The Albany Times-Union reports a freight train loaded with crude oil derailed in northern Illinois on March 5, the latest in a series of accidents nationwide and in Canada that have worried local officials. The BNSF Railway train derailed in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, with giant flames and smoke fumes. Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike path, according to local officials. "According to the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana," the story says. Locally, oil trains run daily along the west side of the Hudson River, with many sitting in the Albany yards between I-787 and the river. In 2013, a train carrying Bakken crude derailed in a Quebec town in 2013, killing 47 people. Last month, a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude derailed in West Virginia, leaking oil into a river tributary. New York officials have called on federal officials to tighten regulations to prevent further accidents, but have not kept their own oil train spill fund with inflation. Read the full story in the Albany Times-Union.