Love them or hate them: the New York Times and other media have revealed how much Norfolk Southern cared about profits and how little the railroad cared about safety. Or about the people along their routes.
Last month, for example, CEO Alan H. Shaw told Norfolk Southern’s shareholders that their service was “at the best it’s been in more than two years.” About a week later, one of its trains derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing toxic chemicals and spreading fear in the town. Then, on Thursday, another of its trains derailed near Detroit.
As a matter of fact, over the past ten years, incidents involving Norfolk Southern and its transporting of hazardous materials skyrocketed nearly six fold. The Daily Mail reported that in 2012, Federal Railroad Administration showed that 105 cars carrying noxious materials were involved in accidents. By 2022 that number had jumped to 654 cars.
However, not every railroad has experienced the same rise in accidents as Norfolk Southern. In fact, over the same time period, BNSF — the largest railroad in the US — saw a decrease in damaged hazmat cars. So did Union Pacific, the second largest.
The NYT reported that last year Norfolk Southern had earned over $3 billion and had invested almost $2 billion in railways and operations. But over the past five years it paid its shareholders twice the amount it invested in railways and operations. It also implemented a program called Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) which aims at moving more freight at lower costs. And under PSR, Norfolk Southern has cut its staff by 40%, but increased the length of its trains by 20%. Moreover, while the national average train length in 2017 was 1.4 miles, the East Palestine train was 1.9 miles. It also had 149 cars; federal regulators classify trains with 150 cars as “very long.”
Rail workers have been concerned about PSR even before the East Palestine accident.
@moreperfectunion @heyjohnrussell explains why the Ohio railroad disaster occurred. #workersrights #labormovement #unions #leftist #leftisttiktok #railroad #ohio #transportation
Moreover, Ian Naish, a train safety consultant and a former investigator at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, told the NYT:
The longer, heavier and faster you make the trains, without any commensurate adjustment in safety protocols, the thinner your risk margins are getting.
Not only that, but Norfolk Southern has been laying off workers, too.
But the railroad defended its practices. The company said in a statement:
We diligently monitor our trains and infrastructure to identify potential hazards, and we invest approximately a billion dollars into maintaining our infrastructure annually.
While Norfolk Southern has been cutting workers, running longer trains, and boosting profits, they’ve also been allying themselves with ESG. That’s “Environmental, Social, and Governance” investments on climate issues.
Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted:
In 2021 Norfolk Southern adopted an ESG proposal mandating the company to align its lobbying with the Paris Agreement on “climate.”
In 2021 Norfolk Southern adopted an ESG proposal mandating the company to align its lobbying with the Paris Agreement on “climate.” This is shameful. Should’ve focused on train safety. Shame on Vanguard, JP Morgan, etc. for using your $ to vote for this insanity. Wake up, folks.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) February 17, 2023
How ironic that Norfolk Southern sought to curry favor with the climate crowd, only to ruin the environment of a small town.
Wherever there’s big corporate money, there are bound to be lobbyists and politicians ready to scratch each other’s backs. It’s no different with Norfolk Southern.
But if you’re looking to see if the railroad giant favored one party over the other, you won’t find it. According to Open Secrets, the company largely divided its political donations equally between both parties, with a slight favor to the Democrat Party.
And the railroad likes to lobby, too. Open Secrets reports that it was active in lobbying, ranking 385 of 9006 in 2022. As you might guess, most of its lobbyists that year — almost 75% — previously held government jobs, either congressional staff or members of Congress.
A lobby of lobbyists. Becky McCray/flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Meanwhile the Biden administration Department of Justice is supporting Norfolk Southern’s efforts to block future lawsuits.
Just as the East Palestine drama is playing out, the US Supreme Court is considering whether to throw out a 2017 lawsuit that a cancer-afflicted former rail worker filed against Norfolk Southern. Should SCOTUS side with the railroad company, it would be easier for it to block lawsuits, including from East Palestine residents. As Scott Nelson, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group said:
Such a decision could affect lawsuits filed by residents exposed to hazardous chemicals as the result of accidents in other states.
So Amtrak Joe is siding with Big Railroad rather than the poor people of East Palestine. And here he’s been telling us that he’s all for the little guy.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been conspicuously absent from East Palestine, Ohio, and perhaps its residents prefer him to stay away. After all, he seemed to downplay the incident, telling Yahoo! Finance that “there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing.” After that gaffe, some of the town’s residents want Buttigieg sacked, and understandably so.
However, both US senators from Ohio visited the town, observing the disaster. Both expressed concern about the long-term environmental impact.
Sen. JD Vance (R) said:
We still don’t have the disaster cleaned up, so we still have toxic chemicals seeping into the groundwater, seeping into the water supply, that’s a real problem.
The second thing I worry about is are we actually adequately measuring and testing the levels of contamination in the water and in the air in the first place, and then a related question is once we know, assuming we are testing properly, what are the levels that are acceptable? I have not been able to get a good answer.
While Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) met with residents and heard how much they distrust the government:
There’s a lack of trust — there’s a lack of trust of the EPA, of government, we know that. I’m here in part to try to bridge that.
Both these men are from Ohio. They belong there among the people they represent.
But guess who else plans to visit? Of course, Donald Trump. He made plans to visit right after the White House said that Joe Biden has no plans to be there. Trump will be using it to bash Biden’s handling of the crisis, and thereby do some campaigning.
