The February 3 derailment of the "poison train" in Ohio has brought widespread attention to the safety of rail transportation in the United States. Since then, freight train accidents in the United States have occurred in different places. Most recently, on March 16, two trains from Burlington's Northern Santa Fe Rail Transit Company (BNSF) derailed in Arizona and Washington states on the same day. In addition, the Norfolk Southern Railroad Company, the company involved in the "poison train", had at least two train derailments in early March alone. In fact, for a long time, train accidents in the United States can be described as "one after another", even the American media can't help but ask, what is going on? American public opinion generally believes that large railway companies put profits above safety, extremely compressing costs, extremely squeezing workers, and lack of government supervision are important reasons for the frequent occurrence of railway accidents. "Toxic fumes from the derailment of an Ohio freight train ... symbolizes the toxic greed of many large corporations". Ntlake, a commentator on the News Network affiliated with the Policy Institute, a US think tank, wrote.
Infographic Ohio accident scene Xinhua News Agency
Derailment, collision, explosion, all kinds of accidents are endless
"What's wrong with trains all over the country constantly derailing?" On March 16, after two trains of Burlington's Northern Santa Fe Rail Transport Company (BNSF) derailed in different places on the same day, USA Today issued soul-torturing questions about the safety of rail freight in the country. Since the February 3 "poison train" derailment in Ohio, several states, including Florida, West Virginia, Michigan, Oklahoma, Alabama and Nebraska, have derailed, according to the media outlet.
In fact, before the "poison train" derailment accident, train derailments and other accidents across the United States were endless. According to federal government data, from 1990 to 2021, there were more than 54,000 train derailments in the United States, an average of 1,704 per year. The Guardian recently said that the rate of train derailments in the United States has risen from 1.71 per 1 million miles of rail mileage (1 mile is about 1.6 kilometers) in 2013 to 2 today. In the past 4 years, there have been 6,886 rail accidents in the United States, including derailments, collisions, fires, explosions, etc. The U.S. rail accident rate (accidents per million miles of rail) increased from 2.41 in 2012 to 2.94 in 2022.
Train accidents can pose a great danger. According to the American Chemistry Council, nearly 1 billion tons of hazardous substances are transported by rail in the country each year. Hazardous materials account for 7 to 8 percent of the cargo shipped by U.S. railroads each year, according to the Associated Press. Railways are often mixed, so almost every train may have one or two carriages carrying dangerous goods. USA Today found that train derailments accounted for 1 in 10 hazmat accidents over the past 10 years, up from 1 in 4 last year. According to the American Association of Railroad trade group, 99.9 percent of hazardous materials arrive safely at their destination, but the "poison train" derailment shows that even an incident involving hazardous materials can have devastating consequences. In 2013, a freight train carrying crude oil lost control after it pulled into the town of Lake Megontic, Quebec, Canada, spilling 2 million gallons (1 gallon about 3.8 liters) of crude oil, causing fires and explosions that killed 47 people.
"Pursuing more profits at the expense of safety"
Cheng Hongliang, a researcher at the Institute of American Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said in an interview with the Global Times that one of the main reasons for the frequent occurrence of railway transportation safety accidents in the United States is that the country's railway infrastructure as a whole is at a poor level. Although the American railroad industry started early and had a golden period in history, with the development of the times, its passenger business was gradually taken away by the aviation industry and road transportation, so its mainstream business was mainly concentrated in the field of cargo transportation. In recent decades, the United States has failed to keep up with the times or even stagnated the upgrading of its infrastructure. This is reflected in the railway industry, which is reflected in the disrepair of many railways and the lack of supporting facilities along the way.
Cheng Hongliang added that the practice of large American railroad companies only focusing on profit and ignoring safety has laid the root cause for the continuous occurrence of various accidents. "Profit above people" and "at the expense of safety, the pursuit of more profits", which is also the reason why many American media and analysts summarize the frequent railway accidents in the country. "As they [the big railroads] cut spending and change [the way of doing it], disasters like the eastern Palestinian town (of Ohio) (train derailments) will become more common." Edwards, head of Indiana for the International Sheet Metal, Air, Railroad and Transportation Workers' Association, said.
