(The following article by Patrick Driscoll was posted on the San Antonio Express-News website on April 15.)
SAN ANTONIO — Two U.S. senators from different sides of the political aisle had no problem agreeing this week that railroads should be safer.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., introduced the Welded Rail and Tank Car Safety Improvement Act, which calls for developing safety standards for pressurized tank cars that carry hazardous chemicals and improving inspections of tracks.
“This bill will initiate new rail precautions and enforce higher safety standards,” Hutchison said.
On Thursday, the bill was folded into the Surface Transportation Safety Improvement Act and passed by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. It’s destined to become part of a massive transportation bill that Congress might pass later this year.
The National Safety Transportation Board warned last year that more than half the nation’s 60,000 tank cars in use weren’t built according to current industry standards, leaving them susceptible to rupturing, according to the New York Times.
Catastrophic wrecks in Texas and North Dakota involved cars built before 1989.
A collision of two trains in June in rural Bexar County ripped open a tank car, spewing chlorine that killed four people and injured 50. A derailment in 2002 near Minot, N.D., broke open five cars, releasing ammonia that killed one person and injured 300.
San Antonio officials welcome any efforts to improve safety of tank cars.
“It can make a big difference,” said County Judge Nelson Wolff, who has led a local charge for rail safety reforms. “Every little bit helps.”
Officials with Union Pacific, which owns all the tracks in Bexar County and hauls most of the tank cars through here, said the new bill is good and they’re ready to cooperate.
“We appreciate her (Hutchison’s) effort,” said UP spokesman John Bromley.