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Corporate Executives And Crooked Politicians Show How To Guarantee A Train Wreck

How To Guarantee More Disastrous Train Wrecks

Stuff happens, right?

I mean, who could've thought that in these modern times of digital monitoring of everything, something as massive as a freight train could become a toxic fireball rolling undetected and unslowed into an Ohio town? But a Norfolk Southern train did just that, derailing in East Palestine and contaminating the air, water, land and families with tons of cancer-causing chemicals. "Gosh," exclaimed Norfolk Southern's CEO; "Gosh," exclaimed the Ohio governor; "Gosh," exclaimed the U.S. transportation chief; gosh exclaimed the GOP chair of the rail transportation committee — this is a terrible, unexpected accident and we're all appalled by it!

Only... all of these officials knew full well that this disaster would happen (though they didn't know exactly where). Indeed, far from unexpected, there are more than 1,000 preventable train derailments in the U.S. every year (Norfolk Southern had another only days after the one in Ohio). And these things don't just happen — they are caused by the profiteering greed of the monopolistic industry's top executives and rich investors.

While Norfolk's boardroom elites have been pocketing record profits in recent years, they've used armies of lobbyists and multimillion-dollar political donations to kill safety protections that would prevent such a disastrous record. To cut costs and jack up profits, railroad bosses have rigged the rules to run trains that are absurdly long, go too fast, carry ever-heavier loads of undisclosed toxics in weak tanker cars, have no fire detectors, use outmoded braking systems — and have as few as one crew member on board. One!

Norfolk's derailed train was made to derail. It pulled 149 cars, stretching nearly two miles down the track, and it was unequipped to detect fires and other problems. This disaster was not an "accident" — it (and those that will come next) was mandated by the corporate and government officials now professing outrage.

Tracking Norfolk Southern's Derailment

"The Wreck of the Old 97" is a classic bluegrass song recounting a spectacular train crash in 1903, caused by the company's demand that the engineer speed down a dangerous track to deliver cargo on time.

One hundred twenty years later we have the "Wreck of the Norfolk Southern" — a devastating crash caused by the corporate demand that it be allowed to run an ill-equipped, understaffed, largely unregulated, 1.7-mile train carrying flammable, cancer-causing toxics through communities, putting profit over people and public safety.

This rolling bomb of a train was hardly unique, for the handful of multibillion-dollar railroad giants that control the industry also control lawmakers and regulators who're supposed to protect the public from public-be-damned profiteers. A measure of their arrogance came just two years ago, when an Ohio legislative committee dared to consider a modest proposal for just a bit more rail safety. Norfolk Southern executives squawked like Chicken Little, asserting a plutocratic doctrine of corporate supremacy on such decisions. They even imperiously proclaimed that state lawmakers have no right to interfere in safety matters.

Ohio's Chamber of Commerce dutifully echoed Norfolk's concern for profit over people, testifying that "Ohio's business climate would be negatively impacted" by the bill. Never mind that Ohio's public safety climate can literally be "negatively impacted" by train wrecks! Plunging deeper down the autocratic rabbit hole, the Chamber insisted that corporate control over workers is sacrosanct. It postulated that a crew-safety provision in the Ohio bill is illegal because it "would interfere with the employment relationship between employers and their employees." Yes, that's a corporate claim that executives have an inalienable right to endanger workers.

Sure enough, bowing to the corporate powers, Ohio lawmakers rejected the 2021 safety bill. And that, boys and girls, is why train catastrophes keep happening.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

NTSB: Engineer Was Not Talking, Texting When Amtrak Train Derailed

NTSB: Engineer Was Not Talking, Texting When Amtrak Train Derailed

By Paul Nussbaum, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

PHILADELPHIA — The engineer of Amtrak Train 188 was not talking or texting on his cellphone before the train’s deadly derailment in Philadelphia on May 12, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.

The finding supported statements by the lawyer for engineer Brandon Bostian, 32, that the engineer’s cellphone was turned off and stowed in his bag during the trip from Washington, D.C., to New York.

However, NTSB vice chair Tho “Bella” Dinh-Zarr told a Senate committee Wednesday that investigators have not determined if the engineer was using an app or the phone for other purposes.