A number of US media pointed out that many changes in the operation and operation methods of large railway companies in the United States are largely due to the implementation of the "precision dispatch railway" (PSR) model. The basic idea of this model is to transport more goods with fewer workers and trains, simplify the train scheduling process, and maximize profits by running trains at full capacity by increasing the number of train sections, laying off staff, and reducing safety measures. A U.S. government accountability report shows that in 2008, the average length of freight trains in the country was less than one mile, and today freight trains are more than two miles in 95 percent of cases. Edwards said long trains are more prone to breakdowns, which can make trains harder to control.
Under the PSR model, the U.S. railroad industry made significant layoffs. NBC, The Guardian and other media quoted US government data as saying that since 2015, major railroads in the United States have laid off about 45,000 employees, accounting for 29% of their total employees. The number of people employed in American railroads has dropped from more than 1 million in the 50s of the 20th century to less than 150,000 in 2022. From 2011 to 2021, the number of U.S. railroad workers responsible for equipment maintenance decreased by nearly 40 percent, and train operators decreased by nearly 27 percent.
Miller, a safety consultant for the Virginia Railroad, said the PSR model led to an increase in train length and a reduction in staff, making large trains harder to maneuver, and "if something goes wrong at one end [of the train], the two crew members on board have to walk a long way to see what's wrong." According to the Associated Press, the American Railroad Industry Union said train inspectors used to have about two minutes to check the safety of each carriage, but now it only has about 30 to 45 seconds. Workers who maintain signals at railroad crossings are responsible for larger work areas, making it difficult for preventive maintenance to keep up. The reduction of the number of workers in the railway industry has led to a significant increase in their workload, and the results can be imagined in a state of great stress and chronic fatigue.
A number of media pointed out that the training of employees by large railroad companies in the United States has also been greatly reduced. Edwards revealed that the training time for new employees in the U.S. freight rail industry has been reduced from about six months in the past to less than two months. A recent audio clip obtained by The Guardian shows Griffin, a former train inspector at the American Union Railroad, saying she and other workers had no formal training before taking up their jobs, but only learned from older workers and used manuals to standardize the operation. Griffin said all major railroads in the U.S. do the same.
Large U.S. railroads often "cut corners" when it comes to implementing safety measures. Griffin said her previous job was to check all incoming trains for problems and label faulty parts and send them to repair shops. Regulations at the time stated that if there was significant oil leakage in a train bearing, it was damaged, but Griffin's boss took advantage of the ambiguity of this rule, arguing that only oil dripping on the ground was damaged. Griffin said his boss believed that reporting repairs because of bearing damage would increase train dwell times, so whenever that happened, maintenance crews were asked to let the train go.
Huge lobbying funds were spent to "rent" the ears of parliamentarians
According to New York Magazine, after decades of consolidation, there are currently only seven first-class railroad companies left in the United States, four of which control more than 83% of the country's rail freight market. The ability of these large railroads to "cut corners" in implementing safety regulations and measures is inseparable from the U.S. lobbying system and the strong lobbying power of these companies. Over the years, the railroad industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars to block Congress from passing new safety regulations and delay the implementation of passed regulations.
Open Secrets, a nonprofit investigative that discloses lobbying information, says the U.S. rail industry has spent $650 million on lobbying at the federal level over the past 20 years. Over the Obama term, the railroad industry spent more than $300 million on lobbying. That spending totaled about $107 million during Trump's presidency. Representatives involved in lobbying include the Association of American Railroads (AAR), BNSF's parent company Berkshire Hathaway, Pacific Union Railroad, and Norfolk Southern Railroad. At the state level, the U.S. rail industry spent $60.3 million lobbying in 20 states that collected data in "open secrets" between 2002 and 2022. Since the 2002 election cycle, the industry has donated $85 million to federal candidates, both parties and their outside organizations.
