COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called for congressional action requiring railroads to provide notification when they are transporting hazardous materials through states in the wake of the Feb. 3 derailment and fire of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that in a Tuesday press conference, DeWine said he was told by the state’s Public Utilities Commission that the train was not properly classified, so the railroad was not required to provide any notification of the materials involved.
“Frankly, if this was true, and I’m told it’s true, this is absurd,” DeWine said. “… Congress needs to take a look at how these things are handled. We should know when we have trains carrying hazardous material that are going through the state of Ohio.”
DeWine also said he has talked to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw “numerous times” since the derailment.
“I discussed with him many of the concerns we’re hearing from residents of East Palestine,” DeWine said, according to WTOV-TV. “I asked him if he would personally guarantee, personally guarantee that the railroad would stay there until absolutely everything was cleaned up. He gave me his word and commitment that the railroad would to that. They would not leave until that was done.”
If not, DeWine said, “We’ve got an attorney general that will file a lawsuit. They’re responsible for this. They did it. The impact on this community is huge — not just physical problem that might be caused, but the inconvenience, the terror.”
In other developments:
— A USA Today report links lobbying by Norfolk Southern and the rest of the railroad industry to efforts to block regulations governing the movement of hazardous materials. It cites a 2015 Federal Railroad Administration rule that would have required the use of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, among other measures. That rule was repealed in 2017 [see “DOT formally rescinds ECP braking …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 5, 2017]
A former FRA official told USA Today that ECP brakes would have prevented a derailment as large as the one in East Palestine; a spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads told the newspaper in a statement that ECP brakes had a “significant” failure rate in tests and repair times that made them impractical.
— Presidential Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Tuesday briefing that the Biden administration has been “in close touch with local officials to ensure that they have what they need” to deal with the aftermath of the derailment, and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “will continue to support Ohio EPA surface and groundwater sampling efforts to ensure drinking water is indeed safe.” DeWine, during his press conference, said he had been in touch with President Joe Biden, who had offered whatever federal help the state needed.
Jean-Pierre declined comment on the request by the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO that the Federal Railroad Administration require railroads to participate in the confidential close call reporting system [see “Union group calls for FRA to require Class I participation …,” News Wire, Feb. 10, 2023], saying she “would need to talk to the policy team” to not get ahead of ongoing discussions. In the wake of the East Palestine accident, TTD President Greg Regan wrote FRA Administrator Amit Bose, saying freight rail operations require greater federal oversight.
Jean-Pierre did not respond to a question regarding electronically controlled brakes.
It seems to me, that the train not being properly classified is at the root of the cause of this problem. All the new regulations in the world won’t amount to anything, if they are not enforced. I even heard some media news reader try to put all the blame on Donald Trump. Mr Trump isn’t in charge of enforcing the rules for the railroads. Upper management is, as far as I understand it. Enforce the rules and add new ones if you must. Period. Human error is to blame in this case. Period.
Upper RR management is in control because their lobbying of the Trump admin got him to rollback improved safety standards. Over the last couple years, rr’s have cut way back on crew, power, even trackage, made trains way too long for safety, brake systems, passing tracks, and have fought off better tank cars, better brakes, and as I understand it, classification rules (like how many cars filled with poison do you need to consider a train hazardous). The problem – even if the Biden administration redoes the regs, it likely needs new laws to solidify such regs, and McCarthy will never allow it.
If you check you will find out that grain can cause grain silo explosions under the right conditions so therefore it is hazardous. There is many house hold products that can cause explosions if it comes in contract with other products. Others have breathing warnings in confined locations. Looking at the back packaging warnings on most products you would have the need for a warning about any of those products. In other words just about every train would need a warning and one of the reasons railroads don’t want to do that is any terrorist could use that information to cause an incident.
Read Title 49 of the Congressional Federal Record. It tells you everything you will ever want or never want to know.
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/search/%7B%22query%22%3A%2249%20CFR%22%2C%22offset%22%3A0%7D
We can expect a lot more grandstanding from politicians on this issue before it’s all over. I’ll bet there aren’t more than a handful of pols in federal and state governments across the country who have the slightest clue about how much hazmat actually moves by train. Their recent idea to bypass all populated areas for hazmat is insane.
Remember what Marcus Tullius Cicero, the ancient Roman said “Polticians are not born, they are excreted.”
As for the good news…..charities are saying they are getting a healthy supply of precious goods to the people who were put out by this accident. It doesn’t mean the story is over, but people across the US are responding in kind. Let’s hope it continues for awhile.
