WASHINGTON — The Department of Transportation late on Dec. 4 made it official, and rescinded a rule that tank trains carrying flammable commodities must be equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes.
The decision seemed inevitable after the Federal Railroad and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety administrations reported in mid-October that the added safety benefits of equipping tank cars with the high-tech brakes did not justify the added costs. A principal reason was the significant decline in the volume of crude and ethanol being transported by rail between 2014, when the rule was proposed, and 2016.
In addition, a year-long study by the Transportation Research Board said that a comparison between the effectiveness of electronic and conventional pneumatic brakes was “inconclusive.”
The transportation department’s decision brought a swift response from the Senate Commerce Committee. The committee called for a Government Accountability Office study of the braking system in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act in 2015. The GAO found flaws in the FRA’s methodology, which led to the TRB study.
“Repealing this rule puts sound science and careful study … over flawed guesswork the department used in 2015,” U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said in a written statement.
“While new technologies offer potential improvement to railroad safety, regulators have a responsibility to fairly evaluate effectiveness and avoid arbitrarily mandating new requirements,” Thune says. “I applaud the department’s new leadership for reacting appropriately to the findings of independent experts and fixing a mistake.”
When you look at it in the context of one commodity that is currently in decline, volume-wise, then sure, this makes sense.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what total amount of property damage in the wider picture can be avoided by having trains stop quicker or to have the technology to remove the fear that goes along with plugging the train. How many derailments avoided by stopping before hitting that fallen boulder on the tracks? How many high-centered semi collisions could be avoided? How many $$$$$ worth of BMW’s are saved when only 11 racks derail instead of 19?
I wouldn’t mind seeing 10 or so tank car sets equipped as a long term statistics-building test. Maybe strike a deal with Citirail to equip some of their Gevos with the necessary equipment and keep these engines with these test trainsets.
If we are going to keep moving railcar and loco production to low cost states or to Mexico, then there really isn’t a reason that some of those labor savings can’t be plowed back into the product in the form of technology add-ons and ultimately require all new railcars come with this technology whether it is immediately used or not. Then the “cost of retrofit” argument dies over time. If we can outsource manufacturing to fund the welfare elites who sit on their asses, then lets make better use of some of those labor savings.
Along with a firm application of common sense!
A rare commodity in government: candid presentation of facts and the truth.