But I wonder if the former president has friends among the bigwigs of Norfolk Southern. Or if he has been a beneficiary of the massive profits the company has made at the expense of safety.
Just wondering.
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Cameron says: The fact Brown and Vance are over there is impressive. Now to see if anything meaningful is done after the mess is cleaned up and people can go back to their homes.
Lloyd says: Not to worry…..Petey Boy has got this, man !
Cameron says: Right after he gets back from another round of paternity leave.
Kevin says: I’m not surprised VG (Vengeful Gals) didn’t step in and explain why paternity leave is important to the health and well-being of families and the bonding process with their newborn child. Oh, wait, because a gay man took maternity leave, it’s not of value any more. Forgot. Hypocrisy.
Cameron says: Given that he took said leave when we were dealing with a supply chain crisis that falls under his department, criticism is warranted.
Scott says: And immediately after taking the position.. errr, Job… Maybe he should have made sure he eas actually available before accepting the job.. I’ve never had the option of getting hired, and then immediately taking two months off..
Kevin says: “But guess who else plans to visit? Of course, Donald Trump.” The one true thing about TFG (the F*$king Genius), whatever he does or says, it’s all to benefit himself. Period. We don’t know yet how he will benefit from visiting this catastrophe, but that’s his motive. I wonder if he’ll toss out a roll of paper towels to soak up the toxic spill?
There is a role for government and laws/administrative rules in the wake of this disaster. Railroads need to inform communities what’s being transported through their backyards. Railroads need to accurately identify what’s being transported and the DoT needs to do random checks to ensure chemicals are being accurately identified … and impose massive fines if the railroad/tanker truck doesn’t accurately identify the chemical. Railroads also need to develop a “hazardous spill” plan of action and have a team ready to respond 24/7. Railroads need to have a “security deposit of millions of dollars” on hand in the event of a spill and some guidelines around compensation for the people impacted. It was offensive for them to offer about $25 to every resident impacted. This horrific event is getting a lot of press just because of the toxic chemicals and the scale of the disaster. Every day railroads are dumping chemicals, cleaning out tanks, and creating other toxic conditions on a smaller scale.
Stephen C says: Slightly off topic. Whose vinyl chloride was it? Norfolk Southern was the shipper. I am curious to know the chemical’s manufacturer. I haven’t come across it in the reporting I have read.
Anna A says: It might be the responsibility of the company that bought the material. I’m friends with the shipper and work, and we ship a variety of hazardous materials (largest are pallets of 5 gallon pails,) not tank cars. I believe that the buyer is often the one who requests how a material gets to them.
I think that both the manufacturer of the vinyl chloride and the buyer should be there making their presence known.
As a polymer chemist, I am also concerned about the acrylate is was part of the derailment. Acrylates and methacrylates are very good for being skin and respiratory irritants.
Mark says: You say a lot without actually saying anything. Lots of accusations that don’t point to anything specific NS did to cause this.
Do you actually know who the last line of defense is on a Freight Train? It’s the train crew. One of their primary duties for the last 100+ years has been to inspect & observe their train as it travels across their territory. If that train really traveled 20 miles with a flaming Journal, I’d like to know what the crew was up to. I guarantee that’s going be a primary focus of the NTSB & the FRA. I’m sure the NTSB is also pulling inspection records from the trains originating terminal.
Journals fail. They are usually caught by a detector before failing so catastrophically, but it does happen. It’s not due to anyone forgoing maintenance either. Most tank cars are privately owned and those are not the railroads maintenance issue.
As a Common Carrier railroads are obligated to accept almost all freight. Go back and review when the railroads wanted to change the way Chlorine gas was handled about 10 years ago. Huge outcry from shippers & users.
Alexander says: I would like to hear what changes to the things you criticized about Norfolk Southern would have prevented the accident in East Palestine.
From all my tracking of the NTSB investigation as someone with decades following the railroad industry, this very much sounds like criticizing an airline for a plane crash after a flock of geese were sucked into a jet engine during take-off, or a passenger’s laptop battery started a fire in a cargo hold. There are reasonable criticisms across the board–railroad, local officials, EPA, etc.–for the response and aftermath of the accident, but I can see no relationship between the attributes of the company criticized in this article and the accident itself.
Scott says: Not sure of the how / why, but reports are that the axle that failed and caused the derailment was seen to be on fire WELL before the crash, yet the detectors failed to notify, or they were ignored..
bob sykes says: Let’s not excuse the Ohio emergency crews from any culpability. By choosing to burn of the vinyl chloride, they created a great deal of dioxin, a highly toxic substance, a carcinogen, a forever chemical, and a chemical that bioaccumulates in food chains.
A couple of decades ago, the OEPA shut down trash incinerators all over Ohio, because they produced trace amounts of dioxin. The question now is, Just how contaminated is East Palestine? Is it habitable? Can fish be taken from the Ohio River? Will the dioxin reach the fisheries off New Orleans?
Anna A says: Bob, I agree that burning is not a good solution, especially since it was not under the best of conditions. (The best conditions for burning would be in an incinerator with controlled air flow for complete combustion and appropriate scrubbers).
What decision about moving/disposing of the hazardous materials would you have made. (No time travel to prevent the derailment)
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