Lawmakers have a plan to help the railway transport safety

The Union Pacific Railroad Railroad, a trade association of railroads, discusses the problem of service level improvement over the past year and the next few years

Railroads don’t understand that service isn’t at the level customers deserve. Aggressive measures are underway to put the right plans, people and equipment in place to improve service and reliability,” said a statement last fall from the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s trade group.

“Over the past year, Union Pacific accelerated our hiring efforts and we have reached our goal of hiring 1,400 employees, of which nearly 1,000 have been trained,” said a statement from Union Pacific — one of the four major railroads that collectively handle 90% of the nation’s rail freight. “As a result of our hiring efforts and our employees’ hard work, Union Pacific has made progress to increase fluidity and better meet our customers’ demands and we will continue to do so to provide the service our customers expect and need.”

Statistics show that service levels are getting better even before the new workers arrive.

Max Fisher, the National Grain and Feed Association’s chief economist and treasurer, told CNN that things are improved for most carriers during the spring and summer. “There’s still room for improvement.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/economy/freight-railroad-service-problems/index.html

What’s happening in freight rail? The problem is still there, and the railroads can’t just rely on it: How much does Congress care about the railroad sector?

Many businesses that depend on the rail system are hesitant to speak out about the problems because of the stigma associated with them. The businesses have few alternatives than to try to keep relations with the railroads as smooth as possible. The trade associations are more open to speak about their issues.

Cooper and other groups representing rail customers said they were relieved that Congress acted a week ago to stop a strike that could have started this past Friday.

Many rail customers are known in the industry as captive shippers because they can’t negotiate better rates between different providers.

The ethanol industry ships nearly 400,000 carloads a year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. In comparison to last year, trains carrying alcohol are sitting on the Tracks more than before the H1N1 epidemic.

Rail delays are also a major part of the problem with the flow of goods through the Port of Los Angeles and the neighboring Port of Long Beach, the major entry points for shipping containers from Asia.

The issues date back to before the outbreak of the swine flu. Statistics show rail service is now much worse than it was at the start of this century, and has gotten particularly bad during the last five years, according to Pete Swan, professor of logistics and operations management at Penn State Harrisburg.

And profits are definitely up. Union Pacific

            (UNP), Norfolk Southern

            (NSC) and Berkshire Hathaway’s

            (BRKA) Burlington Northern Santa Fe all reported record earnings in 2021.

Swan said it’s unlikely any other business could stay afloat providing the same poor quality of service as the railroads. What other business has the power that the railroads have? He said so.

The Surface Transportation Board, one of the railroads’ federal regulators, has held hearings to consider penalties for bad service, and there is also legislation before Congress.

“Today’s temporary service challenges in no way justify an about-face on the market-based principles that brought the industry back from the brink and paved the way for the safest, most efficient freight rail service in the world,” said the AAR’s statement.

The industry argues those proposals “would have far-reaching, negative impacts on the efficiency of the freight rail network but combined they would be devastating for long-term US rail service, reliability and investment.”

I do not know what an industry without regulation would look like. A lot of people say, “Mike, you’re a Republican.” Why are you wanting to impose a mandate on private business?’ And my answer to that is that I think many of these businesses — in this case, the railroads — would probably welcome universal rules that everyone would have to abide by, that would allow them to be on a level playing field and provide public safety. All we’ve heard about from all the railroad companies after this is safety is their top priority. My response to that is, then prove it to me.

Buttigieg said that the rail industry has fought hard to keep safety measures like stronger tank cars and better brakes off the rails.

He is calling on Congress to nottie the agency’s hands in relation to legislation that weakened the department’s ability to enforce certain safety and accountability rules.

Buttigieg said that the safety of the American people shouldn’t be taken for granted. The rail industry is invited to work with the US DOT to raise the bar in rail safety but they insist that the industry do the same.

Buttigieg has faced some criticism for not visiting the crash site to see the cause, but he says he stayed away to allow the National Transportation Safety Board to take the lead on the investigation. He hopes to check out the site in the future, but no date has been set.

According to Buttigieg, he wants the rail companies to speed up their phased out of puncture resistant tank cars that carry volatile or toxic substances. The DOT mandated the new tank cars be in use and older, weaker ones to be phased out by 2025. But Congress delayed that new tank car deadline until 2029.

The maximum fine we can issue for egregious violations involving hazardous materials resulted in the loss of life is over $225,000, he said. “For a multibillion-dollar rail company posting profits in the billions every year, it’s just not enough to have an adequate deterrent effect.”

Buttigieg added that the DOT is considering revising how it classifies certain toxic and volatile chemicals. While the Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous cargo was derailed, it was not a “high hazard flammable train” as required by safety protocols.

He wants to require trains carrying such hazardous materials to have an electronically controlled braking system. Congress mandated a cost benefit analysis be done before the DOT implemented electronically controlled pneumatic brakes for trains with more than 20 HHFT cars in 2015, but the Trump administration repealed the rule in 2017.

Rail Safety and Defect Detectors: A State of the Art and a Problem for Railroad Workers in the Middle of a Very Hard Times

“We can’t treat disasters as a cost of doing business,” Buttigieg said. “There’s a window of opportunity with Congress now after what happened in East Palestine that I do not think existed before, and we aim to use that window of opportunity to raise the bar” on safety.

With two headline-grabbing train derailments in the span of about a month, two legislators are taking action to address concerns railway workers have been voicing for years.

Who are they? The legislation surrounding rail safety is being worked on by both elected officials in Ohio and Nebraska, with the hopes that it will become federal law as well.

This is not a partisan issue. There is an issue of doing the right thing. I’ve been a banker for 43 years. I don’t like regulation as a banker.

We’ve been hearing from rail workers for decades that we need a two-person crew minimum because they’re afraid that the rail industry is going to try and roll back some of the safety measures there.

The other person is making sure that railways have defect detector so they can be alerted when there is an issue. This is the first legislation in the country that would require these wayside defect detectors.