Norfolk Southern executives need to man up and face those effected by this disaster. That town faces decades of likely sickness and cancer because of their wreck. Backing out because they’re scared shows cowardice. I wouldn’t want to have to live their now. I remember people at ground zero on 9/11 were told it was environmentally safe and now 20 years later many are sick or dead so I’m not so sure I’d believe what those folks are being told.
If the Gov. was notified about every train carrying hazmat, what would he do? Really Gov. Explain yourself.
I would be surprised if just about every train didn’t have hazardous materials.
Yes, and if he would be notified about the thousands of Hazmat shipments that cross his state weekly, (by truck and rail) he would delegate it to some flunky so fast it would make your head spin. When Gov’s (or any politician) say stuff like that they are just making it look like they’re doing something about a problem. Its all for show and for the next election. In the end all they end up doing is giving some lower level bureaucrat an excuse to create another government job so he can say that his is over that function, something they are generally totally lacking any knowledge of.
I find it hard to believe the train was misclassified…trains aren’t classified as anything, individual carloads are classified as hazardous or non-hazardous. Third, Europe is in the process or will begin the process of not only converting their entire system to ECP but also automatic couplers…to say it doesn’t work and breaks down a lot is just a bunch of BS. They do not want to spend the money, that’s all it boils down to.
One of the big issues is comparability. The same thing happened when the air brakes went from K to AN to ABD to ABDW. It would be a nightmare to build a train.
Remember much of the rail car fleet in the North America is owned by third parties and not the railroads so you would have to get everyone of them to “conform” to some new set of standards. By the way in Europe their freight trains are much smaller than US trains and most are dedicated trains.
Why was blocked? There was nothing objectionable in my post, and it was the first and only one today
The issue are the lack of regulations limiting train size and more relaxed regulations of handling hazardous cargoes. When I worked in Syracuse for Conrail, a major shipper was the Allied chemical plant that produced chlorine and other nastiness. IIRC, dangerous cars has to be 6 from either end of the train and no more than 6 cars in a row. I do not recall any derailment that ever came close to East Palestine. And never ruptured tank cars. Trains were seldom 150 cars and never 200+ which is common today.
The Bay line had a northbound from Panama Cityderailment that killed several Persons
Atlanta and St. Andrews bay RR.
I would think that railroads have a sense for the volume, in gallons or tons, of hazmat handled by trucks. This information should be publicized. If the public becomes alarmed and calls for action against truckers, then the ATA may join railroads in opposing legislation.
Interestingly, Reading Company’s old MU cars from 1931-1932 had Electro-Pneumatic brakes. It was a different technology but they worked reliably for over 50 years.
Now, industry is unable to produce a reliable ECP brake.
refer to the links in yesterday’s news wire post “NTSB Preliminary Report updated” the information in the Car-by-car list is mind boggling and necessary to understand what is coming as a result of this wreck.
Why is it “mind-boggling?” EVERY form of transport – rail, highway, air, barge – have been handling hazardous cargo for decades and on a daily basis. I have complete sympathy and compassion for E. Palestine residents, but Gov. DeWine’s comments are pathetically pandering – the man knows better than what he sayeth.
All the know-it-alls out there don’t want vinyl chloride, chlorine or other TIH to move by rail? Fine, we have two options:
1) get used to not having the products which require those chemicals;
2) since 1 railcar roughly equals 4 trucks, prepare for there to be 4x as many TIH trucks next to you on the highway, or moving down rivers in barges. What could possibly go wrong?
The Governor should be on the phone with the GOP leader of the House of Representatives, that leaders hands are tied by his fellow GOP Representatives and will probably just give talking points. Meanwhile Democrats will probably jump on board and the GOP will go mum and nothing will happen. The amount of hazardous materials criss crossing Ohio at any minute in tank cars, truck or locomotive hauled, would probably be a surprise to the Governor.
Biden and his Sec of Transportation, Mayor Pete, have shown no interest in the problems of the people there and his FEMA has also turned their back on them. Politicians are the real hazardous waste!
Are trucks required to notify authorities when they haul hazardous material through or within their state?
Thought so.
no
The only requirement is that trucks be properly placarded with the chemical name and fire hazard so that responding fire departments can respond quickly and in a timely manner to what they are dealing with.
As far as current or proposed new rules for rail cars, all you need to know is in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 49. There are hundreds/thousands of regulations governing the sublime to the ridiculous. For more info, see https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-174. and any other parts/sections referenced herein. Its a real “can’t put it down” reading opportunity.