The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. announced its support for the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015, for NTSB's placing tank car safety on its "Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements for 2015."
"Including tank car safety on the list signifies the U.S. government's recognition of the importance of this issue," said Greenbrier Senior Vice President & Chief Engineer Greg Saxton, who attended the NTSB's announcement of its "most wanted" list Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
"As crude moves by rail across America, delivering great benefits to our economy, safety in how crude oil and other flammable commodities are transported must come first," Saxton asserted. "We expect that the U.S. Department of Transportation will soon issue final regulations that mandate safer tank cars. Prompt implementation of proposed new tank car design and retrofit standards will ensure safer communities and provide railcar manufacturers like Greenbrier with the regulatory certainty needed to continue investments already underway to deliver more robust tank cars."
Last February, in response to the safety concerns about the existing legacy fleet of older DOT-111 cars, Greenbrier announced its "Tank Car of the Future", a safer design for crude oil and ethanol service and the transport of other hazardous materials. Since that time, Greenbrier has received awards for more than 3,500 Tank Cars of the Future and has begun delivering these tank cars to customers.
Additionally, Greenbrier said, GBW Railcar Services – a 50/50 joint venture with Watco Companies, LLC formed last July – is delivering retrofit solutions for the legacy DOT-111 tank cars, permitting extended service for DOT-111 tank cars in flammable liquids service and for other hazardous materials transport as these cars are placed in lower risk service over time. GBW also offers retrofit alternatives for the most recently built CPC-1232 tank. Combined, these retrofits meaningfully improve the safety performance of all tank car types in continued service, the company said.
"We support the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's effort to direct new design standards for tank cars used in flammable liquids service, specifically, 'Option 2' as published in the NPRM. We also support the agency's effort to retrofit the existing fleet of tank cars currently used to transport all flammable commodities. The urgency for a final rule is apparent. We are already responding to this imperative and are ready to move even more quickly upon issuance of a final rule," Saxton said.