Railroad Safety

 East Palestine, Ohio is a village of some 4700 people located directly adjacent to the state line of Pennsylvania. Railroad lines have long gone through East Palestine. On 3 February at about 2100 a 150-car Norfolk Southern freight train derailed; most of the cargo was nonhazardous but 20 cars contained hazardous materials. In total about 3 dozen cars went off the tracks and 11 of these contained chemicals, some of them toxic. Tank cars containing vinyl chloride and benzene were involved as well as other flammable but less toxic materials. Fire departments fought the resulting fires but one tank car, felt to be in danger of exploding, had its cargo of vinyl chloride released and a “controlled explosion” was done. The result is here:

When vinyl chloride burns, it produces hydrochloric acid (the same acid we make in our stomachs as part of digestion) and phosgene, a poisonous gas used in World War I. The plume above undoubtedly contains those chemicals and many others. I would be terrified to be in East Palestine while this was going on.

Railroads were a major part of the Industrial Age and continue to be very important today. In a typical year, trains move 1.7 billion tons of freight in the United States over almost 140,000 miles of track. It is more efficient to move goods by rail than by road, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Railroads are here to stay for the foreseeable future. There have always been dangers in running a railroad. Collisions, crashes, derailments. Transporting flammable commodities such as petroleum and chemicals adds to the risk as was seen in East Palestine. Chemicals such as vinyl chloride are hazardous themselves and if ignited produce dangerous gasses. 

Video from a site 20 miles before the derailment appears to show one of the train cars throwing sparks from an axle. Would improved brakes, as proposed by the Obama administration, have prevented this disaster? We cannot know but it is a matter of record that lobbying by the rail industry and a $6 million dollar donation to the GOP led to President Donald Trump scrapping a rule to require advanced brake systems on some hazmat trains. Of interest is that this 150-car train, with 20 cars carrying hazardous materials, was not designated as a hazard. 

The rail industry has poured money into the drive to reduce the number of trainmen on each train while trains have grown longer and longer. On two road trips through the Southwest in the past 9 months, my wife and I commented often on the extraordinary length of trains we saw; several extended several miles in length. Reducing crews, working them harder than ever, and spending money on opposition to safety regulations is not the way to go. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has stated that putting profits and wealthy shareholders before safety is unacceptable. 

While it is true that our world is reliant on a double-edged sword, we will have difficulty correcting this anytime soon. When major cities like Cincinnati have to close their water intakes to allow a poisonous plume to flow by, the danger has reached far from the small village where the derailment happened. Republicans seem never to have met a regulation they agreed with because it inhibits business and profits. What have we profited though if we have polluted the very world we must live in? Spending money to make railroads safe is for the people. Do it.