(The following story by Jeff Kart appeared on the Bay City Times website on November 23.)
BAY CITY, Mich. — Jeanine Link can hear the locomotive and tankers rumbling along the tracks behind her Monitor Township home.
Clack clack clack. Clank clank clank.
The train is headed for Dow Chemical in Midland and its cars are loaded with hazardous chemicals – some so toxic a bucketful could wipe out a neighborhood, local fire officials say.
Link and others in the area call it the “Death Train” due to its toxic cargo, and they say the tracks it rides on have fallen into disrepair in recent years, with rotted ties, missing or loose spikes and wavy rails.
Railroad officials say the tracks are safe, and that the train has been running through the area since 1987 with no derailments. A different train carrying Dow Chemical and Dow Corning cargo derailed in Freeland in 1989, causing a widespread evacuation but no deaths.
Jeanine Link and her husband, Elmer, say they’re concerned about the potential for a derailment here.
She’s collected 76 signatures in a petition to fix the tracks. Another neighbor has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Rail Administration. FRA officials say they’ll likely send an inspector here to check out the tracks.
“I love the train,” Jeanine Link said. “I love the sound of the train, but I want to know that it’s safe.”
The tracks are owned by Central Michigan Railway Co. in Monitor Township.
Railroad officials say they are routinely maintained at a standard above what’s required by the federal government.
“For us to derail a tank car of hazardous materials, we’re out of business,” said Central Michigan General Superintendent Rick H. Ziesemer, adding that Central Michigan is a small, self-insured railroad.
Besides weekly inspections with a high-rail truck, the railroad runs a measurement car over the tracks once a year to do checks, and even has them X-rayed, officials say.
Inspectors from the Federal Rail Administration also say the tracks are well-maintained, but have declined to release inspection reports to The Times.
The FRA inspector for Michigan, Richard Arledge, said his agency relies mostly on railroads to do their own inspections.
Handle with care
The Dow train rolls through Bay City five days a week, going no more than 10 mph, according to railroad officials.
It comes north from Durand and does a loop in Bay City, then heads west to Midland. It has been traveling the same route since 1987, Ziesemer said, and there has never been a derailment.
Besides the neighborhood’s concerns about the condition of the tracks, the Links and others say the train runs faster than 10 mph.
Central Michigan Railway officials said the train can travel as fast as 25 mph, but they impose a speed limit of 10 mph through the area due to the chemicals being hauled, and the train’s proximity to homes and schools.
“We’re not in a hurry to get there,” said John Tryban, supervisor for Central Michigan Railway.
On the main line, from Durand and Bay City, the train travels at 25 mph, Tryban said.
Ziesemer said he owns a condominium along the tracks in Bay City.
“If I thought it was unsafe, I sure as hell wouldn’t be living there,” he said.
Central Michigan officials said they provide annual copies of the train’s schedule and what chemicals it hauls to local fire departments and emergency officials, and response plans are in place.
Several emergency officials, including Bay County interim Emergency Services Coordinator and 911 Director Gary Brozewski, said they don’t have the reports.
Bay City Fire Chief Doug Doefer on Thursday said he has a 100-page report from the railroad, but declined to release it “without the blessing of Dow.”
A Federal Rail Administration spokesman also declined to release the list, saying it contained “proprietary information.”
All the cars are labeled, however, with names such as chlorine and butadiene. And Doefer did say that some of the chemicals hauled include chlorine, vinyl chloride and hydrogen cyanide, “one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man.”
“With some of these products, you dump a bucketful of it on the ground and you can take out a neighborhood,” he said.
“But the track record of the railroad is such that that stuff goes through town every day without incident, and tons and tons of it pass through town without incident,” he said.
A Dow Chemical spokeswoman declined to name or discuss any of the chemicals hauled on the train.
“They’re materials that go into our processes,” said Holly LaRose-Roenicke.
She said it’s up to the railroad to keep the tracks maintained.
“It is our expectation that they will meet or exceed those (federal) guidelines,” LaRose-Roenicke.
She said the Links’ complaint hasn’t been brought to Dow Chemical’s attention, but she plans to contact the railroad about it.
Cars designed for safety
Central Michigan Railroad officials acknowledge that the chemicals they haul are nasty, but say the transport of them is safe.
Central Michigan CEO Charles Pinkerton invited a Times reporter to ride the train past the Links’ subdivision to see how it operates.
Aboard the train, Central Michigan Superintendent Rick H. Ziesemer showed paperwork listing each car’s contents, the hazards associated with it, how emergency responders should deal with a release and phone numbers to call for more information.
A conductor and engineer each carry a copy of the train’s manifest with them when it’s traveling, to give to emergency responders in case of an accident.
A recent manifest listed the total weight at 2,015 tons, with a locomotive and 19 cars. The list included chemicals such as acrylic acid, a corrosive; styrene monomer, a flammable substance; and butadiene, a flammable gas.
The train rocks from side to side, like a boat, as it moves down the tracks, traveling past farmland and subdivisions.
Ziesemer said the sway is normal. The rails used by the Dow train in the Bay City area are jointed, or bolted together, and are meant to give a little under the wooden ties.
The ties, made of treated hardwood, sit on a sub-base of stone, elevated for drainage.
Stacks of ties that have been pulled out and replaced this year by the railroad can be seen as the train rolls along.
The train hauls about 20 to 70 cars a day, usually averaging about 45 cars, Ziesemer said. Each car can hold up to 100 tons of a product, and a loaded car weighs up to 263,000 pounds, he said.
