USA: the worst chemical disasters caused by train derailments

[Adlington]

In the wake of the East Palestine crash, here are extracts from a list found on the web:

• 2012: Paulsboro, NJ - a train derailed over a bridge, causing four rail cars to fall into the Mantua Creek. One of the cars contained some 87,064 l of vinyl chloride — the same chemical released in East Palestine — and a tank was breached, causing the chemical to spill into the air and surrounding waterways. Hundreds of residents were evacuated, and dozens sought medical treatment after the exposure.
• 2005: Graniteville, SC - a train accidentally diverted onto a track that made it collide with a parked train, derailing 16 of the train’s freight cars. Three of these cars were carrying chlorine and one tank was breached, releasing 90 tons of liquid chlorine. Nine people, including the train engineer and workers at a nearby mill, died of chlorine exposure; 5,400 people were evacuated in a 2 km radius for several days and more than 550 people were taken to the hospital.
• 2015: Maryville, TN - a train derailed; the axle failed under a car carrying 90,850 l of acrylonitrile, a chemical used to make plastic that can damage the nervous system and liver. Authorities ordered 5,000 people to evacuate after the crash caused a fire, and at least 87 people had to be treated for a range of medical conditions; 36 went to the hospital
• 1991: Dunsmuir, CA - a train derailed and spilled 71,923 l of metam sodium, which is used as a herbicide, into the Upper Sacramento River. Scientists were not allowed near the water for three days; when they were able to get to the site, they found all the fish, reptiles, and other living organisms within a nearly 64 km radius had died.
• 2002: Minot, ND - a 112-car train derailed; five cars carrying anhydrous ammonia were ruptured. One person died from exposure to the gas, while 11 were seriously injured and 322 suffered smaller injuries from exposure, and houses near the crash site were evacuated.
• 1992: Superior, WI - some 80,000 people living at the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin were forced to evacuate their homes after a train jumped the tracks north of Minneapolis and plunged into the Nemadji River. The accident created a toxic cloud of chemicals, including cancer-causing benzene, that stretched 32 km long and 8 km wide and sent 17 people to the hospital.
• 2020: Custer, WA - a derailment north of Seattle, Washington spilled 113,562 l of oil and caused a massive fire.

Makes me wonder whether these accidents reflect the parlous state of US railways, or they simply are a by-product of the volume of goods (including nasty chemicals) carried by rail in that county?

 

[ac6000cw]

Just to put some numbers to it, looking at the weekly AAR rail traffic statistics - https://www.aar.org/data-center/rail-traffic-data/#! - chemicals traffic averages around 30-35 thousand freight carloads per week (4300-5000 per day), out of around 230 thousand total carloads and 300 thousand total intermodal containers per week.

So as a comparison/sense of scale, if you ran all the US chemical traffic as UK size block trains (assuming 35k per week), as say 20 cars per train (about 2600 tonnes if fully loaded), that's 1750 trains per week or 250 trains per day. Taking total carload freight traffic instead, that would translate to 11500 UK-size trains per week or about 1640 per day.

Of course US mainline freight trains are normally much longer than that - usually between 100 and 200 cars long - and I think chemicals traffic is normally carried mostly in mixed freight trains, so probably most of those will have chemical cars of one sort or another in their consist (some will be long-haul trains travelling between the major yards, others local workings).

 

[eldomtom2]

Makes me wonder whether these accidents reflect the parlous state of US railways, or they simply are a by-product of the volume of goods (including nasty chemicals) carried by rail in that county?

Both. The safety culture in American railroads is shocking from a UK perspective.

 

[DelW]

In the wake of the East Palestine crash, here are extracts from a list found on the web:

• (snip)
• 2020: Custer, WA - a derailment north of Seattle, Washington spilled 113,562 l of oil and caused a massive fire.

Makes me wonder whether these accidents reflect the parlous state of US railways, or they simply are a by-product of the volume of goods (including nasty chemicals) carried by rail in that county?

Since that list includes as the final example an oil spill and fire, it ought really to include one of the worst of all, which almost destroyed a town and killed many of its residents, the Lac Megantic crash:

Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster

In the early morning of 6 July 2013, a runaway train hauling 72 tankers filled with crude oil derailed as it approached the centre of the town of Lac-Mégantic,...

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

The whole sorry saga, not just the crash but the carelessness that led up to it, and the legal devices by which some of its authors dodged liability, reflected badly on the entire industry and its regulatory regime.

 

[Tetchytyke]

US railways follow the same path as many other US industries: cut corners and cut costs, knowing bankruptcy law will protect them if it goes wrong. Privatising profit and nationalising loss. It’s the same in aviation, as we’ve seen with the alarming number of near-misses on runways.

The Ohio crash happened because Trump rolled back laws mandating safety upgrades to braking systems. To see him swanning around East Palestine blaming Biden for not putting the laws back in place sums it up.