"Railroad industry lobbyists have far more direct contact with Capitol Hill than almost any other group," according to Daily Beast, in 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board wanted to adopt an automatic braking technology known as Active Control System (PTC), but after industry lobbying, the technology was not fully adopted until 30 years later. During Trump's term, rail lobbyists led by the AAR spent millions of dollars "renting the ears of lawmakers," much of it used to oppose the Safe Freight Act, which requires each train to have at least two staff members. Just months before the derailment of the Ohio "poison train," the Norfolk Southern Railroad chief executive met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg to express concern about proposed rules requiring trains to be staffed by two people.
"As with all accidents we investigated, this derailment (the February 3 Ohio train derailment) is 100% preventable." Homandy, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Committee, said March 22 that the United States cannot allow railroads to continue to chase high profits by cutting costs, and then more and more accidents occur. After the "poison train" derailment accident, many US lawmakers proposed more safety legislation. Even under this intense pressure, Norfolk's Southern Railroad CEO was reluctant to commit to two staff members per train, arguing that it was not the company's responsibility to prevent accidents.
"America's contemporary 'robber baron' cannot understand that workers sometimes get sick"
U.S. rail safety regulations have eroded, and U.S. government penalties for non-compliant railroads are very light. According to the White House, current law provides for fines of up to $225,000 for companies involved in the transportation of hazardous materials, in stark contrast to the huge profits made by large U.S. railroads. According to New York Magazine, the combined net income of the seven first-class railroad companies in the United States in 2021 was $27 billion. U.S. senators revealed that Norfolk Southern Railroad has closed 579 violations in the most recent fiscal year, with an average fine of less than $3,300 per case. The Associated Press said that after the "poison train" derailment accident, some lawmakers proposed to increase the penalty to 1% of the annual operating income of the companies involved, which would reach tens of millions of dollars.
Cheng Hongliang said that the lack of supervision by the US government is also a contributing factor to the frequent occurrence of railway accidents in the country. Due to various factors such as cost and electoral politics, the US government has continuously relaxed its supervision of the railway industry, under the pretext of marketization and privatization of the railway industry, and "ceded power to enterprises", allowing enterprises to assume some functions such as railway development planning, safety supervision and infrastructure construction investment that should be undertaken by the government. In the absence of state and government support, especially effective supervision, this nominal marketization is actually a laissez-faire inaction, and its effect can be imagined.
Professor Qiang Ge of the Party Construction Department of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China told the Global Times reporter that the frequent occurrence of railway safety accidents in the United States and the reasons behind it reflect two problems: First, the United States has largely lost its enterprising spirit, and the earliest large-scale infrastructure plan in the United States can be traced back to the Civil War, when the United States was called an "infrastructure maniac", but now the railways in the United States are dilapidated, and large enterprises only want to squeeze out the last trace of surplus value before it is abandoned; The second is to fully reflect that the United States is a capitalist country where interests are paramount, even if the railway industry is full of problems, as long as the accident rate can be controlled within a certain range to maximize the overall profit, then the lives and interests of some people can be sacrificed.
In the United States, which constantly advocates "human rights", the basic rights of railroad workers are difficult to guarantee. "America's contemporary 'robber barons' fail to understand that workers sometimes get sick," according to New York Magazine, adding that American railroad employees do not currently have paid sick leave. If these employees are going to call in sick, they must apply a few days in advance. In other words, if an employee has the flu and wants to take time off, they need to notify the employer in advance before they get sick. If they take leave because of a sudden illness, they are penalized. This practice is very harmful. In 2021, a railway engineer postponed medical visits for work reasons and died of a heart attack at work a few weeks later.
Source: Global Times
Process Editor: TF028