While sitting at home on my deck on Evergreen Highway, I was reading that our Senators Murray and Cantwell are proposing new laws regarding the oil trains (“Feds want railroads to create oil-spill plans,” July 14, Associated Press). About that time, a train passed in front of me, which wasn’t classified as a oil train because it was hauling other goods, not just oil. Just for fun, I counted the oil cars — there were 37 — among the other cars. That train was traveling way beyond the speed allowed by law for oil trains.
My point: pass all the laws you want, they will never in our lifetime make hauling oil by rail safe. Why? Because some engineers won’t follow the rules already in place.
Stop shipping oil by rail; to think it can ever be safe is a unrealistic inspection.
