Another train derailment

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WASHINGTON – Today, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing efforts to strengthen rail safety and hold railroads accountable, Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has issued a final rule establishing minimum safety requirements for the size of train crews. The new rule enhances safety in the rail industry by generally requiring and emphasizing the importance and necessity of a second crewmember on all trains.

“Common sense tells us that large freight trains, some of which can be over three miles long, should have at least two crew members on board - and now there’s a federal regulation in place to ensure trains are safely staffed,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “This rule requiring safe train crew sizes is long overdue, and we are proud to deliver this change that will make workers, passengers, and communities safer.”

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A Norfolk Southern engineer expressed concerns to a supervisor about the length of the train that would later derail in East Palestine, Ohio, but the reservations went unaddressed, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The NTSB report released Thursday said the engineer from Decatur, Ill., expressed the concerns to the yardmaster but was told, “Well, this is what they [Norfolk Southern] want.
The engineer reportedly told investigators that “if you talk to the manager, they said this train was 100 percent rule compliant,” adding, “To me, in my opinion, you got 32 percent of the weight on the headend.”

“Twenty percent in the middle and 40 percent weight on the rearend,” they continued. “So, to me, that’s why we reported that to the yardmaster and like I said, this is what they want.”

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Currently, there aren’t any restrictions on train length but members of Congress and state lawmakers in at least six states have proposed establishing limits particularly in the wake of the fiery Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in Ohio. The major freight railroads have pushed back against that idea because they have increasingly come to rely on longer trains to help them move cargo with fewer crews and mechanics as they overhauled their operations over the past six years. Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz said recently that he doesn’t think accident data shows that long trains are riskier.

But the Federal Railroad Administration cited three derailments involving trains longer than 12,250 feet (3,734 meters) where train length was a factor in its advisory. That agency and the National Academies of Sciences are both in the middle of studying the impact of long trains, and they expect to issue reports next year on whether they are a problem.

The derailments mentioned as examples of the problems that can accompany long trains were in Springfield, Ohio, in March; in Ravenna, Ohio, last November; and in Rockwell, Iowa, in March 2022. In each of those cases, the way cars in different parts of the train pulled and pushed against each other contributed to the derailments.

This latest advisory follows one earlier this month that directed railroads to re-examine the way they assemble their trains to minimize those kind of forces that often come into play as a train goes over hills and around corners. Parts of a train can be pulling forward going up a hill while the middle or back of the train pushes against the rest of the cars while going down a hill.

The Federal Railroad Administration said that in addition to the concerns about derailments, long trains can block crossings for extended periods of time. When crossings are blocked, firefighters, police and ambulance drivers may be delayed in getting someone the help that they need, and pedestrians may risk their lives by crawling under or across stopped trains that could start moving without warning.

The states proposing limits on train size this year include Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada and Washington.

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New Mexican government.

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