#railroad safety

[bearfoottruck]

In other news, don't fuck with railway safety in Latvia, because those motormen will hunt you down and kill you.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Train managers earn bonuses for greenlighting unsafe cars

Tomorrow (November 16) I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

Almost no one knows this, but last June, a 90-car train got away from its crew in Hernando, MS, rolling three miles through two public crossings, a ghost train that included 47 potentially explosive propane cars. The "bomb train" neither crashed nor derailed, which meant that Grenada Railroad/Gulf & Atantic didn't have to report it.

This is just one of many terrifying near-misses that are increasingly common in America's hyper-concentrated, private equity-dominated rail sector, where unsafe practices dominate and whistleblowers face brutal retaliation for coming forward to regulators.

These unsafe practices – and the corporate policies that deliberately gave rise to them – are documented in terrifying, eye-watering detail in a deeply reported Propublica story by Topher Sanders, Jessica Lussenhop,Dan Schwartz, Danelle Morton and Gabriel L Sandoval:

https://www.propublica.org/article/railroad-safety-union-pacific-csx-bnsf-trains-freight

It's a tale of depraved indifference to public safety, backstopped by worker intimidation. The reporting is centered on railyard maintenance inspectors, who are charged with writing up "bad orders" to prevent unsafe railcars from shipping out. As private equity firms consolidated rail into an ever-dwindling number of companies, these workers face supervisors who are increasingly hostile to these bad orders.

It got so alarming that some staffers started carrying hidden digital recorders, so they could capture audio of their bosses illegally ordering them to greenlight railcars that were too unsafe for use. The article features direct – and alarming – quotes, like supervisor Andrew Letcher, boss of the maintenance crews at Union Pacific's Kansas City yard saying, "If I was an inspector on a train I would probably let some of that nitpicky shit go."

Letcher – and fellow managers for other Tier 1 railroads quoted in the piece – aren't innately hostile to public safety. They are quite frank about why they want inspectors to "let that nitpicky shit go." As Letcher explains, "The first thing that I’m getting questioned about right now, every day, is why we’re over 200 bad orders and what we’re doing to get them down."

In other words, corporate rail owners have ordered their supervisors to reduce the amount of maintenance outages on the rail lines, but have not given them additional preventative maintenance budgets or crew. These supervisors warn their employees that high numbers of bad orders could cost them their jobs, even lead to the shutdown of the car shops where inspectors are prone to pulling dangerous cars out of service.

It's a ruthless form of winnowing. Gresham's Law holds that "bad money drives out good" – in an economy where counterfeit money circulates, people preferentially spend their fake money to get it out of their hands, until all the money in circulation is funny money. This is the rail safety equivalent: simply fire everyone who reports unsafe conditions and all your railcars will be deemed safe, with the worst railcars shipped out first. A market for lemons – except these aren't balky used sedans, they're unsafe railcars full of toxic chemicals or explosive propane.

When cataclysmic rail disasters occur – like this year's East Palestine derailment – the rail industry reassures us that this is an isolated incident, pointing to the system's excellent overall safety record. But that record is a mirage, because the near-misses don't have to be reported. Those near-misses are coming more frequently, as the culture of profit over safety incurs a mounting maintenance debt, filling America's rails with potential "bomb cars."

Rail mergers and other forms of deregulated, anything-goes capitalism are justified by conservative economists who insist that "incentives matter," and that the profit motive provides the incentive to improve efficiency, leading to lower costs and better service. But the incentive to externalize risk, kick the can down the road, and capture regulators rarely concerns the "incentives matter" crowd.

Here's an incentive that matters. Rail managers' bonuses – as much as a fifth of their take home pay – are only paid if the trains they oversee run on time. Inspectors have recorded their managers admitting that they have quotas – a maximum number of bad orders their facility may produce, irrespective of how much unsafe rolling stock passes through the facility.

Inspectors have caught their managers removing repair order tags from cars they've flagged as unsafe. Inspectors will log orders in a database, only to have the record mysteriously deleted, or marked as serviced when no service has occurred. Some inspectors have seen the same cars in their yard with the same problems, and repeatedly flagged them without any maintenance being performed before they're shipped out again.

Former managers from Union Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern told Propublica that they operated in an environment where safety reports were discouraged, and that workers who filed these reports were viewed as "complainers." Workers furnished Propublica with recordings of rail managers berating them for reporting persistent unsafe conditions the Federal Railroad Administration. Other workers from BNSF said that they believed that their bosses were told when they called the company's "confidential" work-safety tipline, setting them up for retaliation by bosses who'd falsified safety reports.

