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Montana Crude Rail Routes Revealed

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An analysis of waybills – freight receipts kept by railroad companies – shows that the vast majority of crude oil traveling on rails comes from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and moves on large trains that can be more than 100 cars long. This map shows a time-lapse view of where oil trains came from from 2012. For a full explanation of this data, see, “Train Waybills Unlock Crude Oil Mysteries.”

A dozen or more trains carrying crude oil from the Bakken region are moving across northern Montana every week, skirting the edge of Glacier National Park. More trains — far fewer in number – pass through populated regions farther south. Governor Steve Bullock released the route information this week, making Montana the latest state after Washington to buck railroads’ requests to keep the information out of public hands.

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Train Waybills Unlock Crude Oil Mysteries

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We’ve been tracking the rise of crude oil moving on railroads over the past few weeks, and we’ve learned a great deal. Some things we know:

A lot more crude oil is traveling by rails now than it was a few years ago, the equivalent of one railroad tank car every 77 seconds. Several recent crude-by-rail accidents have been deadly and devastating. Crude-by-rail accidents are on the rise, but the rate of accidents isn’t necessarily increasing. Railroad companies are now required to tell local authorities when they’ll be moving Bakken oil through their communities, but are fighting this requirement.

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Crude Oil Train Secrecy

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Hundreds of thousands of tank cars full of crude oil snake across the nation each year, and the number is only increasing — in the last five years, it’s jumped 14-fold. Along with that, there’s been an increased number of accidents, derailments and spills. Public safety advocates are clamoring for more information about where the trains are going and how much crude they’re carrying, but it’s been almost impossible to come by. Regulators don’t collect it and the railroads have refused to disclose it. Why the secrecy?

Bakken

30,000 Gallons Of Crude-By-Rail Every 77 Seconds

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Last week, Inside Energy reported that about 408,000 carloads and 39 million tons of crude oil originated on United States railroads in 2013. It’s a lot of oil, and it’s raising a lot of questions about safety. There are a lot of things we still don’t know about crude-by-rail, and Inside Energy is drilling into the details. How many railroad cars is that? An average of 1,119 carloads a day.

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Crude Oil By Rail: On The Rise In Colorado And Everywhere

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The transport of crude oil by rail has spiked dramatically in recent years. From 2012 to 2013 the amount carried by the country’s major freight railroads increased nearly 75 percent, according to the American Association of Railroads.  Even though crude oil accounted for just over 1 percent of overall rail traffic last year, there’s growing public concern about the potential oil spills and other hazards. This increase in crude oil by rail is playing out across Colorado’s Niobrara formation along the eastern plains, with resource-rich Weld County being ground zero. As the state’s oil production boom continues—exceeding the capacity of pipelines that traditionally have carried the oil—more companies are shipping crude by rail. Over the past two years, rail companies have built two crude loading facilities and doubled capacity at a third site in Weld County.