The numbers cover only the first 11 months of 2022. The FRA data includes derailments, collisions between trains and other on-rail problems. “Even the biggest highway truck only carries a quarter of the volume that a railcar can carry,” Little said. And when rail accidents do happen, the potential for greater environmental damage is larger because trains can carry much bigger quantities of chemicals than trucks, he said. How chemicals are transported usually depends on the quantity needed and location of its final destination, Little said. “There’s less chance of a vehicle-to-vehicle accident … and, also, there’s less habitation around the tracks, because it’s not just freeways that the trucks will be going on, they’d be going on local roads, as well.”īut not every chemical is suitable for rail transportation. “The road safety is nowhere near as good as rail safety,” said Nicholas Little, the director of railway education at Michigan State University. Truck accidents have been rising, along with other road accidents, for a variety of reasons, including speeding and distracted driving, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Trains were responsible for a little more than 1 percent. Of all transportation incidents involving hazardous materials in 2022, trucks were responsible for nearly 94 percent, according to Bureau of Transportation statistics. Trucks by far have the highest incident rate. The bulk - 57 percent - moves by truck, and the remainder by ships, barges and pipelines. chemical output travels by rail, according to AAR. “We diligently monitor our trains and infrastructure to identify potential hazards, and we invest approximately a billion annually into maintaining our infrastructure every year,” the statement said.Ībout 19 percent of U.S. Norfolk Southern, whose CEO is due to testify in a Senate hearing Thursday, declined to comment on the federal safety data but said in a prepared statement that the company is committed to safety. “If you were going to look at the main line accidents … 2022 was the lowest year in history overall,” Mike Rush, the trade group’s senior vice president of operations and safety, said in an interview. The American Association of Railroads argues that the safety data E&E News reviewed includes minor collisions that happen in train yards and that the number of “main line” incidents like the one in East Palestine has been dropping. “The NTSB is concerned that several organizational factors may be involved in the accidents, including safety culture,” the safety board said in a news release. The conductor, 46-year-old Louis Shuster, was a father and an Army veteran who had worked at the railroad since 2005, according to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. Meanwhile, on Tuesday the National Transportation Safety Board announced a special investigation into Norfolk Southern’s “safety culture” after the railroad had its third serious accident in just over a month.Īnother Norfolk Southern train derailed Saturday in Springfield, Ohio, and a conductor for the railroad was killed Tuesday by a dump truck as a train was moving through a steel mill in Cleveland, the company said. The increased accident rate comes as the chemical industry predicts a rise in the amount of chemicals that will be shipped by rail, trucks and other forms of transportation. Overall, the group had 27 percent more accidents, a rate of 3.067 accidents per million miles traveled, up from a rate of 2.415 in 2013. Norfolk is one of seven “Class 1" railroads. Norfolk Southern’s accident rate jumped 80.8 percent between 20, to 3.658 accidents per million miles traveled, from 2.023.
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