WASHINGTON — A subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure has scheduled a hearing on rail safety for Tuesday, July 23.
The Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials will hold the session, “Examining the State of Rail Safety in the Aftermath of the Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio,” at 2 p.m. ET in Room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Live video will be available here.
A list of those scheduled to testify or other details of the agenda have not yet been released. When available, they will be at the same page linked above.
Rail safety legislation introduced in both the House and Senate has languished in committee since being introduced shortly after the Feb. 3, 2023, East Palestine derailment. The House version, H.R. 1633, the Reducing Accidents in Locomotives, or RAIL, Act, was introduced last March 17, and referred to the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials three days later. That was the last action until January, when a motion changed credit as first sponsor of the bill from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) to Rep. Emilia Strong Sykes (D-Ohio); no action has been taken since.
A major thunderbumper last night fell on the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76), blocking all lanes in one direction. Despite the bad visibility, no one hit it, but they were stuck until PENNDOT crews could remove it.
The wealthy suburbanites along the AMTK/SEPTA (PRR) Main Line refuse to trim their trees and periodically one falls, taking down the catenary and blocking the RR. Trains can’t move until the tree is removed and traffic is restored. There aren’t enough buses or diesels to substitute.
A safety item that is ignored because it has not caused a major derailment is trees falling on tracks. I would like to see a listing of all the Amtrak and freight RR collisions with trees on tracks. Someday trees are going to cause a major derailment of Haz Mat! Or an passenger train maybe not even Amtrak.
The railroads need to maintain a clear zone minimum of 25 feet from center of tracks minimum. Not going to happen. CSX had a fatality a few years ago when a conductor was riding a shove on a siding and was impaled by a tree. Cheaper to pay a lawsuit than to be a responsible landowner.