The U.S. Federal Railway Administration (FRA) issued an emergency order last week after a train carrying crude oil derailed in Quebec, Canada, killing 47 people in an explosion, according to the most recent Associated Press report.
The announcement by the FRA, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is aimed at making the hauling of hazardous materials safer by issuing new rules and procedures for train operators. For victims of recent train accidents who have struggled to seek restitution, the announcement is a welcome change in an industry that has a history of flaunting the existing regulations. The FRA reports that the industry has taken part in “significant non-compliance with FRA’s securement regulations [with] nearly 4,950 recorded defects” since 2010.
This noncompliance includes recorded instances dating back to 1999 when companies, including major operators like Union Pacific, failed to cooperate with federal investigators seeking information into recent rail accidents. Derailments and explosions may grab headlines, but the human toll is underplayed: there are still an average of more than 4,000 people involved rail crossing accidents each year.
It’s a salient issue given the resurgence of rail travel in transportation, which not so long ago was seen by many Americans as an anachronistic curiosity in an era dominated by automobiles and airplanes. Amtrak recorded record ridership of 31.2 million passengers in 2012 and crude oil transportation increased 443 percent from 2005 to 2012.
Improving rail safety
The Journal of Commerce reports that the new order forbids trains hauling hazardous materials, including crude oil and ethanol, from being left unattended on main tracks or siding unless approved by the agency.
“Generally, the transportation of hazardous materials by rail is extremely safe,” the FRA said. “However, the Lac-Mégantic incident demonstrates the substantial potential for danger that exists when an unattended train rolls and derails, resulting in the sudden release of hazardous materials into the environment.”
The order also requires railroads to develop processes for securing unattended hazardous materials on mainline tracks and siding. These processes include securing the locomotive, reviewing and verifying braking procedures and inspecting equipment.
These new requirements come more than a month after an accident that Canadian authorities are still investigating. The latest findings from the investigation show that a train approximately 4,700 feet long weighing over 10,000 tons was traveling from Montreal, Quebec to St. John New Brunswick the night of July 5. In the early hours of July 6, the train, along with a boxcar and 63 tank cars, derailed, according to rail safety advisory letters issued by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
“A number of derailed cars released product resulting in multiple explosions and subsequent fires. At this time it was estimated that there were 42 fatalities and five persons still missing. There was also extensive damage to the town, and approximately 2,000 people were evacuated from the town of Lac-Megantic and the surrounding areas,” the letter states.
“The main street was filled with flames,” said Jean St.-Pierre a hotel worker who witnessed the fire after the blast. “It was like hell, there was fire everywhere and explosions.” The explosion destroyed at least 30 buildings in the town. The incident is still under investigation, but Montreal Main & Atlantic Railway Inc. (MM&A), the train operator, claims that the locomotive was shut down, which “may have resulted in the release of air brakes on the locomotive that was holding the train in place.”
“It’s still difficult,” said Chantal Guay, a local resident who was among those mourning the loss of life during a memorial service late last month. “We’re all family in Lac-Megantic, everyone knows each other. I knew them all — all the missing and all the dead.” Police say they consider the site to be a crime scene, but prosecutors have not yet filed charges against anyone involved.
Years of misconduct
Reuters reports that two residents of the Quebec town, Guy Ouellet and Yannick Gagné, filed a class action lawsuit last month seeking damages from the rail company. Ouellet lost his partner, Diane Bizier, in the explosion and Gagné’s lost his bar after it was destroyed by the blast and fire.
“The suffering endured by this community and the suffering that is still ongoing has been truly incomprehensible,” said Daniel Larochelle, a Lac-Megantic based lawyer who assembled the legal team.
In the U.S., victims of train accidents like Ouellet and Gagne have faced significant hurdles when trying to seek recourse. The problem is that federal rail authorities may not have access to vital information that can help with investigations.
A groundbreaking New York Times article in 2004 found that “Railroads have broken federal rules by failing to promptly report hundreds of fatal accidents, 71 of them last year, denying the federal authorities the chance to investigate when evidence is fresh and still available, according to a computer analysis of federal data by The Times. Enforcement of these rules is so lax that federal officials said they were not even aware of the reporting problems.”
