Crude errors

FOR environmentalists, battling oil pipelines has become a surrogate for constraining the growth of Canada’s tar sands and their greenhouse-gas emissions. Without such proposed, but stalled, pipeline projects as Northern Gateway in Canada or Keystone XL in the United States, more tar-sands bitumen cannot get to markets—or so they thought. But railways have taken up the slack with trains, often more than 100 wagons long, rumbling through towns across North America.

That has brought other risks, as became tragically clear early on July 6th 2013 when a parked train of 72 tanker wagons broke free from its brakes. The train rolled downhill for 11 kilometres (7 miles), reaching speeds of over 65mph, before exploding in Lac-Mégantic in Quebec. The resulting fire incinerated 47 people and destroyed the town’s centre.