Now the Federal Railroad Administration has released their initial findings, see Preliminary Findings Report: Mosier, Oregon; Union Pacific Derailment.
In a nutshell, it was the tracks that were to blame. The speed of the train was certainly not a factor since it was traveling at 25 mph. The culprit appears to be the track itself and the fasteners that keep the tracks from spreading, and, thus causing the accident.
There has been an inordinate amount of focus on the the construction of the tanker cars themselves and making them safer if there is an accident. It was one of the things we highlighted when in April we (Center for Regional Disaster Resilience) held the Oil Train Safety Symposium in Lakewood, Wash. The status of train tracks and their inspection was also a topic that was covered.
Certainly, moving forward the focus needs to be more on the viability of our railroad tracks that are maintained in total by the railroad companies. Mechanical failure can come from many different aspects of the operating system, but a basic tenet of safe operations is having a well maintained track system.
Yes, railroads are critical infrastructure on many different levels.
Currently, there are calls to ban all oil tankers from the rails. I'm OK with the idea, if people are willing to accept $5 a gallon gasoline, shortages of gas or give up driving their personal gasoline-powered cars. You can't have one without the other!