Engineer Dan Lorenz said Central Michigan takes loaded cars from Durand to Dow Chemical in Midland, then drops them off back in Durand after they’ve been emptied.
The cars come to Durand from all over the United States, already loaded at other chemical plants in places like Texas, California, Louisiana and Canada, Lorenz said.
The engineer activates a whistle, horn and bell at all crossings. Some along the way are gated. Others have stop signs.
During the recent trip, several cars and trucks stopped at the last minute to let the train through, when the locomotive was only seconds away from the crossing.
Ziesemer said that’s a problem when the train is traveling. But if a train hits a vehicle, the train wins. Even if a large truck or semitrailer were to hit a tanker, it wouldn’t rupture, he said.
The tankers are designed to roll, and made out of “very strong stuff,” Ziesemer said.
Each round tank rests in a cradle, held in by the weight of the tank, Tryban said. The tanks are round because a round structure has more strength than a square one, Tryban said.
The outer shell of each tanker is made of quarter-inch thick steel. Inside is another vessel made of hardened steel, about 38ths to 78ths of an inch thick, depending on the product.
“You cannot shoot a hole through those cars,” Tryban said.
Each car is inspected at every interchange, Ziesemer said, in Durand, Bay City and Midland.
As a final safety measure, there always are five cars between the locomotive and the first hazardous loaded car, Ziesemer said.
Ziesemer said the railroad does the best it can to ensure there will never be a derailment.
“This is not a perfect system,” he said. “Can I tell you I’m not going to derail a car out here? No. I can’t make any guarantees, but we’ll operate as safely and efficiently as we can to prevent that from happening.”
If it does, Fire Chief Doefer has a “rule of thumb” on how to respond.
“If you hold up your thumb and you can see any part of the incident around your thumb, you’re too close.”
Remembering Freeland
The petition circulated by Jeanine Link urges “that somebody address the dangerous condition of the tracks.” She said she plans to give it to the federal inspector.
One of the petition signers, Terry Miller, went to U.S. Rep. Dale E. Kildee about the tracks. Miller is chairman of the Lone Tree Council, a local environmental group.
Kildee, D-Flint, arranged for Miller to file a formal complaint with the Federal Rail Administration.
Miller said he became concerned about the condition of the tracks by his home after a spent Consumers Energy nuclear reactor vessel from Big Rock Point passed through Bay City in October.
A train carrying gravel on tracks in Grand Blanc derailed two days after the reactor vessel came through. Fire officials there said the extreme weight of the reactor vessel – 290 tons – may have been a factor.
Miller, a longtime Dow Chemical watchdog, said the company was required to identify its worst-case scenario for a toxic release several years ago by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The company’s response was “the breaching of a chlorine tanker,” the same ones that travel through Bay County, Miller said.
The Dow train also runs through Auburn near Western Middle and High School and near T.L. Handy Middle School in Bay City. Miller said he suspects the track condition is the same in those areas.
He said he thinks the situation is a disaster waiting to happen.
“It’s unfortunate we can’t do more to prevent things before they happen, and this is an opportunity,” Miller said.
He fears a repeat of the Freeland derailment in July 1989.
In that incident, 14 cars of a chemical train carrying Dow Chemical and Dow Corning products on the CSX Transportation line derailed and forced the evacuation of 3,000 residents in Bay, Saginaw and Midland counties, according to news accounts.
The derailment caused a fiery explosion and released a cloud of toxic chemicals into the air. At least three cars ignited and burned for six days. Railroad officials blamed the accident on an improperly loaded rail car.
Ziesemer said CSX still delivers tankers to Dow Chemical in Midland, taking them through Freeland.
Made for function, not for looks
The tracks look rough behind the Link home.
About one out of every three ties appeared rotted earlier this month. Spikes were missing or loose on almost every tie. The tracks were wavy. Jeanine Link could shake some ties just by pressing down on them with her foot.
Tryban, the Central Michigan Railway supervisor, said people just don’t understand the dynamics of railroads.
Rotted ties won’t derail a train, he said. Rails are supported by a system of ties working together. The pressure from a car on a tie is spread out, not direct.
A missing spike won’t do it either. Rails are fastened to ties with plates that have four spike holes each, but only one spike per side is required by federal standards. Rails also have anchors to keep the ties from moving.
Wavy tracks aren’t a concern, Tryban said. The width between the tracks can vary by almost 2 inches under federal standards.
Arledge, the federal inspector, said tracks can be “pretty bad-looking” and still be safe.
He said only five ties are needed for a straight, 39-foot section of rail, for example. That’s under decades-old federal standards that were arrived at through engineering studies.
Miller said the system of rail regulation in the United States is perplexing.
The Federal Rail Administration is responsible for inspecting tracks in the United States. Other agencies, like the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Michigan Department of Transportation, don’t have anything to do with it.
Arledge said he inspects the Dow train tracks himself about once a year, using a high-rail truck. He said he’s been to town before for a complaint, and found nothing wrong.
But he declined to provide reports on his inspections. He said most of his oversight involves reviewing reports from the railroad company.
Arledge said Central Michigan inspectors are well-trained and don’t hesitate to take a track out of service or slow down a train if the rail is not up to snuff.
“They do a very good job. They’re one of my best shortline railroads that I have worked with as far as keeping their tracks repaired and worked on,” Arledge said.