Railroads and regulators must address the dangers of long trains, report says
OMAHA, Nebraska — As freight trains have grown longer, the number of derailments caused by the forces created when cars push and pull against each other has also increased, the National Academies of Sciences said in a report Tuesday. long awaited report that regulators, Congress and industry should re-examine the risks involved.
The report said there is a clear correlation between the number of derailments related to in-train forces and the long trains that are routinely more than a mile or two long. So railroads need to take special care in how they put together long trains, especially those with a mix of different types of cars.
That recommendation is an echo of a warning which the Bundesbahnbehörde issued last year.
“Long trains are not inherently dangerous. But if you don’t plan how you put the train together properly, they can be,” said Peter Swan, a professor at Penn State University who was one of the authors of the report.
The increased use of long trains has allowed the major freight carriers — CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, CPKC and Canadian National — to cut costs because they deploy fewer crews and fewer locomotives maintained. The average length of trains increased by about 25% from 2008 to 2017. By 2021, when the report was written, some trains had grown to nearly 14,000 feet (4,267 meters), or more than 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) long.
The union representing train crews has said that longer trains are harder to handle, especially when they are traveling over uneven terrain, because of the way the cars push and pull against each other. In a train longer than a mile, one section may be going uphill while the other section is going downhill.
The number of derailments in the U.S. has held steady at more than 1,000 per year, or more than three per day, even as rail traffic declined. That has gotten attention since the Norfolk Southern Disastrous Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in February 2023 where hazardous chemicals leaked and burned for days. That train had more than 149 cars and was more than a mile long. The National Transportation Safety Board certain that the derailment was caused by an overheated bearing that was not detected in time by sensors along the track.
For long trains, the biggest concern is derailments caused by the forces that can tear a train apart as it crosses a rural area. The new report said Congress should ensure that the FRA has the power to address the dangers of those trains, and that the agency should require railroads to carefully plan how they handle longer trains.
In railroads, long trains can be made easier to control by placing locomotives in the middle and at the rear to pull and stop the trains, which is common.
The report also says it is important for railways to pay close attention to where they place heavy tank wagons, empty wagons and special wagons with shock absorbers.
In addition to concerns about derailments, long trains can block crossings for extended periods of time, sometimes preventing ambulances and police from accessing entire swaths of their communities. They also cause delays for Amtrak passenger trains that get stuck behind monstrous freight trains that can’t fit into the sidings that are supposed to allow trains to pass each other in such situations.
The report says Congress should give federal regulators the authority to punish railroads that cause such problems.