The announcement came the same day Pennsylvania’s governor announced that the company had agreed to pay several million dollars to cover the state’s response and recovery costs.
The company said it will evaluate the distance between “hot pad” detectors – currently an average of 13.9 miles (22 kilometers) in its core network – and promises to look at every location that is more than 15 miles (24 kilometers) apart, deploying them. other detectors if practical.
Norfolk Southern “expects to add approximately 200 heat pad detectors to the network, with the first to be installed on the western approach to East Palestine,” said the company’s announcement, which comes amid proposals from President Joe Biden’s administration and Congress that aim to to improve security after last month. derailment.
The National Transportation Safety Board has said that crews operating the train that derailed on February 3 outside East Palestine, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border got a warning from the detector but were unable to stop the train before more than three dozen cars came off the tracks and caught fire.
Half of the town of about 5,000 people had to evacuate for several days when responders deliberately burned toxic chemicals in some of the cars they drove to prevent an uncontrolled explosion, leaving residents concerned about their health. Government officials say tests have not found dangerous levels of the chemical in the air or water in the area.
A week ago, a safety adviser from the Federal Railroad Administration called on railroads to reexamine the use of the detectors, ensure they are regularly checked by trained employees and that there are safe standards for determining when to stop a train or park a car. when the warning is triggered. The railway administration said overheating bearings could cause at least four more derailments from 2021 and called for ways to analyze temperature trends from sensors to help identify potential problems sooner.
Norfolk Southern also said it will work with manufacturers to speed up testing and deployment of new “multi-scan” detectors that can scan more cross-sections of the railcar’s bearings and wheels. It also vowed to work with other railroads to review standards and practices, reassess temperatures that trigger alarms and respond to those alarms as well as analyze data for patterns that could warn of safety issues.
Also announced in Norfolk Southern’s six-point safety plan is the installation of another acoustic bearing detector, which analyzes acoustic vibration signatures in the shaft to identify potential problems. Norfolk Southern said it already has five such detectors in service and will add 13 more on high-traffic routes.
The company also said it is working with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to develop more advanced safety inspection technology and will join the railroad administration’s “confidential telephone reporting system,” citing its own program that “encourages railroaders to say they see something.” insecure.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has proposed several safety improvements, including reviving the rule requiring upgrades, electronic control brakes on certain trains filled with flammable liquids designated as “high-hazard flammable trains”, and possibly expanding the Trains covered by the designation. . The industry has consistently delayed major changes until after the transportation safety board completes its investigation a year or more from now.
Two U.S. senators in Ohio last week introduced legislation that would require railroads to create disaster plans and tell emergency response commissions what hazardous materials will be brought into their state. Other provisions would maintain a two-person crew size and require regulators to set limits on the size and weight of trains.
US Senator Bob Casey, who co-sponsored the legislation, said Monday that preventing future derailments would require measures “far beyond the measures described at Norfolk Southern today” and called on the company and other rail companies to “step in”. Senate proposal.
Professor Allan Zarembski, who leads the University of Delaware’s engineering and rail safety program, previously said that overheating bearings only cause some of the more than 1,000 derailments a year, and he doubts the value of a “knee-jerk reaction” amid big politics. pressure. On Monday, he called Norfolk Southern’s plan for hot pads “a great incremental step” to get rid of the problem, which he said is “very rare.”
On Saturday afternoon, 28 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in Ohio between Dayton and Columbus and prompted a temporary shelter order, but officials said the derailment did not contain hazardous materials, although the 212-car train did. cars that contain non-destructive liquid propane and ethanol.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro said Friday that Norfolk Southern has pledged several million dollars to cover the cost of response and recovery in Pennsylvania after the derailment last month. The company previously announced more than $1 million for Ohio to replace fire equipment used in response to the fire accident, plus $1 million for East Palestine and more than $1.2 million for evacuation costs for nearly 900 families and businesses.
The company said it is “committed to coordinating the cleanup project and paying the associated costs,” and wants to ensure that the people of East Palestine and the natural environment recover.
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