Irving Oil is vowing to phase out old rail tankers of the kind that blew up last July, incinerating downtown Lac-Mégantic and killing 47 people. Irving is the first Canadian refinery planning to voluntarily upgrade its DOT-111 tank railcars to meet higher U.S. standards.
So far, Canadian regulators have opted to not order the immediate conversion of the entire Canadian rail fleet which includes tens of thousands of the older tank railcars.
The vast majority of railcars transporting oil and other flammable liquids across North America are of the older variety.
Conversion to the newer DOT-111s is not good enough for Keith Stewart, an energy expert for Greenpeace Canada. He says safety experts in both Canada and the U.S. say they are not safe either.
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