Federal officials have rejected a call to toughen the fire-resistance of railroad tank cars that carry highly flammable crude oil, hundreds of which pass through the Chicago area each day. The U.S. Department of Transportation is standing by its decision issued last spring that new and retrofitted tank cars be required to withstand being engulfed in a pool of burning liquid for 100 minutes without exploding.
Critics say slightly more than an hour and a half is too little time for police, firefighters and other first responders to react to the fiery derailment of a train hauling crude oil or ethanol.
Response time is of critical importance in the Chicago area, the nation's railroad hub. Scores of trains pass through each week hauling highly flammable crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale fields to refineries, generally on the East Coast.
When a BNSF train hauling 103 cars of crude oil derailed near Galena on March 5, witnesses said it took about only an hour for tank cars to explode, sending fire balls hundreds of feet into the sky. The explosions were so dangerous that firefighters couldn't get close enough to extinguish the flames, officials said.
The Association of American Railroads had urged the U.S. to reconsider its decision, issued in May. The association sought adoption of a tougher standard of thermal protection -— up to 800 minutes, more than 13 hours — to give responders adequate time to react to an incident.