A Norfolk Southern freight train derailed just outside of the southeast Ohio town of East Palestine on February 3. About 50 of the 149 cars carried by the train came off of the tracks and crashed in a fiery wreck. Eleven of those cars were filled with hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride.
Vinyl chloride, used to make plastic products like PVC pipes, is known to be highly flammable. In an effort to avoid a massive explosion, responders began a controlled release of 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride. The gas burned for hours and sent a ginormous, billowing, black cloud into the sky that could be seen for miles.
Citizens within a two-mile radius were ordered to evacuate, but by February 8 officials deemed the area’s air and water to be safe, and the evacuation order was lifted. Life returned to normal in East Palestine, or so they thought.
Environmental Scars of the Toxic Flames
In the weeks following the derailment, locals began to report troubling symptoms such as headaches, burning eyes, and trouble breathing. In one case, a man reported that his voice had changed to a much higher pitch.
“My voice sounds like Mickey Mouse. My normal voice is low. It’s hard to breathe, especially at night. My chest hurts so much at night I feel like I’m drowning,” 40-year-old Wade Lovett told the New York Post. “Doctors say I definitely have the chemicals in me, but there’s no one in town who can run the toxicological tests to find out which ones they are.”
Three weeks after the crash, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources reported that an estimated 43,000 animals died within five miles of the derailment site, mostly minnows and other fish and small amphibians. Other anecdotal reports said that fish and animals have fallen ill and died as far as 20 miles from the site.
The Frequency of Train Derailments
The situation in East Palestine has drawn a lot of national attention, mostly due to the handling of the chemical fire, and the environmental concerns that followed. However, train derailments are much more common than people might think.
There were 54,539 train derailments in the United States between 1990 and 2021, an average of 1,704 a year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The vast majority of these derailments have not resulted in disasters like the one seen in Ohio. However, modern train scheduling practices make it so that there are a wide variety of gasses and chemicals being moved throughout the country at any given time.
Improved Efficiency or Cutting Corners?
Previously, the North American railway system tended to prioritize transporting long trains of similar carriages. They did this to maximize capacity and achieve the highest degree of efficiency. Railroads would operate both trains carrying a variety of cars and trains carrying a uniform set of cars, the latter known as “unit trains.”
Unit Trains were traditionally the favored option, as they allow for faster speed. This meant that trains had to be of a certain length, and a train would have to wait to depart until the amount of freight would allow for the right length. Today, trains are scheduled using a method called “Precision Scheduled Railroading” or PSR. Whereas the former system focused on moving entire trains, this new system gives precedence to individual cars.
Rail Workers United, an inter-union caucus, claims that PSR has allowed railroads to reduce staffing and consolidated dispatch centers. This caused a decrease in safety, as personnel have less time to inspect expanded fleets of railcars.
Before the use of PSR, the caucus claimed that the heavier cars would be placed at the front of the train, with the lighter cars behind. According to the RWU, this was done in order to prevent incidents like that that occurred in Ohio. There, the heaviest cars collided with the lighter ones ahead of them. This jackknifed the cars into the air before they came crashing down off-track.
Chicago, North America’s Freight Hub
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning states that 25 percent of all freight trains and 50 percent of all intermodal trains in the U.S. pass through the Chicago metropolitan area.
Chicago remains the primary hub for rail routes interchanging between east and west. Six Class 1 railroads cross through the area. That is an uncommon amount of train traffic and activity in a single region, which makes Illinois susceptible to potential train collisions and derailments.
Over the past four years, there have been 574 train accidents in the state of Illinois. The second most of any state in the nation, behind only Texas.
One of these accidents happened on Feb. 15, 2021, when a Canadian National train derailed at an intersection with Metra UP-W tracks in West Chicago. The derailment delayed Metra service for five hours, but no other damage was done, as none of the cars were carrying hazardous material.
Concerns in Illinois Following the East Palestine Toxic Fallout
Although the East Palestine train disaster is a scary example of what can happen when a train derails, it’s also a pretty rare example when compared to the hundreds of other derailments that happen each year. Nonetheless, the recent story out of Ohio has residents and politicians alike concerned about what possibilities there are for disaster here at home.
On February 24, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi sent a joint letter to Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman. The letter requested a delay in the approval of a proposed merger between the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads.
The lawmakers explained their request with the following statement:
We are concerned that this increase puts CP’s Central Corridor, which passes through Chicago, Illinois, particularly at risk since the route transports intermodal containers carrying fertilizers, crude oil, and chemicals from the Port of Vancouver. The EIS estimates that the proposed merger would cause almost 11,000 additional carloads of hazardous materials to be transported along the Metra line that runs from Elgin to Bensenville on the route to downtown Chicago and serves thousands of residents.
A coalition of Chicago-area mayors has also asked for a delay on the merger, with the Mayor of Itasca Jeff Pruyn citing that the merger would increase train traffic in his town from three trains a day to 14.
Even with the delay of this merger, freight train traffic through the Chicago area is already some of the highest in the nation. If the proper safety measures and infrastructure changes aren’t made to ensure an event like the Ohio derailment and fire can never happen again, it likely will. And if it happens in a large population center like Chicago, the damages will be catastrophic.
Written by Seth Herlinger
Sources:
ABC News: East Palestine derailment: Timeline of key events in toxic train disaster
AP News: Train crew had little warning before Ohio wreck, probe finds
Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning: Maintain the region’s status as North America’s freight hub
Chicago Sun-Times: Metra UP-W tracks cleared after freight train derails in West Chicago
Federal Railroad Administration: Accident Trends – Summary Statistics
FOX 32 Chicago: Chicago-area mayors call for proposed freight rail merger delay
The Independent: How many train derailments have there been in the US in 2023?
The New Republic: Rail Workers Tried to Warn Us the Ohio Train Derailment Would Happen
New York Post: ‘Sound like Mickey Mouse’: East Palestine residents’ shock illnesses after derailment
Smithsonian Magazine: Dead Fish and Chemical Smells Plague Ohio Community Two Weeks After Train Derailment
Union Pacific: Precision Scheduled Railroading
U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth Press Release: Duckworth, Durbin, Krishnamoorthi, Ramirez Urge Surface Transportation Board to Delay Decision on Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern Rail Merger Until After a Thorough Review of the Risks Involved in the Increased Transportation of Hazardous Materials
USA Today: East Palestine train derailment killed more than 43,000 fish and animals, officials say
Washington Post: Toxic air pollutants in East Palestine could pose long-term risks, researchers say
Top and Featured Image by thunderlips36, Courtesy of Wikimedia – Creative Commons License
Inset Image by Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance Courtesy of FracTracker Alliance‘s Flickr page – Creative Commons License