Thousands of defects found on oil train routes

Thousands of defects found on oil train routes

BILLINGS, Mont.

When a freight train derailed in the Montana town of Culbertson, spilling 27,000 gallons of crude oil, investigators blamed the 2015 accident on defective or missing fasteners used to hold the tracks in place.

The previous year, cracks in a track that went unrepaired caused a train hauling oil to come off the rails and explode along the James River in Lynchburg, Va. Broken bolts were cited in another oil train derailment and fire last year in Mosier, Ore.

Data obtained by The Associated Press shows that tens of thousands of similar safety defects were found when government inspectors checked the rail lines used to haul volatile crude oil across the country. The defects included rails that were worn, bolts that were broken or loose or missing, and steel bars that had cracks.

Such flaws are not uncommon across the nation’s 140,000-mile freight rail network. But these nearly 24,000 imperfections drew heightened attention because of a surge in recent years of domestic energy production that has increased rail shipments of oil and the number of major derailments.

Spacewoman getting extra three months in space

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

The world’s oldest and most experienced spacewoman is getting three extra months in orbit.

NASA announced Wednesday that astronaut Peggy Whitson will remain on the International Space Station until September. The 57-year-old astronaut arrived last November and was supposed to return to Earth in June. But under an agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency, she’ll stay another three months and take advantage of an empty seat on a Soyuz capsule in the fall.

This mission – her third – will now last close to 10 months. Scientists are eager to monitor any changes to her body, to add to the knowledge gained from retired astronaut Scott Kelly’s recent one-year flight.

This weekend, she’ll take over as space-station commander, her second time at the job.

Warnings but no action preceded deadly flood

MOCOA, Colombia

People were caught off guard when a devastating flash flood surged through a small city in southern Colombia, but not everyone was surprised.

Government agencies, land-use experts and environmental organizations had said for years that Mocoa could face dangerous flooding. Many who lived in the most vulnerable areas were aware of the warnings, even if they didn’t heed them. And yet the city continued to spread into the floodplains west of downtown.

Mocoa was vulnerable because of its location, amid a confluence of rivers in the wet subtropical Amazon region of southern Colombia.

Associated Press