page_title: DOT-111 tank car
section_title: Usage
hierarchical_section_title: DOT-111 tank car / Usage
caption_attribution_description: English: Belleville, Ontario, Canada. There is still earth under the damaged ladder. I assume the car derailed and rolled on this side.
context_page_description: In rail transport, the U.S. DOT-111 tank car, also known as the TC-111 in Canada, is a type of unpressurized general service tank car in common use in North America. Tank cars built to this specification must be circular in cross section, with elliptical, formed heads set convex outward. They have a minimum plate thickness of ⁷⁄₁₆ inch and a maximum capacity of 34,500 US gallons. Tanks may be constructed from carbon steel, aluminum alloy, high alloy steel or nickel plate steel by fusion welding.
context_section_description: Up to 80% of the Canadian fleet and 69% of U.S. rail tank cars were DOT-111 type, as of 2013.
  DOT-111 cars are equipped with AAR Type E top and bottom shelf Janney couplers designed to maintain vertical alignment to prevent couplers from overriding and puncturing the tank end frames in the event of an accident. These tank cars transport various types of liquid dangerous goods, including 40,000 cars in dedicated service carrying 219,000 car loads of ethanol fuel annually in the U.S.
  Hydraulic fracturing of new wells in the  shale oil fields in the interior of North America has rapidly increased use of DOT-111 cars to transport crude oil to existing refineries along the coasts. The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway runaway train in the Lac-Mégantic derailment of July 2013 was made up of 72 of these cars, 63 of which derailed. Almost all of these derailed tank cars were damaged, and many had large breaches. About six million litres of light crude oil originating from the Bakken formation was quickly released and caught fire. The ensuing blaze and explosions left 47 people dead.
  A November 2013 derailment near Aliceville, in Pickens County, Alabama involved a similar explosion of North Dakota crude oil. The Genesee & Wyoming company was the carrier for this 90-car train, of which 20 derailed and exploded.  The train originated in Amory, Mississippi and was scheduled for a pipeline terminal in Walnut Hill, Florida that is owned by Genesis Energy.  The final destination for the shipment was to have been the Shell Oil refinery in Mobile, Alabama.  The accident happened in a depopulated wetlands area. Three cars experienced a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.
  On 30 December 2013, a similar explosion occurred in Casselton, North Dakota causing the town to be evacuated. The BNSF train was 106 cars and 1.6 km long, of which at least 10 car were destroyed. Reports were that another train carrying grain and running to the opposite direction derailed first, causing the adjacent train with tank cars carrying oil from the Bakken formation to derail one minute later. Three days later, the US DOT PHMSA wrote that "Recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude oil... Based on preliminary inspections conducted after recent rail derailments in North Dakota, Alabama and Lac-Megantic, Quebec, involving Bakken crude oil [we mandate crude producers and shippers to] sufficiently degasify hazardous materials prior to and during transportation."
  The oil regulator for North Dakota stated in early December 2013 that he expected as much as 90 per cent of that state's oil would be carried by train in 2014, up from the current 60 per cent.  The number of crude oil carloads hauled by U.S. railroads surged from 10,840 in 2009 to a projected 400,000 in 2013.  In the third quarter of 2013, crude-by-rail shipments rose 44 percent from the previous year to 93,312 carloads, equivalent to about 740,000 barrels per day or almost one tenth of U.S. production. That was down 14 percent from the second quarter of 2013 due to narrower oil spreads that made costlier rail shipments less economic.
  On 7 January 2014, 17 cars of a 122-car train derailed and exploded near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick. Nobody was injured but about 150 people were evacuated.  The petroleum products originated in Western Canada and were destined for the Irving Oil Refinery in St. John.
caption: A damaged DOT-111A tank car. Note the AAR Type E double shelf coupler required for transporting dangerous goods.
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