On Thursday, outside of Detroit, a Norfolk Southern train hauling at least one car of hazardous chemicals derailed.
As the incident is being investigated, authorities have said that there is no immediate danger to the residents of Van Buren Township.
Almost a week after a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio
Concerns about the safe transport of harmful chemicals were renewed Thursday after a Norfolk Southern train carrying at least one car of hazardous cargo derailed west of Detroit.
Several railway carriages are seen lying on the ground and off the rails in photos and videos taken at the scene. The train’s chemical cargo is still a mystery.
There were no reported injuries after Thursday’s train derailment in Van Buren Township, and authorities informed FOX News that the location is not now a hazardous problem.
The police are presently examining the scene to determine what caused the collision. At this time, they advise locals to avoid the area as the inquiry proceeds.
The derailment comes after another Norfolk Southern trains carrying harmful chemicals derailed in Ohio a little over a week ago, raising concerns about the quality of the local water and air.
Just before 9 a.m. local time, west of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport is where the incident took place, according to WWMT.
The result was broken rails and derailed trains with loose wheels.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) has issued a statement saying she has been in touch with the EPA.
The car containing the hazardous items has been righted and is being evacuated from the location of the other derailed trains, she added, and “at this moment no one is aware of the discharge of any dangerous materials.”
Meanwhile, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy have stated that it is “informed of the derailment in Van Buren Township, Wayne County,” adding that preliminary reports show that there is no danger to the general public.
The EGLE team is on its route to the area to help evaluate the situation.
There were doubts about Norfolk Southern’s safety following a derailment that occurred 250 miles away in East Palestine, Ohio that resulted in a major fire and the spilling of dangerous substances into the water.
Experts believe the railway operator might have reduced exposure to harmful chemicals with more expensive but safer methods, yet just days after the incident, the business set fire to five train carriages containing vinyl chloride.
A federal complaint claims that the business may have unleashed a chemical poison used to kill soldiers in World War I when it blew up the railway carriages in a “controlled burn.”
As time has passed, locals have lamented the chemical explosion’s impact on their health, citing everything from recurrent coughs and sore throats to the ill health of their pets.
According to early information on the February 3 derailment in Ohio, a wheel bearing may have been in the late stages of overheat failure at the time of the accident.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, just before the train derailed, crew members got an alarm from a roadside defect detector suggesting a mechanical issue.
It has recently come to light, however, that business lobbyists were successful in having President Trump scrap an Obama-era rule requiring railway operators to upgrade their braking systems.
When a train derailed in Casselton, North Dakota, spilling roughly 500,000 gallons of heavy oil and causing $13.5m in damages, the Obama administration campaigned for a new safety regulation to control the transportation of hazardous goods to prevent environmental disasters.
Lobbyists, particularly those from Norfolk-Southern Corp., vigorously opposed his proposal for a new safety rule.
The rule was established in 2015, although it was carefully tailored to require just the installation of electronically-controlled brakes by 2023. These brakes apply pressure uniformly across a whole train, rather than waiting several seconds between each vehicle.
It was specified that only “high-hazard flammable trains” with at least 20 loaded cars transporting liquids like crude oil were subject to the restriction.
The Trump administration reversed the regulation only three years after it was put into effect, citing concerns that the costs would outweigh the benefits.
Therefore, Norfolk Southern kept using the same braking technique it had after the Civil War.
According to USA Today, this was also significantly increasing the length of their trains, making it necessary for trains to slow down for a longer distance.
Precision-scheduled railroading is a business strategy adopted by Norfolk Southern and other railroad operators throughout the country in recent years to optimize train utilization on a carload-by-carload basis.
Thus, larger and heavier trains have been traversing the nation’s rails; the freight train that derailed in Ohio was approximately 1.9 miles in length.
In fact, according to Shaw’s report from 2021, the company had completed its three-year plan to transform into a more “innovative and efficient railroad,” achieving record levels of productivity across its operations, such as increasing the average train weight by 21% and the average train length by 20%.
In the words of transportation expert and former Federal Railroad Administration contractor Karl Ziebarth, “a very expensive derailment” can be caused by these lengthier trains.
“Taken as a whole, these factors demonstrate how the drive to save expenses in one area can have unintended consequences and lead to catastrophic failures,” the authors write.
Very lengthy trains can interfere with radio communications between the crew and the wayside flaw detectors, as detailed by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a labor organization.
Moreover, it presented last month that overly lengthy trains might affect braking effectiveness, reduce the time for thorough inspections, and raise the chance of catastrophic derailments.
The Federal Railroad Administration does not impose any limits on the length of freight trains at this time but warns that “existing safety issues may be exacerbated as train length continues,” such as insufficient time for human inspection of all cars, communication breakdowns, and increased wear on equipment.
Trains longer than 7,500 feet are now the subject of research by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, with government authorities investigating whether or not additional rules are required.
In November, you must submit the report.
USA Today analyzed government safety statistics by the rate of railway accidents per million train miles and found that the number of train derailments on Norfolk Southern has increased over the previous decade.
There has also been an increase in the number of incidents with hazardous trains being damaged or derailed, from 14 in 2012 to a high of 117 in 2020 and a projected 85 in 2021.
A representative for the firm, Connor Spielmaker, stated that the data reveals that accidents are either stable or decreasing, depending on the period chosen for the study.
In contrast, a decade-long analysis of “mainline” railway accidents conducted by USA Today reveals a steady increase.
According to SEC filings made in the United States, by the end of 2021, Norfolk Southern will have reduced its employment from 30,456 to 18,100.
In the meantime, major railroad companies like Norfolk Southern have distributed $196 billion in buybacks and dividends since 2010, much exceeding the $150 billion invested on infrastructure investments during that period.
“In our perspective, I don’t believe you can divorce the tremendous loss in the workforce over the past seven or eight years from the increase in accidents, the incidence of safety issues,” said Greg Reagan, president of the Transportation Trades Section of the AFL-CIO.
According to those “on the ground,” “there is a huge amount of emphasis on going as quickly as possible, as lean as possible, and creating as much profit as possible.”
While there is no mandated minimum for the examination of railcars, he noted that the time it takes for staff to evaluate a car has decreased from two minutes to 40 or 45 seconds as businesses have used new technologies to aid in the process.