Rail Magazine darling Ed Burkhardt tried exactly the same business model here and couldn’t get it to work because- whilst they’re still lacking, and how many survive Brexit remains to be seen- we actually still have some health and safety laws in the UK.

Of course the scale is also bigger in the US because the trains are bigger- the train in the Ohio crash was 1.5 *miles* long- but it comes down to safety being below shareholder value.

 

[eldomtom2]

US railways follow the same path as many other US industries: cut corners and cut costs, knowing bankruptcy law will protect them if it goes wrong.

Well it's more than that - it's stuff like the government intervening to block every strike, and the NTSB being either unwilling or incapable to properly investigate accidents instead of just blaming the worker, and much else besides.

 

[43096]

Since that list includes as the final example an oil spill and fire, it ought really to include one of the worst of all, which almost destroyed a town and killed many of its residents, the Lac Megantic crash:

Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster

In the early morning of 6 July 2013, a runaway train hauling 72 tankers filled with crude oil derailed as it approached the centre of the town of Lac-Mégantic,...

www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

The whole sorry saga, not just the crash but the carelessness that led up to it, and the legal devices by which some of its authors dodged liability, reflected badly on the entire industry and its regulatory regime.

Except that the thread title clearly states USA and Lac Megantic is in Canada, so is correctly excluded.

 

[DelW]

Except that the thread title clearly states USA and Lac Megantic is in Canada, so is correctly excluded.

A valid point , although of course the railway in question, Montreal Maine and Atlantic, was majority US owned and was headquartered in the US. However my Canadian cousins wouldn't have been happy at my mixing them up with their southern neighbours.

 

[ac6000cw]

The Ohio crash happened because Trump rolled back laws mandating safety upgrades to braking systems.

Assuming you are talking about the proposed rules to make the use of ECP braking mandatory on unit (block) trains of flammable materials - mostly oil and ethanol trains - how exactly did the non-fitment of ECP braking cause the derailment?

(P.S. I think ECP braking should definitely be adopted in the US. Now that all the PTC installation work is done, it probably should be next on the FRA rule making 'wish list')

 

[Jonny]

US railways follow the same path as many other US industries: cut corners and cut costs, knowing bankruptcy law will protect them if it goes wrong. Privatising profit and nationalising loss. It’s the same in aviation, as we’ve seen with the alarming number of near-misses on runways.

The Ohio crash happened because Trump rolled back laws mandating safety upgrades to braking systems. To see him swanning around East Palestine blaming Biden for not putting the laws back in place sums it up.

Rail Magazine darling Ed Burkhardt tried exactly the same business model here and couldn’t get it to work because- whilst they’re still lacking, and how many survive Brexit remains to be seen- we actually still have some health and safety laws in the UK.

Of course the scale is also bigger in the US because the trains are bigger- the train in the Ohio crash was 1.5 *miles* long- but it comes down to safety being below shareholder value.

Unless the incident was due to a failure to make a braking call, then the brake system is of little relevance. Also Biden's regime was responsible for the initial response which seems to have aggravated the pollution situation. Still, Norfolk Southern should be on the hook for cleanup costs until every last molecule of pollution has been removed.

Also, Britain had some pretty good railway safety laws even before joining the EU's predecessors. People talk about the fares enforcement side of the Regulation of Railways act, but it also sets minimum standards for safety and there are other laws that are intended to make sure that staff do their jobs safely.

 

[Adlington]

Since that list includes as the final example an oil spill and fire, it ought really to include one of the worst of all, which almost destroyed a town and killed many of its residents, the Lac Megantic crash

No, it should not. The list is about US crashes, whereas Lac-Mégantic is in Canada.

 

[36270k]

For a detailed report on a UK rail chemical incident, It is worth reading the report on Weaver Junction 1975 or Summit Tunnel 1984 that had a similar axle bearing failure to East Palestine.

 

[DelW]

No, it should not. The list is about US crashes, whereas Lac-Mégantic is in Canada.

Yes, I know, see posts 7 and 8.

 

[ld0595]

2012: Paulsboro, NJ - a train derailed over a bridge, causing four rail cars to fall into the Mantua Creek. One of the cars contained some 87,064 l of vinyl chloride — the same chemical released in East Palestine — and a tank was breached, causing the chemical to spill into the air and surrounding waterways. Hundreds of residents were evacuated, and dozens sought medical treatment after the exposure.

This one hits close to home for me. My partner's family had a business round the corner from the incident that was ultimately destroyed from the incident and the aftermath.

US railways definitely seem much less safe than the UK to me. Not a freight service but only a few years ago I took a NJ Transit service from NY Penn to Trenton where the conductor opened the doors on the wrong side, potentially leaving us exposed to Acela trains bombing by on the adjacent through track at 125+ mph. They were left open for 2-3 minutes before closing and reopening them on the correct side. No explanation or announcement about it.

I'm sure we see similar incidents too but in my 100s of journeys here and nearly decade on the forum, I've never experienced this and don't recall seeing a post about it.