Train Derailment In East Palestine, Ohio: What We Know | HuffPost Latest News

In 2007, railroad giant Norfolk Southern Corp. boasted it was making railroad history by operating the nations first freight train equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes a modern technology that the company noted could make trains safer by significantly decreasing how long it took them to stop.

Norfolk Southern said at the time that it planned to add ECP brakes which the company said had the potential to reduce train stopping distances by as much as 60 percent over conventional air brake systems to dozens of locomotives and cars in its coal train fleet.

Fast forward to 2014, when the Obama administration unveiled new safety rules that, among other things, required ECP brakes on trains hauling a certain amount of crude oil and other so-called high-hazard flammable materials. The Association of American Railroads, an industry lobbying group of which Norfolk Southern is a member, fiercely opposed the regulations.

ECP brakes would be extremely costly without providing an offsetting benefit, the trade group wrote in public comments on the rule. It argued the push to mandate the technology lacked a safety justification.

At the urging of AAR and other rail interests, the industry-friendly Trump administration repealed the Obama-era ECP brake rule in 2018.

The railroad industrys history of fighting stricter safety regulations, which investigative news outlet The Lever first reported last week, is taking center stage in the wake of a fiery derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in rural eastern Ohio.

Officials are in the early stages of investigating what went wrong in East Palestine. But the derailment has sparked fear in rail towns across the country, and both industry experts and lawmakers have renewed calls for stronger safety standards for trains transporting hazardous materials before another similar disaster strikes.

On February 3, a horrifying railroad accident took place. A Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. You might've seen images of the flames, but you probably haven't heard that unions were trying to prevent this exact accident. pic.twitter.com/pnynoFHSnm

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On February 3, a horrifying railroad accident took place. A Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. You might've seen images of the flames, but you probably haven't heard that unions were trying to prevent this exact accident. pic.twitter.com/pnynoFHSnm
More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) February 10, 2023

On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic and flammable materials careened off the tracks in East Palestine, a town of approximately 5,000 people on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Of the 50 train cars that either derailed or were damaged in the resulting fire, 20 contained hazardous material, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That toxic cargo included hundreds of thousands of pounds of vinyl chloride, a common organic chemical used in the production of plastics that has been linked to several types of cancer .

The wreckage burned for several days, and on Feb. 5, authorities ordered an urgent evacuation for everyone within one mile of the site due to the potential for a catastrophic tanker failure which could cause an explosion with the potential of deadly shrapnel traveling up to a mile. To prevent such an explosion, officials eventually conducted what they described as a controlled burn of vinyl chloride, releasing black clouds of phosgene, hydrogen chloride and other gases into the air. Phosgene was used as a chemical weapon during World War I, and exposure to it can cause vomiting, eye irritation and breathing difficulty.

Federal and state agencies have monitored air and water quality since the incident. The EPA says air samples have not detected elevated levels of vinyl chloride, hydrogen chloride or other toxins in the community, including inside homes that have undergone screenings. But contaminants have been detected in the Ohio River.

In a letter to the CEO of Norfolk Southern, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) on Tuesday accused the company of mismanaging the derailment and refusing to explore alternatives to venting and burning toxic chemicals.

Prioritizing an accelerated and arbitrary timeline to reopen the rail line injected unnecessary risk and created confusion, Shapiro wrote.

Others have similarly condemned the railroads decision.

We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open, Sil Caggiano, a hazardous materials specialist, told an Ohio TV station.

Hazmat On The Tracks

Preliminary information indicates a mechanical issue on a rail car axle triggered the disaster in Ohio, according to Michael Graham , a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, a government agency that investigates civil transportation accidents. Security camera footage obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette shows flames and sparks beneath one of the cars approximately 20 miles before it derailed, raising questions about when the crew would have known about a problem and why the train wasnt stopped sooner.

When HuffPost asked about the accident and the companys history of opposing stricter safety rules, Norfolk Southern spokesperson Connor Spielmaker said the company is a member of AARs Tank Car Committee that sets standards that meet and even exceed DOT regulations. He referred HuffPost to AAR for industry-level questions on ECP brakes and to the NTSB for information about the derailment.

In public statements, company officials have said that safety is No. 1 for Norfolk Southern and that they are committed to East Palestine today and in the future.

The Obama-era brake rule would not have applied to the type of train that derailed in Ohio. But Steven Ditmeyer, a former senior official at the Federal Railroad Administration, and other rail experts told the Lever that the derailment would have been less severe if the train had the upgraded brake technology.

NTSB confirmed to HuffPost that the Ohio train was not equipped with ECP brakes.