There was “no talking, texting or data usage involved,” said Dinh-Zarr. But, she added, “there are 400,000 pieces of data involved in the analysis. Because of the extent of that, things like use of an app or other use of the phone has not been determined. We are working with the records.”

“To determine whether the phone was in ‘airplane mode’ or was powered off, investigators in the NTSB laboratory in Washington have been examining the phone’s operating system, which contains more than 400,000 files of metadata,” the agency said in its statement Wednesday. “Investigators are obtaining a phone identical to the engineer’s phone as an exemplar model and will be running tests to validate the data.”

The NTSB’s determination heightened the mystery surrounding the cause of the accident: Why was the train traveling more than 100 miles per hour as it entered a curve where the speed limit was 50 miles per hour?

Eight people were killed and more than 200 injured in the crash.

Some engineers have speculated that Bostian may have lost track of his location, mistakenly believing he had already passed the Frankford Junction curve and was clear to open the throttle on the way to New York.

“Everybody at some point in their career has done that,” said one engineer, referring to the possibility of losing one’s place on a route. He spoke on the condition that he would not be named.

Engineers are required to memorize their routes and the speed limits and other standards, aided by signals in the locomotive cab and on the side of the track.

Speed limit signs often are not posted.

After the Train 188 wreck, the Federal Railroad Administration ordered Amtrak to post speed limit signs throughout the Northeast Corridor within 30 days, “with particular emphasis on additional signage at the curve locations” with sharp speed reductions, like Frankford Junction.

The head of the engineers’ union told a congressional committee last week that the lack of speed limit signs could prove to be a significant lapse.

“If we eventually learn that, for some reason, the engineer of Amtrak 188 became temporarily confused as to his location, it may be reasonable to conclude that the simple use of speed signs in the approach to the curve, as a reminder, may have prevented this accident,” said Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

“That would raise a question whether the decision not to post such signs was a human error that contributed to the accident.”

The NTSB said Wednesday that “analysis of the phone records does not indicate that any calls, texts, or data usage occurred during the time the engineer was operating the train.”

“Amtrak’s records confirm that the engineer did not access the train’s Wi-Fi system while he was operating the locomotive,” the report said.

The NTSB said the analysis of the engineer’s phone records was “more complicated than anticipated because the phone carrier has multiple systems that log different types of phone activity, some of which are based in different time zones.

“Investigators worked with the phone carrier to validate the time-stamps in several sets of records with activity from multiple time zones to correlate them all to the time zone in which the accident occurred,” the agency said.

(Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Jonathan Tamari contributed to this report.)

(c)2015 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Investigators examine the train derailment site on Wednesday, May 13, 2015, after a northbound Amtrak train crashed in the Port Richmond area of Philadelphia Tuesday night. (Alejandro A. Alvarez/Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS)

Transit Proposals In Congress Threaten Projects, Jobs, Critics Say

Transit Proposals In Congress Threaten Projects, Jobs, Critics Say

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Rail and bus systems across the country could lose nearly half their funding under two proposals in Congress to end federal grants for transit projects.

The legislation, sponsored by Republican Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, also could affect more than 750 companies in 39 states that produce rail and bus transit components, including manufacturers in those two states.

According to the American Public Transportation Association, eliminating federal transit funding would put 66 projects at risk. They include light rail and streetcar projects in Charlotte, N.C.; commuter rail in Fort Worth, Texas; and bus rapid transit in Fresno, California.

Transit advocates are pushing lawmakers to continue federal funding for these projects as part of a long-term transportation bill Congress needs to pass this year.

The American Public Transportation Association reported last month that public transit ridership hit 10.8 billion trips last year, the largest in nearly six decades. The group projects that the Sanford and Massie bills would result in a 43 percent reduction in transit systems’ capital funds.

While some conservatives oppose federal funding for transit because of the perception that it benefits only urban areas, Michael Melaniphy, the American Public Transportation Association’s president and CEO, said that rural areas depend on transit systems and transit manufacturing jobs.

“Without federal investment, there will be negative impacts in towns small and large,” he said.

