{"id":10325,"date":"2015-07-23T05:55:48","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T10:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10325"},"modified":"2015-07-23T05:55:48","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T10:55:48","slug":"senate-working-to-strip-braking-safety-requirements-from-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10325","title":{"rendered":"Senate Working to Strip Braking Safety Requirements From Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senate Working to Strip Braking Safety Requirements From Oil\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n

As documented on DeSmog, the\u00a0new oil-by-rail regulations<\/a>\u00a0contain major concessions to the oil and rail industries as the result of\u00a0relentless lobbying<\/a>during the rulemaking process. One logical safety measure that the rail industry failed to block from the new rules was a requirement for modern braking systems know as\u00a0electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP<\/span>)<\/a>\u00a0brakes.<\/p>\n

However, the rail industry has a Plan B to avoid modernizing their braking systems and so far it\u00a0is working quite\u00a0well.<\/a><\/p>\n

In late June, the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce Committee approved a measure to drop the\u00a0ECP<\/span>\u00a0braking\u00a0requirement and instead order years of new research, a delay tactic favored by Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF<\/span>)\u00a0railroad.<\/p>\n

Of course, no research is needed to review the existing air braking systems because they were invented in the 1860s, and in the past 150 years their limitations have become well\u00a0known.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Anytime you put the air on, you\u2019re subject for something to go wrong,\u201d\u00a0explained Dana Maryott<\/a>, director of locomotive and air-brake systems at the\u00a0BNSF<\/span>\u00a0Railway.<\/p>\n

In the above statement, the phrase \u201cput the air on\u201d refers to applying braking on freight\u00a0trains.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We\u2019ve had long trains where the engineer released the brake and started pulling a little bit too early, while the brakes were still set on the rear of the train,\u201d explained Maryott, \u201cAnd coming around a sharp radius, we\u2019ve literally pulled the train off the\u00a0track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maryott was explaining some of the risks of air braking systems for a\u00a02009 article<\/a>\u00a0for the engineering publication theIEEE<\/span>\u00a0Spectrum.<\/p>\n

That article explained how\u00a0ECP<\/span>\u00a0brakes were a modernized and superior braking\u00a0system.<\/p>\n

In a 2010 Progressive Railroading article about\u00a0rail braking and safety<\/a>, Larry Breeden, general manager of operating practices for Union Pacific railroad, gave his positive opinion on\u00a0ECP<\/span>\u00a0brakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effectiveness of the brakes is advanced. It gets instantaneous braking, plus I can graduate the release. It gives better train control and reduced fuel consumption. You also get better brake shoe and wheel\u00a0life.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Working to Strip Braking Safety Requirements From Oil\u00a0 As documented on DeSmog, the\u00a0new oil-by-rail regulations\u00a0contain major concessions to the oil and rail industries as the result of\u00a0relentless lobbyingduring the rulemaking process. One logical safety measure that the rail industry failed to block from the new rules was a requirement for modern braking systems know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[7490,7089,5317,7489,7491,5164,7492,3646],"class_list":["post-10325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-electronically-controlled-pneumatic-brakes","tag-bomb-trains","tag-desmog-blog","tag-electronically-controlled-pneumatic-ecp","tag-federal-railroad-administration","tag-lobbying","tag-oil-by-rail-regulations","tag-oil-trains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10326,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10325\/revisions\/10326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}