Whistleblowers who seek justice at OSHA are stymied by long delays, and while switching their cases to court can win them cash settlements, these do not get recorded on the company's safety record, which allows the company to go on claiming to be a paragon of safety and prudence.

The culture of retaliation is pervasive, which explains how the 47-cars worth of propane on the "bomb train" that rolled unattended over three miles of track never made the news. There is a voluntary Close Call Reporting System (operated by NASA!) where rail companies can report these disasters. Not one of America's Class 1 rail companies participate in it.

After the East Palestine disaster, Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed the rail companies to join, but a year later, none have. It's part of an overall pattern with Secretary Buttigieg, who has prodigious, far-reaching powers under USC40 Section 41712(a), which allow him to punish companies for "unfair and deceptive" practices or "unfair methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Buttigieg can't simply hand down orders under 41712(a) – to wield this power, he must follow administrative procedures, conducting market studies, seeking comment, and proposing a rule. Other members of the Biden administration with similar powers, like FTC chair Lina Khan, arrived in office with a ranked-priority list of bad corporate conduct and immediately set about teeing up rules to give relief to the American public.

By contrast, Buttigieg's agency has done precious little to establish the evidentiary record to punish the worst American companies under its remit. His most-touted achievement was to fine five airlines for saving money by cancelling their flights and stranding their passengers. But of the five airlines affected by Buttigieg's order, four were not US companies. The sole affected US carrier was Spirit airlines, with 2% of the market. The Big Four US airlines – who have a much worse record than the ones that were fined – were not affected at all:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/ftc-noncompete-airline-flight-cancellation-buttigieg/

Rather than directly regulating the US transportation sector, Buttigieg prefers exacting nonbinding promises from them (like the Tier 1 rail companies' broken promise to sign up to the Close Call Reporting System). Under his leadership, the Federal Railroad Agency has proposed weakening rail safety standards, rescinding an order to improve the braking systems on undermaintained, mile-long trains carrying potentially deadly freight:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

The US transportation system is accumulating a terrifying safety debt, behind a veil of corporate secrecy. It badly demands direct regulation and close oversight.

If you are interested in rail safety, I strongly recommend this episode of Well There's Your Problem, "a podcast about engineering disasters, with slides" – you will laugh your head off and then never sleep again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BMQTdYXaH8

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/15/safety-third/#all-the-livelong-day

[entitledrichpeople]

The railroad corporations blocked safety laws, the union fought for safer conditions, the federal government intervened against the union.  This is the results.

[zannenilsson]

Throwback to that circa-1990s Amtrak coloring book I found in my stuff at my parents' house that featured Femme Skimbleshanks from the "Cats" musical.

[slocumjoe]

I put this in the tags but no, actually, Piper's writing still pisses me off. And not like, usual "haha Bethesda is so bad lol" but like.

She's a JOURNALIST.

I'm a writer myself, guys. I've written on the Hayes code, on PTSD and masculinity, on fatphobia and classism and the infrastructure of America, yknow, activism shit. I've done it for grades, for my own platforms, and I've gotten offers and opportunities to do it for work.

When you are writing about stuff like this, you have a responsibility. You cannot write about sensitive topics without grace. In Fallout 4's narrative, Synths are a direct allegory for enslaved black people. There's literally a Railroad. GLORY IS A STAND IN FOR HARRIET FUCKING TUBMAN.

So, Piper is enflaming the racism, the witchhunting, she's making it worse for everyone involved. And she wants to keep doing it until she gets her way. It's so fucking irresponsible. Going along with the slave allegory, Piper is accusing the mayor of being of African American descent, and therefore unfit to lead the 'normal people'. "Jesus, Rory! Thats a fucked up thing to say!" YEAH. ITS A FUCKED UP THING TO WRITE INTO A NARRATIVE. Piper is LITERALLY STARTING POST WAR MCCARTYISM!!! AND NO ONE NOTICES? WE JUST SKIP BY THAT BECAUSE AWWW BABY SISTER :(((( HELLO????

[todaysdocument]

Jacob Nollner's Apparatus for attaining a very high degree of velocity on Railroads or otherwise, patented April 13, 1838. 

