Synfuel by Rail through my Town----Missionary's position

Everyday the train passes through town, big trains, many cars filled with lumber from the north, some carrying grains--mostly corn for ethanol, and a goodly amount are tank cars. They are for the most part black and contain a liquid like substance called synfuel which comes from the tar sands of Alberta. Now, it is possible there is some propane and maybe, some conventional crude oil,  some finished products from cracking plants/refineries to the west, but mostly I suspect, it is synfuel.

Is that a big deal? Not really sure unless one of these days we have an "incident" like those that have been  happening around the US and Canada and that would be a derailment or a crash with fire of some sort. I do believe in the past there was an "incident" right here in town but nothing came of it as there was no synfuel in those days.

So am I supposed to be concerned that this massive train goes over this bridge and within 300 yards of our home? I have noticed that both of the concrete bridges/overpasses here in town are quit old, maybe 100 years old and both of them are cracked to the nines. Those cracks are in some cases exuding various liquid compounds, but mostly water filled with soluble carbonates or salts coming from the old bridge. The are stalagmites building in and on the drip-offs.

I suspect the chemicals mean nothing but do rather imply the bridge is full of cracks, deep cracks. Seeing our village has mandated a run-your-water-all-the-time rule due to deep frost---some 7 ft we are told, that would imply that any water deep in these old bridges is also freezing ---AND FREEZING deeply. One would have to recall that on freezing water expands.

In the eight years I have been here, I have never see any work done on those overpasses, they are even doing a bit of crumbling. Grain no problem, wood no problem, synfuel not so good. I do remember the big fires of this stuff burning, and yes the stuff in the tank is not just crude oil but tons of other chemicals associated with mining tar sands.

So right now all of Canada's tar sands product is coming to the USA, some through existing pipelines, the rest by rail. So if the XL pipeline goes through Montana or North Dakota will this get rid of our oil trains? I suspect the real answer to all the questions is, do we really need this stuff? Yup, if we want to keep business as usual then we have to use more and more crap because the good stuff is mostly gone. Gonna be a hard lesson here somewhere.