Missouri’s largest city has become a crossroads for trains carrying a type of crude oil that has ignited in multiple derailments, according to state documents that the railroads carrying the cargo didn’t want made public.
Each week, as many as 10 trains pass through Kansas City, each carrying at least 1 million gallons of Bakken crude from North Dakota, reports released this month by the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency show.
The railroads initially required states to sign agreements that they wouldn’t make the information public.
Trains carrying other types of crude oil – from western Canada, Colorado or Wyoming – might also be moving through the area on their way to the nation’s refineries. But documents that McClatchy and other news organizations obtained through open records requests don’t provide information on those shipments.