THE DOOMSDAY 'BOMB TRAIN' THAT COULD BLOWUP WEST POINT AND POISON THE HUDSON RIVER
Photo Credit: John Durant via Railroad Picture Archives.
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Dozens of doomsday "bomb" trains loaded with explosive Bakken crude oil and other toxic chemicals pass literally beneath the American Military Academy at West Point on the Hudson River every week. Any one of them could explode, destroy the almost 250 year-old fort and poison the river, yet Congress has failed to take action to prevent a catastrophe.
Two freight train derailments in Ohio 31 days apart have focused attention on rail safety in America. The "toxic train" disaster in East Palestine was the first. There a Norfolk Southern tanker train carrying "unstable" vinyl chloride that "could potentially explode" derailed, a press release from Ohio Gov. Mark DeWine said. The railroad, Norfolk Southern, emptied the damaged tankers and burned the chemical in a trench with official approval.
It covered the adjacent town of East Palestine (pop. 4,700) in toxic fallout. So far 168 people reported health problems including "headache, anxiety, coughing, fatigue/tiredness, and irritation, pain, or burning of skin," Gov. DeWine said.
Norfolk Southern crashed a second train, also in Ohio, Saturday night, Mar. 3.
A runaway 73-car tanker train loaded with Bakken crude oil exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec killing 47 people and leveling 40 buildings in 2013. The flames were 200 feet tall. Victims had to be identified by dental records and DNA. 27 children lost parents. The Crown charged three railroad workers (but not the railroad). A jury acquitted them.
Scores of “bomb trains” composed of more than a 100 oil train tanker cars carrying explosive Bakken crude oil like these roll under the U.S. Military Academy at West Point every week, Sept. 28, 2015. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
The danger is not limited to Ohio or West Point-its across the Nation and across New York.
"Bakken crude runs through Syracuse on trains operated by CSX, mile-long trains that can carry roughly 85,000 barrels of oil," Syracuse.com reported in 2015.
CSX railroad owns the stretch of track between the North Bergen yard in Hudson County, New Jersey to Selkirk, New York. There it joins the main trunk line to the West Coast and, to the east, Boston. CSX calls its stretch of track between Ravena, New York and the north Bergen yard the "River Subdivision." That's because it runs along the edge of the Hudson River for much of its length.
The CSX West Shore Line (River Line) is one of the most intensively-used single track freight corridors in the U.S. It serves as the primary freight conduit between the South, New Jersey and New England points. The River Line connects major classification yards in New Jersey with Selkirk Yard, southwest of Albany, which handles the majority of freight entering New England,
said an Ulster County government report in 2014.
The railroad is exclusively commercial. CSX refused to publicly reveal the exact number of trains that travel this stretch of track but told Ulster County it averaged 30 to 35 trains per day. The county conducted its own investigation and concluded the real number was 24 to 40. A Rockland County citizens group reported 20 to 55.
A CSX freight train running the line crashed into a stuck tractor-trailer truck at a track-crossing in Haverstraw, New York Feb. 23. There were 10 accidents with two fatalities at that same train crossing since 1979, NBC New York reported.
Not all of these trains carry oil but many do. CSX told New York 15 to 30 trains "each carrying at least 1 million gallons of North Dakota Bakken crude oil, pass through the Hudson Valley each week," LoHud.com reported in 2014. Based on personal observation over the past decade, at least one-quarter of the trains traveling south are tanker-trains likely carrying Bakken crude.
The trains are headed to the Phillips 66 Bayway refinery in New Jersey. A five-year contract Phillips 66 signed with Global Partners LP called for "Phillips 66 to transport 91 million bbl of crude oil," Oil & Gas Journal reported in 2013.
The bomb trains under West Point are part of a nation-wide trend.
"North American crude oil producers are increasingly turning to rail as a means of transporting crude supplies to U.S. markets," a Congressional Research Report found in 2014. Its "primarily due to the growth of heavy crude production in the Canadian oil sands and the recent expansion of shale oil production in North Dakota, Montana, and Texas."
The Federal government has long held primary regulatory authority over American railroads. A coalition of six State Attorneys General urged President Donald Trump to use his regulatory authority to "to immediately close a loophole that allows highly flammable, highly explosive crude oil to be shipped by rail through communities in New York and across the country," a news release by the group said in 2017.
"These so-called 'bomb trains' are responsible for several catastrophic rail accidents in recent years, including the 2013 explosion in Quebec that killed 47 people; in New York alone, these trains cover roughly 700 miles of the state," the Attorney Generals wrote.
Here's video of a CSX freight train exiting the southern entrance of the single-lane tunnel directly beneath the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Photo Credit: via YouTube.
The sprawling college campus above the CSX railroad tunnel belongs to the college for U.S. Army officers. Graduates earn four-year degrees and a commission as second lieutenant.
It's also the oldest continually occupied military outpost in America. It, essentially, won the War for Independence by stopping the British from seizing the Hudson Valley and slitting the rebel colonies in two. The British tried to take control of the Hudson Valley only once, in 1777. They botched it so badly an entire English army had to surrender and march in defeat from Saratoga, New York, to Boston.
Traitor Continental Army General Benedict Arnold failed spectacularly to hand West Point's blueprints over to the British-and narrowly escaped with his life.
Responding to the increase in oil train traffic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered state regulatory authorities to increase track and equipment inspections in 2014. Inspectors "uncovered 84 defects–including three critical safety defects and two hazardous materials violations that required immediate corrective action," an Apr. 22, 2015 news release said. Gov. Cuomo called "on our federal partners to implement strong, standardized safety measures that impact all crude oil rail carriers in the United States.”
America’s 115,000-plus railroad workers threatened to strike in November over working conditions and pay. Pres. Joe. Biden and Congress pre-empted the strike by imposing an agreement for less than what the workers wanted. Workers said the Federal intervention denied them the right to strike and didn’t fix underlying railroad safety issues.
“These are not the actions of a ‘pro-labor’ president,” a spokesman for Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations said. “By pre-cancelling the strike, the federal government effectively sides with the employers and wealthy shareholders at the expense of the workers. “
The Feb. 3 toxic freight train disaster in East Palestine led Ohio's Republican and Democratic Senators to propose the bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2023. The act mandates stricter rules for hazardous rail traffic including lower speed limits, newer, better functioning equipment, emergency response plans and advance notification to local authorities of hazardous rail traffic.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill mandating most freight trains traveling through the Empire State have at least two workers Dec. 9, 2022, New York Focus reported. The bill passed the State Senate and Assembly but the railroads fiercely opposed it and convinced Hochul to do their bidding.
The Free Lance asked CSX, West Point officials, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Gov. Hochul for comment. None bothered to respond.
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