Phaseout Deadline for Older Tank Car Types Pass as the Number of Safer Tank Cars Continues Increasing

Over 75 Percent of Rail Tank Cars Carrying Class 3 Flammable Liquids Meet DOT-117 Specifications

The following are key points from Progress Toward Safer Rail Tank Cars Transporting Flammable Liquids: 2026 Report (the 2026 Tank Car Report):

• The portion of DOT-117 and DOT-117R rail tank cars that transport Class 3 flammable liquids continued to increase, from 73 percent (73,757 tank cars) of the fleet in 2024 to 76 percent (76,715 tank cars) in 2025.
  
• Almost all crude oil and ethanol were carried by DOT-117 or DOT-117R rail tank cars in 2025. This finding includes 8,758 DOT-117 and DOT-117R tank cars that carried crude oil and 37,032 that carried ethanol. Only 135 jacketed (a layer of thermal insulation) CPC-1232 tank cars carried crude oil, and 12 jacketed CPC-1232 tank cars carried ethanol. CPC-1232 tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol were phased out on May 1, 2025. Due to the annual method by which the tank cars were counted, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) cannot verify when during the year these tank cars transported crude oil and ethanol.
  
• Other flammable liquids remain the largest group of Class 3 flammable liquids that are not required to be transported in DOT-117 rail tank cars. This finding includes 1,602 non-DOT-117 tank cars that transported other flammable liquids in packing group Ⅰ. These tank cars were phased out from carrying flammable liquids in packing group Ⅰ on May 1, 2025. Other flammable liquids in packing groups Ⅱ and Ⅲ were transported using 13,832 non-DOT-117 tank cars (phase-out deadline: May 1, 2029).
  

Number of Rail Tank Cars Meeting DOT-117 Specifications and Phase-out Deadlines for All Other Rail Tank Cars

Source: BTS, data from Railinc datasets, Umler® and TRAIN Ⅱ®, on rail tank car and annualized rail tank car movements between 2013 and 2025.

In accordance with the 2015 Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) BTS released the 2026 Tank Car Report. The report discusses the industry's progress toward upgrading the rail tank car fleet to DOT-117 specifications, which meet upgraded safety requirements set by DOT, and summarizes the types of tank cars carrying Class 3 flammable liquids. The rolling phase-out schedule for tank cars is based on the type of tank car and flammable liquid(s) carried.

The May 1, 2025 phase-out deadline affected several rail tank car and flammable liquid types. Jacketed CPC-1232 tank cars were prohibited from carrying ethanol and crude oil, and all DOT-111 and CPC-1232 tank cars were prohibited from carrying other flammable liquids in packing group Ⅰ.

Inventory of Rail Tank Cars Carrying Class 3 Flammable Liquids by Year

Source: BTS, data from Railinc datasets, Umler® and TRAIN Ⅱ®, on rail tank car and annualized rail tank car movements between 2013 and 2025.

In 2025, 100,485 rail tank cars were used to carry Class 3 flammable liquids, a 0.6-percent decrease from 2024. In 2016, only 8 percent of the fleet that carried crude oil and other Class 3 flammable liquids were DOT-117 tank cars (new or retrofitted), compared to 76 percent in 2025. For crude oil alone, in 2025, 94.3 percent of the fleet consisted of DOT-117 tank cars, slightly down from 95.7 percent in 2024.

Based on a survey of facilities capable of building and/or retrofitting per DOT-117 and DOT-117R specifications, respectively, 2,137 new DOT-117 rail tank cars are projected to be built and 663 DOT-117R tank cars are projected to be retrofitted in 2026-for a projected total of 2,800 DOT-117 and DOT-117R tank cars added to the fleet in 2026.

The annual BTS report is required under FAST Act, Section 7308. Additionally, Section 7308(c) requires BTS to estimate the anticipated number of DOT-117 rail tank cars for each year from 2018 through 2029 by collecting data from rail tank car shops that build and/or retrofit tank cars. By the end of 2029, all Class 3 flammable liquids are expected to be carried in tank cars that meet or exceed DOT-117 specifications.