WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration announced this evening (Tuesday, March 7) that it would conduct a 60-day supplemental safety assessment of Norfolk Southern Railway, joining the National Transportation Safety Board, which has announced its own investigation of NS safety practices.
“After a series of derailments and the death of one of its workers, we are initiating this further supplemental safety review of Norfolk Southern, while also calling on Norfolk Southern to act urgently to improve its focus on safety so the company can begin earning back the trust of the public and its employees,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a press release. “This comes as USDOT continues its own urgent actions to further improve freight rail safety and accountability.”
The FRA said its safety team will review findings and recommendations of a 2022 system audit and the railroad’s responses. The agency said it will also assess:
— Track, signal, and rolling stock maintenance, inspection, and repair practices;
— Protection for employees working on rail infrastructure, locomotives, and rail cars;
— Communication between transportation departments and mechanical and engineering staff;
— Operation control center procedures and dispatcher training;
— Compliance with federal Hours of Service regulations;
— Evaluating results of operational testing of employees’ execution and comprehension of all applicable operating rules and federal regulations;
— Training and qualification programs available to all railroad employees, including engineer and conductor training and certification;
— Maintenance, inspection, and calibration policies and procedures for wayside defect detectors;
— Procedures related to all wayside defect detector alerts;
— Measures implemented to prevent employee fatigue, including the development and implementation of fatigue management programs required as part of FRA’s Risk Reduction Program rule;
— Current status of the hazard and risk analysis required by the Risk Reduction Program rule.
Information gathered through the assessment will be used to determine specific areas for FRA oversight and enforcement and help “identify risks beyond the reach of current federal regulations,” the FRA said. It will also use the information to push NS to develop measures to address risks and identify enforcement actions.
The FRA said it will issue a public report on its findings.
The FRA announcement came hours after the NTSB announced its own special investigation into NS safety practices and culture, its first such look at a railroad since a 2014 probe of the commuter operator Metro-North Railroad [see “NTSB launches special investigation …,” Trains News Wire, March 7, 2023].
All because the RRs changed their focus with the Harrison wave which emphasized cost-cutting and OR as the prime goals and investors demanded results.
Regulatory standards must be improved and updated to reflect the technological advances that are available, if our political environment is capable of doing so.
From what our regulators have shown so far, they will throw anything against a wall to see what sticks. Most of this noise is a sideshow for political benefit and pushing political agendas. Two-person crews, ECP brakes, etc etc etc.
There were three people on East Palestine. A lot of good multiple people did. ECP brakes would not have stopped this accident. NTSB has already stated that.
FRA and NTSB need to stick to task on East Palestine. How can bearing detection be enhanced? That is the question that should be answered. We don’t need every car in the fleet to have something added that will have to be fixed eventually. We have the hardware tools in place now. We need to actually use the data they had so this could have been avoided.
And when is FRA going to openly admit that they don’t really regulate bearing inspection? Are they trying to put that off as long as they can because they know the blowback they are going to get?
And the item that was the cause of the East Palestine accident comes in as number 9 on the FRA hit list. While NS has definitely had a run of bad luck, are in a period of excessive overreach to treat the issues of East Palestine as a second-tier priority on this list.
Get ready for a lot of wasted time and effort and MAYBE they will fix what was the real cause of East Palestine; the limited use of the detector data that could have been massaged to spot the problem before the bearing completely failed.
Such a fall from grace. NS won the E H Harriman gold medal for being the safest railroad in the nation for 20 years in a row back in the 80’s and 90’s, and now they wallow in the mud.
Since the Palintine derailment, NS stock down about 12%, was $252 but now $215 a share. Number of shares traded is almost double. was trading 1 to 1.2 million a day to 1.8 to 2 million a day with a few days over 3 million shares. Wonder if any of the corporate holders of stock cashing out before it drops even more.