One hundred and fifteen years later, in an opinion piece on rail safety for CNN, rail expert Fred Failey essentially said the same thing, opening his piece with the statement, “The rules by which trains operate on American railroads were written in blood.”

When it comes to the rules regarding oil trains in America, many regulations that would improve safety have yet to be written. One reason is that, despite the multiple oil train crashes resulting in massive explosions in the past several years, there have been no fatalities in America.

Although 47 people did die in the Lac-Megantic oil train crash just north of the Maine border in Canada, that apparently isn’t enough to change the tradition of the rail industry fighting any regulations that might improve public safety.
The Oil-By-Rail Industry Doesn’t Want to Be Regulated

An investigation by the Federal Railroad Administration(FRA) into the Mount Carbon oil train derailment concluded that the cause of the accident was a broken rail. At that time, Sarah Feinberg, the FRA’s acting administrator, noted that, “Broken rail is one of the leading causes of accidents.”

So what are the regulations regarding rails becoming worn and increasing the risk of derailments? There are none.

As the Associated Press (AP) reported in December, efforts to improve safety via rail wear regulations were stopped by the rail industry in 2013 in favor of “voluntary” safety measures.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…