Safer tank cars used on train that derailed in Illinois

GALENA, Ill. (AP) – Railroad company officials say a fiery oil train derailment in western Illinois involved tank cars that already meet a higher safety standard than what federal law requires.

Six of the BNSF Railway train’s 105 cars derailed Thursday in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi. The train was carrying Bakken crude oil. Two of those cars burst into flames. No injuries have been reported.

The company says the train’s tank cars were a newer model known as the 1232. That model was designed during safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the industry four years ago. The improvements were meant to prevent cars from rupturing in the event of derailments.

But 1232 standard cars involved in three other accidents have split open in the past year, leading some to call for tougher requirements.

The derailment comes amid increased public concern about the safety of shipping crude by train. According to the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail.

Since 2008, derailments of oil trains in the U.S. and Canada have seen 70,000-gallon tank cars break open and ignite on multiple occasions, resulting in huge fires. A train carrying Bakken crude crashed in a Quebec town in 2013, killing 47 people. Last month, a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude derailed in a West Virginia snowstorm, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a river tributary and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate.

The ruptures and fires have prompted the administration of President Barack Obama to consider requiring upgrades such as thicker tanks, shields to prevent tankers from crumpling, rollover protections and electronic brakes that could make cars stop simultaneously, rather than slam into each other.