Trains are required to carry black boxes like airplanes, but have a spotty history when it comes to keeping consistent records.
“It’s a systemic failure,” said James E. Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “It’s been something that has just not grabbed the attention, unfortunately, of the public.”
In some cases, rail companies have allegedly destroyed evidence in order to prevent legal blowback. “In an 18-month period, seven federal and state courts imposed sanctions on Union Pacific, the nation’s biggest railroad, for destroying or failing to preserve evidence in crossing accidents, and an eighth court ordered a case retried. One sanction has since been overturned on appeal,” writes Walt Bogdanich, a New York Times reporter.
In one fatal 2011 accident a truck driver named Lawrence Ruben Valli, who was driving a truck about 70 miles east of Reno, NV, crashed into the westbound California Zephyr train carrying 218 people.
Valli and five on board died, and dozens were injured in the accident. Union Pacific claims that Valli failed to heed warnings, including signage that would have prevented the accident.
“Contrary to its representations in discovery, Union Pacific replaced the entire gate arm extension after the accident but before defendant’s July 28, 2011 inspection of the site,” the motion said. “The replacement of the extension most likely occurred on or about June 27, 2011, just three days after the accident.”
The National Transportation Safety Board announced last year that the accident was caused by an “inattentive” driver and shoddy maintenance on the Peterbilt tractor-trailer.
MM&A derailment ranks as one of the worst rail disasters in the history of North America, but there are smaller accidents that continue across the U.S. and Canada.
The Los Angeles Times reports that roughly 100 homes remained evacuated Sunday as officials worked to clean up the area following a derailment that spilled chemicals near the town of Lawtell, La., located about 60 miles from Baton Rouge. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) declared a state of emergency Monday following the incident.
The accident, which took place around 3:30 p.m. Sunday and derailed 27 cars of a Union Pacific train, is still under investigation, according to railroad spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza said. The evacuation area is an about 1.5-mile radius from the accident site near U.S. Highway 190, she said. As of Monday, the area was still evacuated.
“It looks like it was all smoky. We just weren’t certain what it was,” said Mona Prejean who was driving with her husband when she witnessed the incident. “My husband reminded me that a lot of it could be toxic.”
This proceeds a train derailment in New Jersey last year when four tank cars dumped vinyl chloride into Mantua Creek. The 180,000 pounds of carcinogenic material were successfully contained, but over 40 people were treated at the Underwood-Memorial hospital complaining of difficulty breathing.
What do the statistics show? Since January 2010, there has been “significant non-compliance with FRA’s securement regulations,” in at least 4,950 incidents, the FRA stated in its emergency order. The FRA also said there have been a number of serious accidents in the hauling of flammable liquids since 2009 due partly to the rapid growth of crude oil transport in recent years. Crude oil rail traffic in the U.S. has jumped 443 percent between 2005 and 2012, while ethanol rail volume has expanded 442 percent between 2005 and 2010.
A similar growth has been recorded in passenger rail, which has reported an impressive surge in ridership over the past decade.
A crumbling infrastructure
“Railroads are experiencing a competitive resurgence as both an energy-efficient freight transportation option and a viable city-to-city passenger service. In 2012, Amtrak recorded its highest year of ridership with 31.2 million passengers, almost doubling ridership since 2000, with growth anticipated to continue,” The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) reports.
Both corporations and the federal government have made substantial investments in recent years, but there is still room for improvement. “Both freight and passenger rail have been investing heavily in their tracks, bridges and tunnels as well as adding new capacity for freight and passengers. In 2010 alone, freight railroads renewed the rails on more than 3,100 miles of railroad track, equivalent to going coast to coast,” the ASCE adds, but it has failed to keep up.
Despite the importance of railroads to the U.S. economy, the ASCE, which issues an annual report card on infrastructure in America, ranks the U.S. rail network as a “C+” using a standard A through F grading scale.
It is actually higher when compared with overall infrastructure, which received a “D+” rating for 2013 using the same scale.