From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Since Ohio Train Derailment, Accidents Have Gone Up, Not Down   
   By Peter Eavis, Jan. 28, 2024, New York Times   
   Derailments, the most common accident, were up 13.5% last year, and   
   “obstruction accidents,” a term used to describe a train striking certain   
   objects, and the second-most-common category, rose 21%.   
      
   The rail administration also compiles accident causes, and this data shows   
   that there were 17 incidents involving overheated wheel bearings in the first   
   10 months of last year — more than double the six recorded in the same   
   period of 2022 and higher    
   than any full year’s total since 2014.   
      
   “We are absolutely, despite the uptick in some numbers in ’23, still by   
   far the safest way to move goods over land, especially hazmat,” Ian   
   Jefferies, CEO of the Association of American Railroads, a trade group that   
   also sets operating standards    
   for railroads, said in an interview. “And we’ve got to work every day to   
   continue to drive those numbers further down.”   
      
   Mr. Jefferies said the railroads had taken several steps after the East   
   Palestine accident to improve safety. Previously, the industry required that   
   railroads stop and remove a rail car if a wheel bearing’s temp hit 200   
   degrees F. In July, the    
   association required that action at 170 degrees. (The wheel bearing on the   
   East Palestine train at one point reached 253 degrees, according to a   
   track-side detector.)   
      
   BNSF, owned by Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the largest U.S.   
   railroad as determined by miles of track, showed a 10% increase in accidents   
   in the period. Kendall Kirkham Sloan, a BNSF spokeswoman, said that the   
   company was the safest    
   railroad in the country, based on the federal government’s measures of   
   safety, and that accidents were being reduced by training and technology.   
      
   Union Pacific, the 2nd-largest railroad, reported a 32% increase in accidents   
   in the period. Kristen South, a company spokeswoman, said that some accidents,   
   like those caused by objects on the track, were beyond a railroad’s control   
   and that the focus    
   should be on “serious” derailments, a category that she said fell 5% last   
   year at Union Pacific.   
      
   CSX, the 3rd-largest railroad, reported a 31% increase in accidents in the   
   10-month period. Bryan Tucker, a spokesman, said the company’s safety   
   performance had been “challenged” by its hiring of many new employees   
   after the pandemic, but last year    
   it bolstered its training, and that contributed to a steep drop in accidents   
   in the fourth quarter. As a result, CSX on Wednesday reported an accident rate   
   — which measures accidents as a percentage of the distances traveled by   
   trains — that was    
   slightly lower in 2023 than in 2022. (Its total accidents still rose.)   
      
   The five railways’ total performance last year would have been worse had it   
   not been for significant improvement at Norfolk Southern, which reported 29   
   accidents in the first 10 months of 2023 on its main lines, down 37% from 46   
   in the same period of    
   2022.   
      
   In an interview, Alan Shaw, Norfolk Southern’s CEO, said the company had   
   changed how it assembled trains to try to make them less likely to have   
   accidents. It also introduced new technology and focused on improving its   
   safety culture.   
      
   “It is a continual process — there’s no silver bullet,” he said.   
   “It’s a bunch of different initiatives all pulling together.”   
      
   On its approach to East Palestine, the train that derailed did not pass an   
   overheated-bearing detector for nearly 20 miles, suggesting that if there had   
   been more detectors, with shorter distances between them, the problem might   
   have been picked up    
   earlier, perhaps averting the derailment.   
      
   Norfolk Southern added two detectors near East Palestine, resulting in an   
   average of 11 miles between the detectors, said Connor Spielmaker, a   
   spokesman. Across the busiest parts of its network, Norfolk Southern has added   
   115 detectors since March, and    
   with more additions it expects the average distance between detectors to fall   
   to around 11 miles from 13.9 miles by the end of this year, he said. On the   
   approach to East Palestine, the company has put into service two of its latest   
   digital inspection    
   portals, which use 38 cameras to capture potential defects on trains as they   
   pass through.   
      
   Still, Norfolk Southern had four derailments and an employee fatality last   
   year that are being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.   
   And it had five incidents involving overheated wheel bearings, the highest   
   number in at least three    
   decades.   
      
   Through working with Norfolk Southern, the East Palestine Fire Department has   
   access to a system that immediately tells it what is in rail cars, something   
   it didn’t have when the derailment occurred, said Keith Drabick, the   
   department’s chief.   
      
   “You had a hard time because of the amount of fire going on,” he said.   
      
   Norfolk Southern has paid derailment-related expenses of East Palestine   
   families, like cleanup and relocation costs, and settled claims with a few   
   businesses. It plans to spend $25 million overhauling the town’s park and   
   the same amount on building a    
   training center for emergency workers in the town.   
      
   “They made the mistake. They’re cleaning it up,” Mayor Conaway said.   
   “But it’d be nice if the mistake never happened in the first place.”   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/business/ohio-train-derailmen   
   -safety-east-palestine.html   
      
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