Record Group 241: Records of the Patent and Trademark Office

Series: Utility Patent Drawings

Image description: Drawing of what looks like a normal carriage with four wheels, which is on top of a platform with eight wheels, which is on top of a platform with 14 wheels, and then a platform with 18 wheels, and finally a platform with 24 wheels, which is on the railroad tracks. Each platform and the carriage itself has a hitch. It’s a pyramid of wheels on top of wheels and I cannot figure out how it works.

[clamsjams]

oh okay so now the eggs wellbeing and continued survival is entirely dependent on cooperating with the federation

[oveliagirlhaditright]

This whole train derailment thing in East Palestine, Ohio is so horrific.

And those toxic chemicals got into the Ohio River!

And I heard people saying that there was danger that it could possibly get into another body of water?

Apparently, this is going to affect 10% of the country's water supply, as things are? (According to one comment I saw, anyway.)

The place really has become the next Chernobyl, and everything has been handled so badly! (I feel if this had happened in a bigger state, that wouldn't have happened. And I strongly feel they should have evacuated everyone on day one.)

And no one's talking about it! In fact, at first they were covering it up and tried to arrest at least one reporter on the job of reporting the truth (finally more people are starting to discuss all of this, but still not as many as you would think. Especially with the massive ramifications this could have for so many!)

And why hasn't the president or any of the big wigs talked about this or done anything about it? Why didn't people in hazmat suits knock on the people in East Palestine's doors to tell them to evacuate when they finally did give them that order, instead of acting so blasé? You know if it was a place that people actually cared about, people would do so much more. I'm disgusted with my country.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As a train derailment and fire forced evacuations in Minnesota on Thursday, a trio of Democratic U.S. Senators introduced another piece of legislation inspired by the ongoing public health and environmental disaster in and around East Palestine, Ohio.

The Railway Accountability Act—led by Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—would build on the bipartisan Railway Safety Act introduced at the beginning of March by Brown and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials including vinyl chloride derailed in the small Ohio community on February 3.

While welcoming "greater federal oversight and a crackdown on railroads that seem all too willing to trade safety for higher profits," Eddie Hall, national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), also warned just after the earlier bill was unveiled that "you can run a freight train through the loopholes."

The new bill is backed by unions including the Transport Workers of America (TWU), the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers (NCFO), and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers-Mechanical Division (SMART-MD).

"It is an honor and a privilege to introduce my first piece of legislation, the Railway Accountability Act, following the derailment affecting East Palestine, Ohio, and Darlington Township, Pennsylvania," Fetterman said in a statement. "This bill will implement commonsense safety reforms, hold the big railway companies accountable, protect the workers who make these trains run, and help prevent future catastrophes that endanger communities near railway infrastructure."

Fetterman, who is expected to return to the Senate in mid-April after checking himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last month to be treated for clinical depression, asserted that "working Pennsylvanians have more than enough to think about already—they should never have been put in this horrible situation."

"Communities like Darlington Township and East Palestine are too often forgotten and overlooked by leaders in Washington and executives at big companies like Norfolk Southern who only care about making their millions," he added. "That's why I'm proud to be working with my colleagues to stand up for these communities and make clear that we're doing everything we can to prevent a disaster like this from happening again."

As Fetterman's office summarized, the Railway Accountability Act would:

• Direct the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to examine the causes of and potential mitigation strategies for wheel-related derailments and mechanical defects, and publish potential regulations that would improve avoidance of these defects;

• Ensure that employees can safely inspect trains by prohibiting trains from being moved during brake inspections;

• Require that the mechanic that actually inspects a locomotive or rail car attests to its safety;

• Direct the FRA to review regulations relating to the operation of trains in switchyards, and direct railroads to update their plans submitted under the FRA's existing Risk Reduction Program (RRP) to incorporate considerations regarding switchyard practices;

• Require the FRA to make Class 1 railroad safety waivers public in one online location;

• Require railroads to ensure that communication checks between the front and end of a train do not fail, and that emergency brake signals reach the end of a train;

• Ensure Class 1 railroad participation in the confidential Close Call Reporting System by requiring all railroads that have paid the maximum civil penalty for a safety violation to join; and

• Ensure that railroads provide warning equipment (such as white disks, red flags, or whistles) to railroad watchmen and lookouts.

A preliminary report released in late February by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) suggests an overheated wheel bearing may have caused the disastrous derailment in Ohio. The initial findings added fuel to demands that federal lawmakers enact new rules for the rail industry.

"Rail lobbyists have fought for years to protect their profits at the expense of communities like East Palestine," Brown noted Thursday.

