(The following story by Lauren Taylor appeared on the Northeast Booster website on July 21.)
TOWSON, Md. — Each day, trains carrying hazardous materials barrel through the county, their path often near thousands of workers and homes.
A derailment or explosion could have a serious effect on such major employment centers as Rossville, Halethorpe, Owings Mills, Dundalk, Rosedale and Essex.
Last week, the international oil and natural gas supplier BP gave local emergency responders a feel for what such a situation might be like.
BP’s Safety Train, a railcar modified to facilitate training, rolled into the BP-Castrol packaging facility on Pulaski Highway, just north of the Beltway, to show emergency personnel first on the scene what to expect.
During the July 13-15 visit, BP held six training sessions for hazardous materials teams from Baltimore and Harford counties, Baltimore City and the state as well as BP employees. Issues such as leaks, missing parts and faulty valves were all presented to the group.
In one scenario, one compartment of the train was partially filled with water, then pressurized, to allow a realistic simulation of both liquid and vapor leaks.
The training was a useful complement to regular classroom training, said Clarence Ross, a crew chief with Harford County’s 31-member hazardous materials team.
“When you’re out on the scene, you revert to your training,” Ross said. “You need to know what you’re doing. Hands-on training does that.”
The train itself is two-compartment, 22,000-gallon hazardous materials tank car that was taken out of service and specially outfitted for training.
During the training, the class was broken into two groups for a hands-on education.
On the ground, the trainees learned how to apply a car’s hand brake, what lettering on the tank indicates about its contents and how a car’s valves work.
On top of the train, a group learned how to safely check the level of the liquid inside.
The Safety Train program was started in 1987 to train BP employees in loading and unloading hazardous materials.
“It’s important we do (shipping) correctly,” said Gary Zimmer, safety and regulatory compliance and training manager at BP.
Once word got out about the train, the company was flooded with phone calls from fire departments and other groups across the country, he said.
Now, the train travels across the United States, Canada and Mexico, training more than 80,000 people.
Today, 85 percent of those trained are not BP employees.
It’s what’s inside that counts
Hazardous materials are carried in general purpose tanks holding up to 24,000 gallons or in pressurized tanks with up to 34,000 gallons of liquefied gas.
Brad Byczynski, director of crisis management, said BP makes 70,000 shipments a year and has 9,000 rail cars in its fleet.
“But all of the products aren’t the same. They don’t respond the same,” Byczynski said.
Train derailments are hazardous situations, particularly if fire is involved.
If tank cars are exposed to flame for a long time, the tanks can become so hot that they explode.
Firefighters call it a “bleve.” Bleve stands for “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.”
But it is better known as “blast leveling everything very effectively.”
After a 2001 tunnel fire on a CSX train under downtown Baltimore, Zimmer realized it was important to come to the area and “spend some time with these guys, make sure they know the ‘do’s’ and ‘don’t’s,'” he said.
Commercial carriers CSX and Norfolk Southern, as well as Amtrak and the state, run trains through the county.
Free training is one way BP can give back to the community, Zimmer said.
“It’s been a refresher for us. We like to go back and review,” said Lt. Kenneth Hyde Sr. of Baltimore City’s hazardous materials department.
“It’s good to have interrelations between us and businesses,” Hyde said, noting his 250-member department frequently works with companies such as BP.