In the five-year period from 1983 to 1987, the U.S. Department of Transportation attributed between six and sixteen deaths a year to highway-release accidents (in about 500 billion ton-miles per annum) and no deaths to railroad release accidents (in about 250 billion ton-miles per annum.)
Though none of these accidents was catastrophic, past experience demonstrates that the potential for disaster remains. A highway collision in Houston, Texas, in 1976 caused a tank truck containing anhydrous ammonia to explode, causing four deaths and over a hundred injuries. In 1978, 16 persons were killed and 50 injured when a propane car exploded in the aftermath of a train derailment in Waverly, Tennessee.
The experience in other countries has been even worse: in 1978 more than 200 persons were killed and 120 injured when a tank truck containing liquid propane gas exploded near a campsite in Spain, and this year a freight train loaded with explosives blew up in the Soviet Union, killing at least 68 and injuring more than 230.
A version of this article appeared in print in the October 1988 issue of Resources magazine.
