(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Transportation Department issued anemergency order designed to reduce the risks of transporting crudefrom North Dakota’s booming Bakken region by rail, a week after anoil train derailed and burned in Virginia.

The order requires railroads to notify state emergency agencieswhen they haul Bakken crude through communities. A separateadvisory discourages carriers from using an older tank car known asthe DOT-111 tied to some accidents, though the order doesn’t bantheir use.

“The safety of our nation’s railroad system, and the people wholive along rail corridors is of paramount concern,” TransportationSecretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.

Recent accidents have heightened concern about transporting oilby trains. Last year, a train operated by one person that was leftunattended overnight rolled into the center of Lac- Megantic,Quebec, and touched off an explosion that destroyed half the townand killed 47 people.

Railroads agreed in February to slow oil trains in urban areasand install sensors on tracks to detect problems. U.S. regulatorssaid last month they planned to require at least two crew membersfor crude shipments. The proposed rules are being reviewed at theWhite House, Foxx told a Senate committee today.

Today’s order applies to trains carrying more than 1 milliongallons of Bakken crude, the equivalent typically contained in 35tank cars. Some carriers assemble trains with 100 or more carsfilled with oil.

Lynchburg Accident

Foxx issued the order a week after a CSX Corp. train carryingBakken crude derailed and burned in Lynchburg, Virginia, forcingevacuation of the downtown. No one was hurt in Lynchburg, and thefire was doused in about three hours.

Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, told Foxx thatrequiring carriers to notify authorities about a train’s routewasn’t sufficient for residents.

“Just knowing that they’re coming through there isn’t going tobe enough,” Cantwell told Foxx at a Senate Commerce Committeehearing today.

BNSF Railway Co., the railroad owned by Warren Buffett’sBerkshire Hathaway Inc., said in an e-mailed statement it alreadyprovides state agencies and emergency response organizations withroute information on hazardous materials upon request. BNSF, whichoperates mostly west of the Mississippi River, is the main railroadthat provides service to the Bakken region, which is centered inNorth Dakota.

Studier Cars

The railroads, which usually don’t own tank cars, have urgedregulators to mandate studier cars and to require that older onesbe phased out over a shorter period than the shippers or leasingcompanies that own the cars want.

“BNSF believes that promulgation of a federal tank car standardwill provide much needed certainty for shippers and improved safetyand response time for all first responders,” the Fort Worth,Texas-based railroad said in the statement.

Crude-by-rail shipments have soared as drillers employ newtechnologies to crack open and free oil and gas from shaleformations at a faster pace than pipelines can handle.

Railroads moved about 400,000 oil carloads in 2013, dwarfing2005’s 6,000, according to an estimate by Logan Purk, a St.Louis-based Edward Jones & Co. analyst.

The train that derailed in Quebec included the DOT-111s. Canadaordered a phase out last month of older tank cars over a three-yearperiod.

Brigham McCown, a former head of the Pipeline and HazardousMaterials Safety Administration, said that while the advisory onthe tank cars stops short of prohibiting use of older models, theeffect could be far reaching.

“Now it becomes a potential legal liability to ship in an oldcar if there is an accident,” he said in an interview. Regulatorsshould focus on why trains are derailing rather than on thesturdiness of the tank cars, he said.

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