JASPER, Ala. — Two crew members were injured Saturday night when a locomotive and 11 cars of a Norfolk Southern train derailed Saturday night, AL.com reports.
Also on Saturday, an NS train was involved in a minor derailment in Pittsburgh.
In the Alabama incident, the railroad said the locomotive rolled onto its side, spilling some diesel fuel and engine oil. The crew members were transported to a hospital and later released.
The Jasper Police Department said the crew members were briefly trapped onboard when the locomotive overturned but were freed with the assistance of Jasper Fire and Rescue.
The railroad said no hazardous materials were involved.
Jasper is about 40 miles northwest of Birmingham.
The Pittsburgh incident occurred before 10 a.m. Saturday morning in the city’s Esplen neighborhood, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports, and involved five empty cars. No injuries were reported. An adjacent road was closed for several hours.
What we are seeing is the results of cost cutting. Many with anything on the ball got out of railroading. This business with empty cars and loads was an issue I saw 50 years ago when I worked for the Milwaukee Road, so it is hardly anything new.
I’m reminded of the early Amtrak Years. There was a tiny little publication with atrocious editing and formatting. If I remember half a century ago it was variously called Rail Travel News and Rail Travel Newsletter. It seemed that every week something went blooey with an Amtrak train. Not necessarily a derailment, but some sort of breakdown or incident. The bottom line, Amtrak couldn’t be relied upon.
Now since East Palestine every derailment no matter how minor is going to make the front page of the morning mass media newspaper. Serious incident or minor incident, it will happen. Freight railroading needs to improve.
Wondering when Mayo Pete and Amtrak Joe will do something by proposing legislation and using FRA to impose strict safety requirements and lots of multi-million or tens-of-millions in fines.
Anybody remember the Sandpatch derailment when EHH was proposing to single track the water level route and use the B&O instead?
I found pics of the derailment. Curve, empty cars, I need say no more. Maybe Class 1 officials need a set of ho scale trains. Put down some undulating track and a few sharp curves. Then build a massive badly blocked train and watch it topple over on the curve.
It seems that more and more of these minor derailments signifies a systemic problem with the culture.
Let’s hope this doesn’t lead to another greater tragedy.