Huge increase in rail oil shipments partial cause for delays

[richm49]

Just read a story on train orders.com stating that rail car oil shipments in U.S. have jumped from 9500 in 2008 to over 415,000 last year. I am not saying that this is the entire cause for many rail delays but it is certainly a huge factor. On that same site today, there are photos of the LSL stopped behind an intermodal train blocking it with an oil train sitting parked on the siding that could have been used to pass the stopped train. And with oil production growing even more in the U.S. unless the proposed oil pipeline from Canada ever gets the ok, rail oil shipments will only grow even bigger in the near future.

 

[Phil S]

There are numerous threads discussing this huge problem. The search feature "should" turn them up quickly, though sometimes it takes a little playing with the keywords.

 

[Metra Electric Guest]

The New York Times, which fashions itself as the National Paper of Record, had an article about the long-distance Amtrak delays (good thing I'm not misspelling that like the City of Chicago on it's electric road signs this weekend) with stats on the increase in oil trains last Thursday - dramatic increase to say the least.