Earlier warning might have spared Ohio a derailment, US investigator says

In its preliminary report, the NTSB said the train engineer applied brakes as soon as an alarm rang on Feb. 3 to warn of an overheated axle on the Norfolk Southern train. RARE HEARING SCHEDULED It said "defect detectors" showed the axle and wheel bearing starting to heat up about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the derailment site, but not to levels that would have triggered the audible alarm to warn the train engineer that far away. Each individual railroad company determines its own temperature thresholds for when alarms are triggered.

A U.S. train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals in an Ohio town might have been avoided if the railway company's alarm system had given engineers an earlier warning that bearings were overheating, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday with the release of a preliminary investigation. "Had there been a detector earlier, that derailment may not have occurred," NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters in Washington. The incident prompted the evacuation of thousands of people and ignited health concerns.

While stressing a final report on the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine could be 18 months away, she said the NTSB could recommend railroad companies lower the temperature thresholds that would trigger an alarm about overheated bearings. The derailment has sparked a political battle and a blame game over railroad safety regulations with residents voicing deep concern over the longterm health impact of millions of pounds of carcinogenic chemicals spilled in their town.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg toured the wreckage on Thursday and urged freight rail companies not to stand in the way of tougher safety regulations. Wearing a hard hat and orange safety vest while he met with NTSB staff, Buttigieg told reporters: "Norfolk Southern and the other freight rail companies need to stop fighting us every time we try to do a regulation."

There was no immediate response to either U.S. official from Norfolk Southern, whose chief executive apologized on Wednesday at a CNN town hall event that highlighted residents' concerns about soil and ground water contamination. Homendy said that in 2021 there were 868 derailments across the United States of freight cars in the same class as the Norfolk Southern train that wrecked, a number she said was far too high and the result of both the industry and government not implementing previous NTSB safety recommendations.

The rail industry had said 99.9% of all hazardous material shipments reached their destination without incident and the hazmat accident rate has declined by 55% since 2012. In its preliminary report, the NTSB said the train engineer applied brakes as soon as an alarm rang on Feb. 3 to warn of an overheated axle on the Norfolk Southern train.

RARE HEARING SCHEDULED It said "defect detectors" showed the axle and wheel bearing starting to heat up about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the derailment site, but not to levels that would have triggered the audible alarm to warn the train engineer that far away.

Each individual railroad company determines its own temperature thresholds for when alarms are triggered. Before the derailment, temperature measurements on the Norfolk Southern train's suspect wheel were doubling every 10 miles in the lead up to the derailment, the NTSB said.

The board said it would hold a rare "investigative field hearing" near the site in East Palestine and call witnesses. The board said all parties involved in the derailment were fully cooperating with its investigation. Some rail safety requirements were withdrawn under Republican former President Donald Trump. Some Republican critics of the East Palestine response who previously opposed rail regulations have now expressed openness to new rules.

The Biden administration had been criticized for not having made a high-level visit sooner, and Buttigieg said he did not want to make an earlier visit that might have impeded the emergency response. President Joe Biden and Buttigieg are both Democrats.

The NTSB also said it was investigating whether pressure relief valves on train cars carrying the toxic chemical vinyl chloride functioned properly following the wreck and subsequent fire. Experts had said that if those valves had functioned properly, authorities may not have needed to drain upward of 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride from cars and purposefully set it ablaze, releasing heavily contaminating the environment.

Biden and his administration have said the company must pay for the damage and clean-up efforts, and the EPA ordered company officials to attend town hall events after executives failed to attend an earlier meeting. Russell Quimby, a retired NTSB investigator, said rail companies should monitor differences in temperature readings between the sensors spaced along a rail line, which could give an early warning that a bearing is failing, rather than wait for a bearing to hit a high temperature to sound an alarm.

Quimby told Reuters: "They start slow, but the longer it (the train) goes, the quicker they fail. They stop heating up if they stop the train."

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)