In June of 2014, a representative of oil-by-rail giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) attended a meeting with regulators where the American Association of Railroads (AAR) lobbied against any speed limits for oil trains. One of the slides from that presentation – titled “Far Reaching Economic Impacts” (image below) — predicted dire consequences to the American economy if speed limits were put in place.
There was no mention of the safety benefits of such a speed limit in the presentation.
And now BNSF is back at it, informing regulators that if a congressionally mandated requirement from 2008 that requires all railroads to implement positive train control (PTC) by the end of 2015 isn’t extended, they may just shut down BNSF.
No trains will run. Because BNSF apparently is so concerned about safety that the company would rather not operate if it can’t do it in the safest manner possible.
Aside from those speed limits it is against. And the modern braking systems it opposes. And its efforts to move to a single person crew for oil trains.
The rail industry is great at publicity stunts. Earlier this year, Hunter Harrison, CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) also threatened to get out of the oil-by-rail business citing safety risks to “the public.” Meanwhile, as noted on DeSmog, two days after that threat, CP’s vice president of safety was in D.C. lobbying against modern braking systems for oil trains.
And BNSF has pulled off some good public relations stunts in its efforts to shape the narrative on oil-by-rail safety. In early 2014, after a string of oil-by-rail accidents, BNSF announced that it would not wait for regulators and would be investing in 5,000 new rail tank cars that exceeded all existing safety requirements.
As documented by DeSmog, these cars never existed anywhere other than on a press release.
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