One of those towns could be Mount Pleasant, S.C., in Sanford’s district, where Hubner, a German company, announced plans in December to expand its manufacturing plant, adding 50 jobs. The plant builds parts for commuter trains, light rail vehicles, and buses.

Proterra Inc., an electric bus manufacturer in Greenville, S.C., has supplied buses to transit systems in Seattle; Worcester, Mass.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville’s system ordered five Proterra buses in February after receiving a $3.3 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration.

Kentucky also has companies that supply transit systems. Invensys Rail, a subsidiary of Siemens, a German multinational conglomerate, builds signal systems for commuter rail and transit systems and employs more than 500 people in the state.

Since the Reagan administration, 20 percent of the federal Highway Trust Fund has been dedicated to mass transit, or about ten billion dollars a year.

In recent years, however, the highway fund has not been able to cover the cost of annual transportation spending because it relies on a per-gallon federal gasoline tax that Congress hasn’t changed since the Clinton administration.

Rather than raise the tax, currently 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel fuel, the Sanford and Massie bills would eliminate or phase out the transit funding and redirect it to highways. The Sanford bill would phase out the funds over five years.

“The bill removes mass transit from the trust fund over a five-year period in order to give mass transit systems time to find and develop dedicated funding sources,” Sanford said in a statement.

While the idea is popular in conservative circles, Sanford and Massie will not have the support of the Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, of which they’re members.

Representative Bill Shuster (R-PA), has publicly said he does not support ending federal support for transit. Nor does Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, who’s testified on Capitol Hill recently in favor of more transit funding.
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AFFECTED PROJECTS

  • Charlotte, N.C. — CityLYNX Gold Line streetcar Phase 2; Blue Line light rail extension
  • Durham, N.C. — Durham-Orange LRT (light rail) project
  • Fort Worth, Texas — TEX Rail commuter rail
  • Sacramento, Calif. — Sacramento downtown riverfront streetcar
  • Fresno, Calif. — FAX (Fresno Area Express) Blackstone, Kings Canyon bus rapid transit
  • Tacoma, Wash. — Tacoma Link light rail expansion

Photo: Richard Gallagher via Flickr

Seven Dead After Train Hits Car Outside New York City

Seven Dead After Train Hits Car Outside New York City

New York (AFP) – A packed commuter train crashed into a car on the rails outside New York City during evening rush hour, killing seven people, officials said.

The driver of the car and six people in the first carriage of the train were killed when the train slammed into an SUV vehicle around 6:30 pm, triggering an explosion and fire, Governor Andrew Cuomo told a late night news conference.

The blast caused the electrified third rail of the train tracks to rise and ram through the train car, Cuomo said.

“This is a truly ugly and brutal sight,” he said.

“You have seven people who started out today to go about their business and aren’t going to make it home tonight,” the governor said.

Metro-North, the train operator, confirmed a Harlem line train had struck a vehicle but did not immediately announce fatalities or details.

Authorities scrambled to help hundreds of shell-shocked passengers off the train, which had departed from Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) and passengers told NBC.

The collision occurred in Valhalla, just outside New York City. Several U.S. media outlets reported a dozen people were hurt.

Pictures posted on Twitter showed a train car ablaze with thick black smoke billowing into the evening sky. Others showed what appeared to be the same carriage, gutted by smoke and fire and with its windows shattered.

Passenger Neil Rader was sitting in the middle-back of the train when he felt a “small jolt,” he told NBC.

“It felt not even like a short stop, and then the train just completely stopped,” he said.

Frantic passengers had to evacuate by breaking glass on the doors to get out, said Rader. He added that he saw 50 to 60 ambulances at the scene.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” he said.

Justin Kaback, 26, a passenger in the third train car, was doing his daily commute home when the train felt like it hit a bump, he told The Wall Street Journal.

But then people began entering his car from the front of the train, reporting gas smells.

“I started moving,” Kaback said. “Nobody wanted to yell out, ‘The train’s on fire’ because there would have been a panic.”

Photo: Police investigate a Metro-North train crash on February 3, 2015 in Valhalla, New York (AFP/Michael Graae)