CommonWealth reports on plans to begin shipping 3.9 million gallons a week of ethanol into Revere, on trains that will lumber down the Fitchburg commuter-rail line into Charlestown, where they will switch to the Newburyport/Rockport line up to a "blending terminal" to be mixed into the gasoline that is now shipped along the Rose Kennedy Greenway in 18-wheelers.
[Revere Fire] Chief Doherty chuckled when asked if he was comfortable with ethanol trains coming into the community. "I have more fear of tank trucks coming in than I do with the rail," he said, noting the train tracks generally are farther from homes and neighborhoods.
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My thoughts.
By Peter
Wed, 08/31/2011 - 11:03am
A. Let's let the data drive these safety decisions.
2. WE LIVE IN A CITY WITH STINKY and/or sometimes DANGEROUS INDUSTRIES.
C. Almost everyone (R) or (D) agrees that blue collar jobs are a good thing. Sometimes the industries that support these jobs are dangerous. Support government enforcement of safety regulations and let them pass!
Whoa. Down the Fitchburg
By anon
Wed, 08/31/2011 - 11:25am
Whoa. Down the Fitchburg line? The tracks on that line run about ten feet away from residential areas, and are less than 100 from two big apartment complexes out by Alewife. I'm not sure where the split to the Rockport line happens, but if they're trying to keep hazardous materials away from heavily populated areas, this is not the best way to do it.
Efficiency
By rb
Wed, 08/31/2011 - 5:05pm
Trains are the most efficient way to get ethanol from the Midwest to the East Coast, at least until someone builds a pipeline. And, as interstate commerce, there's not much that can be done to regulate (or prevent) freight trains from rolling. Guilford/Pan Am Railways kept the freight rights to the lines they sold to the MBTA and basically have always had the rights to operate such trains.