From New York state to Montana, railroads have too many idle oil tanker cars and they have been stashing them on sidings and little used bypass tracks across the nation. To the people in the communities where these cars are lined up for miles, they are an eye sore and an environmental concern.
Some local residents are trying to get the railroads move them, but since the railroads fall under federal jurisdiction and the railroads own the land their lines run on, those stuck having to live with the black hulks in their midst are finding they have little recourse.
This situation reminds me of people who buy houses near airports
and then complain about the noise and sue over expansion plans.
Last time I read something on this subject,it was believed they were storing crude in them.
Enviormental concerns are horse manner!
So we can’t pump our own oil, we have to beg the Saudis to do it.
We can’t transport oil in ships b/c they spill.
We can’t store oil in rail containers.
We can’t build a pipeline to transport it.
If you buy a hybrid car, the gov’t wants to tax you for the gas tax you contribute less of.
If you ride a bike and use no oil, the gov’t wants you to register your bike and pay taxes.
It never ends with these people.
These complainers are the same who complain about pipelines, using their plastic encased smartphones.
TRAIN YOUR EYES ELSEWHERE!!!!
According to the article something like 20% of rail cars are sitting idle in North America, many of they are oil tanker cars that still have a decade or more useful life.
We have these things parked along sidings for miles around my part of the world. It use to be wood product (sheeting) carriers that were parked along rail lines that aren’t being used, but now its the oil tankers out there that aren’t being used but are creating an unnatural barrier on the landscape.
Uncle Al, millions if not billions of our tax dollars have went to sound proofing those homes. I remember when homes near an airport in my state were doing it. Lots of it I have no idea how it was sound proofing, they were getting new HVAC equipment and plumbing as well as new roofs, walls and windows. Pissed me off when I found out who was picking up the bill for these people when many of those houses had been there since the 60’s, all of them built after the airport. The work went on for years, so I know it was a butt load of our money being spent.
I hope they’re all Warren Buffet’s tankers.
There is at least a mile or more of parked oil tankers on a railroad siding just outside of Dixon, Mt. in the middle of nowhere.
geoff, I’ve driven past those a few times. It has to be well over a mile. That’s such pretty country, it pisses me off to see warren buffet’s hardware in my view.
Buffet didn’t want pipelines. He owns railroads. The cars are no longer needed. Unless libs can shutdown pipelines.
Well, whiners, if you won’t let them build pipelines . . .
It is that it’s more advantageous to the sellers to use those on the railways and those tankers at sea as we facto storage containers than to release them into the market and depress prices.
There is an oil glut. Above $50 and US energy producers pump. There was about 112M barrels at sea back in June.
You can find some satellite images showing huge fleets of tankers acting as debt funded storage.
Personally, it’s a terrorist opportunity waiting to happen.
Regular $3.47 here today…
Bob, you must be in CA like me. It was right about there yesterday when I bought, thanks in part to a new 12-cent hike. And another likely 70-cent hike next year. Ugh.
So, consumption must be declining…. and that isn’t going to change quickly. Part of this is driven by efficiency edicts, like the CAFE standards. If Trump doesn’t roll them back, the only vehicles you’ll be able to buy in a few years will look like a Yugo.
Hulk be smashin, yo.
An empty oil tanker car is far more dangerous than a full one.
They’re probably parked as a result of soros and buffett not being able to stop Keystone and a few other pipelines. And I think buffett’s purchase of new tankers was subsidized by obama’s regime.
I see tankers parked on a RR overpass along I22 every day. I think to myself “Lookee there! There’s some tankers parked on the overpass!” I am easily entertained on account of being deplorable, a deep southerner, white, and male. But you knew that already.
I was looking at that threat more as a string of tanker cars lined up in a densely populated residential area.
Full or empty tanker cars are less of an eyesore or threat than progressives who are always full of it.
Government at work pretending to work…this all comes about under Obama and his anti pipeline efforts to help Warren Buffett make money with his trains..Pipelines are much cleaner than rail cars leaking contents, derailing,etc, a known problem, but the Ecologists are really not interested in the environment, just control and power. This disgrace is one of many where the environment is blighted so that a big Democrat donor can do his magic..even refineries hate the pile up and spillage from tank cars…
I was about to suggest something else to put in them, but then I remembered, and I thought, “Whale oil be trucked!”
Bitch about being forced to look at a commodity, oil.
Bitch about not being able to look at a commodity, Ft. Knox.
Cut me loose a rail car of oil, I’d be happy with it.
From my town to the next one south, it’s about 12 miles. I haven’t gotten an up close look, but about 3/4 mile from the road there are what appear to be coal hoppers. They start just outside of town and go through the town to the south. Been there a few months, the train is broken up where there are crossings at east/west roads.
Sounds like a glut. So when will gas prices drop at the pump?
Buffet owns and invests in Railroads and in insurance companies….planned starvation….
bucketman617, now do you understand all the ruckus about new pipelines and pipelines crossing Indian reservations?
Yup, it’s Buffet related, he’s probably causing a shortage somewhere.