[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Sail safety concerns in Boulder and other Front Range cities

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Weaver, Sam

Fellow Council Members and HOTLINE followers,

As some of you may recall, I have concerns with railway safety in Boulder.  These concerns are growing for me for two reasons:


  1.  Increasing use of rail to transport oil in cars that may or may not be up to current safety standards
  2.  Increasing population around rail lines in Boulder, specifically the 30th and Pearl area and the S'Park redevelopment

I have met with Paul Gibb, who at one point worked for BNSF (the local rail carrier), and have heard his safety concerns, which are far more detailed than my own understanding.  Paul has highlighted for me some issues with drainage that, when not properly addressed, can lead to derailments, one of which occurred in June in east Boulder. I share his letter to the Daily Camera below, which I think we all need to take very seriously.  Oil train derailments have created mass casualty events in other communities, and I would very much like us to be as proactive as we can to prevent such a tragedy in Boulder.

All the best,

Sam Weaver
Member of Boulder City Council
weavers at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:weavers at bouldercolorado.gov>
Phone: 303-416-6130



Lessons from a Derailment by Paul Gibb 8/14/2017

Guest Opinion piece for the Daily Camera

It will likely be a year or more before the National Transportation Safety Board issues its report on the causes of the June 20th BNSF Railway derailment in East Boulder. That is too long for us to wait, especially for those of us concerned with safety issues on the train line that passes through our communities.

Fortunately it is still possible (as of the day this was written, anyway) to see visible evidence of at least part of how the June 20th accident likely happened. If one looks at the tracks both to the east and west of the 63rd Street crossing (the one near Arapahoe Avenue, NOT the one in Gunbarrel), one will see grooves in the crossties that are the same size and shape as the wheel flanges of a train car. It appears that probably just one set of wheels (one axle with wheels on each end) derailed somewhere at least a mile and a half east of 63rd Street, probably on the sharp curve and steep grade just north of Valtec Lane off of Arapahoe Avenue. Hopefully when the NTSB report comes out we will learn just how those two wheels may have hopped off the rails. Was the train going too fast around the curve? Was it a brake problem? A broken wheel? A broken rail? A collapse of the roadbed under the rails? Or some combination of these factors? No clear evidence is readily visible at the Valtec Lane site, unfortunately.

In any case, the grooves go from there all the way west to the 63rd Street crossing, where similar grooves can be seen in the concrete pavement. The grooves can then be followed to the first switch to the west of that crossing, where the derailed wheels did some major damage. Then at the next switch, the one where the huge pileup occurred, the derailed wheels appear to have followed the curved siding track that veers sharply off to the right, most certainly causing six freight cars to jackknife into a twisted mess.

We are lucky the car with the derailed wheels was empty, because a heavier one might have caused a much bigger pileup sooner, possibly even at the 63rd Street crossing itself, just 20 yards from Naropa University's Nalanda Campus.

And what if two wheels on a train with flammable cargoes were to hop off the tracks and then jackknife in similar fashion on the switch just south of the Pearl Parkway crossing (Boulder Junction), near where thousands of people live and/or work?

We need to put more and more pressure on BNSF to protect us. Yes, BNSF does twice-weekly inspections and they do address problems that come up, but they usually do so in a fairly quick and superficial manner. They have never addressed some underlying problems that can cause problems to keep reoccurring. And even if inspectors were to check the tracks every hour of every day, all kinds of things can happen that would not necessarily have been caught in time by an inspector, especially when freight cars weighing as much as 140 tons ply the rails.

The city councils of Boulder and Longmont need to sit down with BNSF and ask some pointed questions. First, when was the last time undercutting was done and the last time drainage problems were addressed? (These are two major ways railroads keep rails stable by preventing the formation of mud beneath the crossties, such as exists in great quantities near Boulder Junction.) Second, is it not possible to install heavier rail on the straight stretches and not just on the curves? And third, is it not possible to move or remove certain rarely used switches that could all too easily become pileup sites - i.e., disasters in waiting?

It is not always easy these days getting railroads to do anything, but some communities have been successful. The thing to remember is that safety is to BNSF's advantage too. Wrecks are very costly to a railroad. Although there may be initial denials from BNSF, there is a strong possibility we can come up with safety improvements that benefit us all.

Let's not put this off!

- Paul Gibb, Niwot

paulgibb1 at live.com<mailto:paulgibb1 at live.com>

8091 Meadowdale Square, Niwot CO 80503

303-652-1173