now when she is stopped at the crossing and watches trains rushing past. “It’s very difficult,” she said. “Every time I drive by there, the accident comes to my mind.”
Despite the statistics, Oxnard residents said Tuesday that they believed the intersection was no more dangerous than any other surface crossings where drivers must cross train tracks. Jerry Gomez said a friend’s car had recently been clipped by a train and the friend hurt while crossing the tracks at a different intersection.
“I notice that people here do try to beat the train more than other places,” said Dan Fuller, a resident of the neighboring town of Camarillo who works in the nearby office park. “Don’t know why, but I’ve definitely seen people do it a lot.”
As the sun rose Tuesday, medics were still treating passengers on color-coded red and yellow tarps along the road. Firefighters doused the smoldering hulk of the truck.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was dispatching a team to conduct an investigation.
In addition to a fast response by the train’s crew, the authorities credited new safety technology on the trains for helping to mitigate the accident’s toll. Keith Millhouse, a member of the Metrolink board of directors, said new passenger cars — which have “crush zones” on their ends — appeared to have performed well in absorbing the impact of the collision.
“Without these safety features, I can speculate that the incident would have been far more significant,” Mr. Millhouse said.

Noah Smith reported from Oxnard, and Jack Healy from Los Angeles. Russ Buettner contributed reporting from New York.

4 acidentes com descarrilamento de vagões-tanque com petróleo crude originário de camadas de xisto ou de areias betuminosas, em transito para refinarias -  As suas características de inflamabilidade são mais graves do que no petróleo normal (presença de gás butano). Alguns dos vagões obedecem a normas mais rígidas do que as dos vagões do acidente de Lac Megantic (em que morreram 42 pessoas na povoação atingida), o que sugere que o transporte deste crude deveria ser feito por pipelines, encarecendo o produto final, obviamente. Pode então afirmar-se, salvo melhor opinião, que o preço do petróleo é artificialmente mantido baixo, pelo que não nos devemos admirar, comparativamente, que o preço do kWh com  origem nas eólicas seja tão elevado (o que não invalida o objetivo de cortar nas "rendas" dos seus promotores, obviamente). Estes comboios tinham cerca de 100 vagões cada (comprimento talvez excessivo), descarrilando cerca de 20 em cada caso, caindo alguns em cursos de água. 
É necessário rever as normas de segurança nesta área de transportes-energia.
14 de fevereiro, Gogama, North Ontario, Canadá descarrilamento e incendio de petróleo crude

16 de fevereiro de 2015, Mount Carbon, West Virginia, USA, descarrilamento e incendio de crude
5 de março de 2015, Galena, Illinois, USA, descarrilamento e incendio de crude


7 de março de 2015, Gogama, a cerca de 23 km de distancia do acidente de 14 de fevereiro; descarrilamento e incendio de crude; danos graves numa ponte ferroviária


Cópia de um artigo sobre a precariedade do transporte de crude com origem nas camadas de xisto ou das areias betuminosas (notar que, sem prejuízo de melhorar as condições de segurança dos vagões-tanque, a tónica deveria estar na melhoria das condições de segurança da circulação ferroviária e na transferencia do transporte para os pipeline (de vida útil curta, dado o previsivel esgoamento das reservas petroliferas):


For Immediate Release, March 7, 2015
Contact: Mollie Matteson (802) 318-1487, mmatteson@biologicaldiversity.org
Another Oil Train Derails and Catches Fire in Ontario
Fourth Oil Train Accident in Three Weeks Shows Need for Immediate Moratorium
GOGAMA, Ont.— An oil train derailed and caught fire early this morning in Ontario near the town of Gogama, the second such incident in Ontario in three weeks, and the fourth oil train wreck in North America in the same time period. Since Feb. 14, there have also been fiery oil train derailments in West Virginia and Illinois. The Illinois wreck occurred just two days ago, and the fire from that incident is still burning.
“Before one more derailment, fire, oil spill and one more life lost, we need a moratorium on oil trains and we need it now” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The oil and railroad industries are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives and our environment, and the Obama administration needs to put a stop to it.”
In the United States, some 25 million people live within the one-mile “evacuation zone” of tracks carrying oil trains. In July 2013, a fiery oil train derailment in Quebec resulted in the loss of 47 lives and more than a million gallons of oil spilled into a nearby lake. A report recently released by the Center for Biological Diversity also found that oil trains threaten vital wildlife habitat; oil trains pass through 34 wildlife refuges and critical habitat for 57 endangered species.
Today’s Ontario accident joins an ever-growing list of devastating oil train derailments over the past two years. Oil transport has increased from virtually nothing in 2008 to more than 500,000 rail cars. Billions of gallons of oil pass through towns and cities ill-equipped to respond to the kinds of explosions and spills that have been occurring. Millions of gallons of crude oil have been spilled into waterways. In 2014, a record number of spills from oil trains occurred.
There has been a more than 40-fold increase in crude oil transport by rail since 2008, but no significant upgrade in federal safety requirements. The oil and rail industries have lobbied strongly against new safety regulations that would help lessen the danger of mile-long trains carrying highly flammable crude oils to refineries and ports around the continent. The Obama administration recently delayed for several months the approval of proposed safety rules for oil trains. The proposed rules fall short because they fail to require appropriate speed limitations, and it will be at least another two and a half years before the most dangerous tank cars are phased out of use for the most hazardous cargos. The oil and railroad industries have lobbied for weaker rules on tank car safety and brake requirements.
The administration also declined to set national regulations on the level of volatile gases in crude oil transported by rail, instead deciding to leave that regulation to the state of North Dakota, where most of the so-called “Bakken” crude originates. Bakken crude oil has been shown to have extremely high levels of volatile components such as propane and butane but the oil industry has balked at stripping out these components because the process is expensive and these “light ends” in the oil bring a greater profit. The North Dakota rules, which go into effect next month, set the level of volatile gases allowed in Bakken crude at a higher level than was found in the crude that set the town of Lac Mégantic, Quebec on fire in 2013, or that blew up in the derailment that occurred last month in West Virginia.
The crude involved in today’s accident may be another form of flammable crude, called diluted bitumen, originating in Alberta’s tar sands region. The Feb. 14 derailment and fire in Ontario on the same rail line involved an oil train hauling bitumen, otherwise known as tar sands.
“Today we have another oil train wreck in Canada, while the derailed oil train in Illinois is still smoldering. Where’s it going to happen next? Chicago? Seattle?” said Matteson. “The Obama administration has the power to put an end to this madness and it needs to act now because quite literally, people’s lives are on the line.”
In addition to its report on oil trains, the Center has sued for updated oil spill response plans, petitioned for oil trains that include far fewer tank cars and for comprehensive oil spill response plans for railroads as well as other important federal reforms, and is also pushing to stop the expansion of projects that will facilitate further increases in crude by rail.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 825,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
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