The Union Pacific oil train that derailed June 3 in Mosier, Oregon, rolled into the Port of Tacoma Sunday with little notice, despite the intense scrutiny its wreck, spill and fire attracted to the expanding practice of shipping crude oil by rail through the Columbia River gorge and the greater Pacific Northwest.
For Tacoma Rail, it was almost just another routine arrival in a series of hundreds of oil trains the city-owned utility has steered through Tideflats rail yards to the U.S. Oil refinery in the port. The difference: this time, only 90 full oil tankers out of the train’s original 96 27,000-gallon cars got to Tacoma, in two parts, because of the wreck.
But in the wake of the Mosier wreck, environmental and other agencies are calling for the industry to change, though it’s unclear how that would affect the burgeoning oil-train business in the Tideflats.
If it seems as if Tacoma is seeing more oil trains every year, that’s because it is.
Tacoma Rail records show the line has hauled 417 oil trains across city rails since April 2013, with no derailments or fires. Each year has brought more trains — the line handled 82 oil trains in 2013, 128 in 2014 and 132 in 2015.