NTSB derailment investigation renews concerns about detectors, tank cars and Norfolk Southern

The National Transportation Safety Board’s daylong hearing into the cause of the accident disastrous train derailment in East Palestine near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border last year the communityrailways and policy makers plenty to think about.

The NTSB confirmed the crash was caused by an overheating of one of the train cars, and they explained why officials were wrong blowing open five tankers vinyl chloride and burn the contents.

Here are some of the agency’s key findings Tuesday hearing:

The detectors that railroads use along their tracks to detect overheated bearings, flat wheels and dangling equipment were a major focus of the NTSB investigation.

The Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine passed through three so-called hot box detectors just before the crash, but the train’s overheated bearing was not spotted in time, even though surveillance footage showed a fire under the train car as it drove through Salem. , Ohio.

The detectors noticed that the temperature was increasing, but did not sound the alarm quickly enough. NTSB investigators said the Salem detector did not get an accurate temperature reading even though the lower temperature showed it to be 103 degrees hotter than the outside temperature. That’s partly because it can take a while for the heat from a burning bearing to reach the outside of the shaft where it can be measured.

The NTSB said more research and regulations are needed for detectors because there are no federal standards for them. Major railroad companies developed the devices themselves, with no guidelines on where to place them or when to trigger an alarm. Industry research has shown that having a hotbox detector every 15 miles is ideal, but researchers think more research is needed.

The six largest railways after East Palestine promised to install hotbox detectors an average distance of 15 miles apart and had a uniform standard that trains must be stopped once a bearing registers more than 170 degrees above ambient.

But none of these measures seem to have changed this derailment. Even though the Salem and East Palestine detectors are 20 miles apart, the previous one was only 10 miles away, so the distance between them was already an average of 15 miles. Norfolk Southern already used 170 degrees as the threshold.

The derailment in East Palestine highlighted long-standing concerns about certain tankers known as DOT-111. Three of the hazardous materials cars that derailed, ruptured and caught fire that night were that model. NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said if those cars had not ruptured, there might never have been the massive, days-long fire that prompted officials to needlessly blow open five vinyl chloride tank cars and burn their contents five days after the derailment. The authorities did this because they were afraid the cars would explode.

The DOT-111 tank cars are made with a steel shell less than half an inch thick, which has been proven time and time again to crack much more often than newer cars made from thicker steel.

The same tankers played a role in the worst rail disaster in modern history, when 47 people were killed in 2013 after a crude oil train derailed in the small Canadian town of Lac Megantic. DOT-111 tankers have also been involved in a number of disastrous oil spills. and the ethanol derailments of the early 2000s, when railroads routinely transported entire trains of these flammable goods.

Regulators issued a rule in 2015 that aimed to have all DOT-111s carrying flammable liquids replaced or upgraded by 2025, but Congress postponed the deadline until 2029. The owners of the tankers – these are generally the chemical companies, other shippers and leasing companies rather than the railroads – have long resisted a more aggressive upgrade schedule because of the roughly $135,000 price tag for a more powerful DOT-117 tanker.

According to the Association of American Railroads, approximately 25,000 DOT-111 tank cars are still in use. That’s a relatively small portion of the North American tanker fleet of about 450,000. Many of them carry much more innocuous cargo, like corn syrup.

Despite concerns raised by the NTSB since 1991, current rules will still allow DOT-111 tankers to carry certain hazardous materials, such as flammable liquids like diesel, even after the 2029 deadline. They just can’t are used for things classified as flammable liquids, such as the butyl acrylate spill in eastern Palestine.

Railroad worker groups and safety advocates hope that now that the NTSB has had its say, Congress will finally take action. reforms that stalled months after Eastern Palestine. Republican leaders said they wanted to see that agency’s final report before considering imposing new rules.

In the Senate, proponents of the rail safety bill have remained optimistic that the legislation could come to a vote. But so far, opposition from Republicans and railroads has kept the bill from moving forward. Similar legislation has failed to gain momentum in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Republicans are expected to propose a much more limited rail safety bill, which likely won’t include all the inspection standards and two-person crew requirements in the bill. Senate bill now. As attention turns to the November elections, congressional leaders are running out of time to wrap up lengthy negotiations that will likely require major railroad safety legislation.

Homendy refused to bow to pressure from Norfolk Southern to declare that the railroad did not insist on ventilating and burning the vinyl chloride cars because they wanted to get the trains moving again quickly. The railroad has long maintained that it was concerned about safety — not the delivery schedule or the bottom line — when it recommended that last resort.

Rail safety experts said it was true that the ventilation and fire strategy was the fastest way to reopen the tracks. The wait for the fire to be extinguished and the damaged tanker trucks to be unloaded could take weeks.

“If there are 35 or 45 trains waiting to come through an area, you can’t ignore it,” said Randy Fannon, who heads the safety task force for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and helps with the NTSB’s research.

“The railway company wants to have the main line open again as soon as possible,” he said.

The NTSB’s findings and Homendy’s criticism led to new calls for accountability. Norfolk South al arranged with the federal government and agreed to a $600 Million Class Action Settlement with residents. State investigations in Ohio and Pennsylvania and individual lawsuits appear to be the only remaining potential consequences.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said, “The NTSB’s findings answered some questions but raised additional questions. Our lawsuit is still ongoing.”

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AP reporter Stephen Groves contributed to this report from Washington.