Derailments in Ohio and Minnesota have prompted federal regulators and members of Congress to propose a number of safety reforms
OMAHA, Neb. — Americans are renewing their focus on railroad safety after a string of recent derailments, especially two fiery ones involving hazardous chemicals in Ohio and Minnesota that prompted evacuations.
The railroads themselves say they will take steps that include installing roughly 1,000 more trackside detectors. But the industry has a long history of resisting new regulations. The Association of American Railroads trade group has already spoken out against the crew size rule and requiring electronically-controlled brakes.
Other crude oil crashes, like one that created a massive fireball outside the town of Casselton, North Dakota, in 2013, alarmed regulators because the number of crude oil shipments had skyrocketed as more oil was being produced in areas without many pipelines, like North Dakota. Federal regulators originally proposed that any high-hazardous flammable train would need upgraded electronically-controlled brakes that can stop trains more quickly by applying all cars’ brakes simultaneously. Conventional systems apply air brakes sequentially. But they dropped that proposal in 2018 after Congress required them to conduct a detailed cost-benefit analysis.
Since 2015, it has become much more common for railroads to use multiple locomotives spread throughout a train. That helps stop trains more quickly because the locomotives can send a braking signal at once — though likely not as quickly as electronic brakes would.One thing in the 2015 rules was a requirement to upgrade DOT-111 tank cars used to haul crude oil and ethanol to make them less likely to leak in a derailment.
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