Train Wreck

NPR did a long piece on the North Dakota train wreck where tank cars of petroleum burst into flames.  They had a guy from NTSB on wondering if the tank cars that blew had been properly placarded as to hazardous material.  I'm sure the proper hazmat placard would prevent a fire.  Then they talked about the tank cars themselves, perhaps replacing all the tank cars would prevent another explosion.  Then they talked about how petroleum from the Bakken shale might be more hazardous than other petroleum.  I got news for them, petroleum from anywhere is fairly dangerous stuff.  It gives of flammable vapors that ignite for rubbing two pundits together, and once ignited, it burns furiously.
    What they didn't talk about was train wrecks.  If you wreck a train full of oil tank cars, you are gonna have one helova fire.  Hazmat placards, stronger tanks, tightlok couplers only help a little bit.  You gotta work on preventing train wrecks.  Nobody has offered any explaination of how this wreck happened.  We are just very lucky that nobody got hurt.
   To be fair to National Progressive Radio, they did mention the lack of pipelines, such as Keystone XL which Obama has stalled for 5 years.