Casey stressed that "along with the Railway Safety Act, this bill will make freight rail safer and protect communities from preventable tragedies."

In addition to pushing those two bills, Brown, Casey, and Fetterman have responded to the East Palestine disaster by introducing the Assistance for Local Heroes During Train Crises Act and—along with other colleagues—writing to Norfolk Southern president and CEO Alan Shaw, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, and U.S. Environmental Protection Administrator Michael Regan with various concerns and demands.

[girderednerve]

During the 2007 hearings on Capitol Hill, workers testified about being left to die by the tracks while railroad managers ignored pleas for care. The 2008 update to the Federal Railroad Safety Act required the companies to provide “prompt medical attention” and mandated that railroads bring injured workers to the hospital as soon as they ask.

About five years after the harrowing congressional testimony, outside Chicago, a supervisor was driving a Union Pacific machine operator, Jared Whitt, to the hospital. Whitt’s lips felt as if they were about to burst and his arms and legs tingled, he testified as part of a lawsuit he later filed. He closed his eyes and thought about his five kids. Was he dying? “Please,” he recalled telling his manager: “Get me there. Please hurry.”

Whitt had suffered a heat stroke as June temperatures climbed to about 100 degrees, and his manager, work equipment supervisor Dave Birt, believed Whitt was going into cardiac arrest, Birt said in his deposition. They had just started toward the hospital when Birt’s cellphone rang. “Well,” Whitt heard Birt say, “what do you want me to do?” A pause. “I’m no doctor, but when a man’s arms are numb and tingling, I’d say he needs to go see one.” Pause. “I’m pulling over.”

Birt held the phone to Whitt’s ear. Whitt couldn’t hold it himself because his numb arms had retracted, his fists clenched at the top of his chest, Whitt said in his pretrial deposition. The man on the other end was Birt’s boss, manager of track programs Talmage Dalebout. “Why don’t we just bring you back here to the job site and get you cooled down,” Whitt recalled Dalebout saying. “If you get cooled down, you’ll probably be OK.” Birt declined to comment when reached by ProPublica. Dalebout didn’t respond to calls, texts and social media messages.

Union Pacific claims in the lawsuit that Whitt never requested to be taken to the hospital and, when Birt says he asked, Whitt chose the job site. But experts say workers suffering from heat stroke —a potentially life-threatening condition marked by confusion in which body temperatures can rise to 106 degrees — lack the faculties to make any decision for themselves; someone should always take them to the hospital regardless of what a worker requests. In hindsight, Birt said later in deposition, he wished they had continued to the hospital.

[wausaupilot]

2 injured in Bus. 51 crash in Stevens Point

Two people were injured and a portion of Bus. Hwy. 51 was closed Monday after cargo hauled by a semi struck an overpass, causing a crash with an oncoming vehicle. What we know so far:

Wausau Pilot & Review Two people were injured and a portion of Bus. Hwy. 51 was closed Monday after cargo hauled by a semi struck an overpass, causing a crash with an oncoming vehicle. The crash was reported at about 5 p.m. in the 2400 block of Church Street. Emergency crews shut down the roadway until about 8:30 p.m., when the scene was cleared. Police say the semi driver was headed north…

[tribalephemeral]

Regulate Railroads to Reduce Train Length and Improve Safety

Regulate Railroads to Reduce Train Length and Improve Safety Why this petition matters I live next to a railroad track with many closely spaced crossings near a major bar and restaurant area and major shopping centers. Excessively long monster trains are worsening traffic all over daily, plus I suspect the CO2 emissions saved by longer trains are more than offset by worsened traffic. I made a…

[endeavourweigh]

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[onyxbird]

[image description: A 1-panel political cartoon showing a plot with two unlabeled axes and gridlines. Two plotted curves, labeled "Volume" and "Staff," are illustrated to look like the rails in a set of railroad tracks. Initially, the "rails" rise parallel to each other, connected by intact railroad ties. In the middle, the "rails" become bumpier and unaligned, and the connecting ties are broken. On the right-hand side, the "rails" diverge wildly, with the "Staff" curve plummeting while the "Volume" curve rises; only fragments of the ties remain, and the wreckage of a derailed train lies between the separated "rails." The cartoon is signed "@9mmballpoint" and dated "2023."]

Bigger trains, fewer workers, less safety, more disasters. That’s it. There’s no conspiracy, it’s just capitalism.

[nando161mando]

as a stockholder for CSX railroad, the board recommended I vote against forming a safety committee