BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — The City of Binghamton is moving to hire a firm to inspect at least 28 railroad bridges in the city, citing concerns increased by the recent Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
WBNG-TV reports that Mayor Jared Kraham said concerns about aesthetic and structural deficiencies predate the Feb. 3 derailment, but the accident “magnified the focus,” especially since 25 of the bridges involved carry the tracks of NS. The other three carry the New York, Susquehanna & Western.
WBNF Radio reports that Kraham said at a press conference that because the bridges are privately owned and railroads are federally regulated, “it’s been thought for decades that there was little City Hall could do. I’m not going to accept that. We will put railroad companies on notice for the deplorable condition of their infrastructure in Binghamton.”
The cost of the inspections is projected to be less than $50,000. The city will issue a Request for Qualifications this week, and interview firms next month with the goal of inspections beginning this spring and summer.
While taking a walk I talked to a railroad inspector who was checking a bridge. He said he never classified a bridge as deficient because he valued his job. So he gave several bridges the lowest passable classification.
Setting aside the serious and important issues concerning site access to railroad property that others have already cited, a $50,000.00 budget to inspect “at least 28 railroad bridges” works out to an average of less than $1,800. per structure. It would be interesting to see what sort of a report Deliverable the City would receive in exchange for what seems like an inadequate budget.
So not count on the blanket federal pre emption remaining. Congress could decide that states can inspect, designate train length. blocked crossing, Haz Mat, and other items as well allow FRA to also have jurisdiction.
I’LL INSPECT THEM FOR$75K and I’ll do a swell job…because I am charging $25K MORE!
Is there something I am missing here? A railcar has a failed bearing (according to preliminary reports, obvious in the tapes) so lets inspect the bridges? Why not test the air of passing trains? They may be leaking STUFF!!! (SARCASM)
These “inspections” are being done independent of the railroads, that is, performed without any right to access inspection records, dates nor any legal access to the property. Ultimately his honor will pay $50k of the peoples’ money for a survey not worth the paper it’s printed on.
Cities can inspect anything within their jurisdiction including private structures. Buildings commerical or residential. Factories, apartment buildings. If they deem them unworthy, they can file condemnation proceedings against the problem structure and have its use closed through a court order.
Example: McKinley Bridge over the Mississippi River. The City of St Louis had the bridge condemned and closed the entrance on the Missouri side for safety reasons.
Railroad structures not publicly owned are not within local jurisdiction. The McKinley Bridge is a public structure and as such falls under local purview. In “good faith” a railroad may cooperate with local governments to assure the public but there is no obligation.
For $50,000 worth of inspection fees for 28 bridges, Mayor Jared Kraham gets cheap publicity and makes him appear to be proactive. I can’t believe $50K is going to provide any detailed analysis that will assess the structural integrity of these 28 bridges.
$50K will provide a Power Point with photos and some text. The “inspectors” will know that they don’t have access to the structure.
Aesthetics does not equal structural integrity…anything made of concrete can look like it’s falling apart and still be sound structurally, so this study is a waste of taxpayers money.
I live in Chicago area but have viewed the former CCC&St.L. NYC concrete viaduct over the Miami river at Sidney OH. and been appalled by how its concrete is spalling and exposing rebar.. CCC&St.L. and many other RRs built lots of these concrete viaducts and I’m sure many of them are also deteriorating. I fell it is hard for the Bridge Engineers to convincing the bean counters to spend money to do anything until it falls apart. How one determines its failure point is beyond me. But I have some real concerns about their safety. I have driven multiple times over the Brent Spence bridge in Cincinnati that Biden & McConnell have declared needs replacing. Dammed if I can tell what is deficient on it. The nearby C&O bridge that was rebuilt in 1929 is still going as is the 1867 suspension bridge built by John Roebling (builder of the Brooklyn bridge) although some mason work has been done recently
If this inspection finds even one deficient bridge that is going to be a major problem for NS and the other class 1s . These results may cause more congressional mandated regulation of the class 1s and some of the class 2s and 3s.
The disclosure of ownership of most Class 1s that are owned by the same funds is going to cause a major shake up at NS. Its management is going to be held for causing dip in earnings at all the RRs. If I owned substantial stock in more than 2 or three of the affected RRs and am going to lose stock value and profits for all the management of NS has to go.
It is not really management’s fault but the stock owners but the owners are going to try to blame someone else instead of their demands on management especially lowering ORs.
Railroad bridges are federally mandated (49 CFR Part 237) to inspect their bridges once each calendar year. That is twice as often as highway bridges are inspected and the railroad is responsible for maintenance of reporting as well as an internal rating system for need of repair, etc. The FRA has some access to those records but publicly available is not an option for a number of reasons, including homeland security.
If you pay a private company enough money, they could easily write just about any report you want them to. That being said, since the railroads are privately owned, they should have the final say as to who inspects them.
How does that work for building inspectors? Commerical or residential. All are privately owned yet cities have no issue inspecting them.
Google maps shows many of those structures being cast concrete, with the bottom of the decks as well as the substructure being in good to excellent condition. Some of them have barrier walls on the sides that have deteriorating concrete but those are typically not structural.
I think the mayor will be disappointed when he gets his structural evaluations back.
The safety of the community is most certainly an issue for a mayor. The report says the city is willing to pay for the inspection, what is the posters’ beefs? Given the potential for problems for a city it makes sense. The NS should be all over the idea of partnering. And if everything comes back as good or OK both the RR and the politicians should be happy.
Is this a City issue? The railroad is Federally mandated as I understand it. This is NOT a city issue. Spend the money on City issues. What is the City going to do with the report? Wow, maybe the people need to explain the Mayors mandate.
You really need to teach civics in school again, people do not appear to understand how government works.
While the city can not directly regulate, if enough cities come forward (hopefully with data) to their federal representatives along with enough states passing unenforcable laws, railroad safety will get more attention and hopefully action. And I say this as a stockholder in one of the Big 4 US railroads!!!
Indeed improved rail safety oversight could be a bipartisan issue with both sides making noise, though in some sense blaming each other. Unfortunately, we seem the response to disasters before– lots of noise to the response and little for prevention. Indeed the US Public, media and politicinans have the attention spans of a gnats and they reinforce each other.
I agree that it’s a federal responsibility but there have been too many railroad bridge failures due to the lack of basic maintenance by the railroads. I can see the Mayor’s concern. With the current business attitude by the railroads to maximize profits be seeking ever lower operating ratios the eyesore and safety lack of maintenance is appalling. It’s the attitude of many railroads not to do maintenance until failure. An example of this type of neglect was the Quebec Bridge. CN owned the bridge and stopped painting it and not doing any maintenance. It got so bad that pieces of the bridge were falling off and not being repaired. The Province of Quebec hired consultant that said the bridge was in danger of collapse. This report forced the Province to take over the ownership of the bridge.
So that means that the taxpayers will have to pay to repair the bridge but CN still gets to use it? If the Province takes it over they should at least charge CN tolls to use it.
The city should know that its best not to poke its nose into a situation it can’t control.