I don’t usually rant about stuff like this, but oil trains irritate me, mostly because I am worried that one is going to get hit by a landslide, tip over and dump a few thousand gallons of mess into Puget Sound… so here goes… I know this article doesn’t mention them, but it mentions a danger on the same tracks.

http://www.king5.com/home/WSDOT-report-looks–249226231.html

I’m sure with the potential increase in oil trains carrying Bakken light crude that BNSF will be rather motivated to not have any accidents happen, especially not along the well populated and ecologically delicate shores of our beautiful Puget Sound…

BUT, if something does happen, the story this news article nicely sets up is that when it happens it won’t be BNSF’s fault, they are just an infrastructure company… it will be ‘shared blame’ on the shoulders of the land owners/homeowners. (AKA as much of the blame as can be shifted to the little guy) AND on the city/state/feds for obviously not doing everything possible to prevent it. We’ll all be on the hook for the clean-up, whether its just a spill or something more ominous.

Hello! BNSF! Don’t let people ship stuff that likes to explode in tank cars that are unfit for it! Its not the landowners fault what you allow to be shipped in your tank cars.

Now don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that transport by rail has its benefits, and is low impact in the big picture, say compared to truck or jumbo jet, but this is a volume issue….