(The following article by Mike Wiggins was posted on the Daily Sentinel website on July 11.)
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — On most days, residents who live on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Gunnison River on Orchard Mesa can distinctly hear the clickety-clack of progress: Coal trains barreling down the railroad tracks at unprecedented rates from the mines in the North Fork Valley to utility companies in the South.
Sometimes, though, progress grinds and screeches and erupts into thunder, just like it did last month, when a stretch of railroad buckled, throwing 29 cars off the tracks and plunging more than 400 tons of coal into prime habitat for endangered fish.
A recent spate of major coal train derailments has left western Colorado poised this year to equal or surpass the record for the number of derailments and the amount of damage to railroad equipment and tracks in the area, a Daily Sentinel analysis of 30 years of train derailments shows.
Four major derailments in the first six months of the year have drawn the attention of conservation groups, a federal oversight agency and the nation’s largest railroad company, whose motto proclaims “Safety is Number One.”
“Obviously, we don’t want that to happen,” said John Bromley, spokesman for Union Pacific, the Omaha, Neb.-based company whose trains have been involved in all four accidents. “That’s not a good way to do business. That doesn’t help our customers. That doesn’t help us.”
Despite the local derailments, statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration, the oversight agency for the railroad companies, suggest the railroad is as safe as it’s ever been.
A total of 674 freight railroads operated more than 749 million train miles in the U.S. last year, a 3 percent increase over 2002 and a 14 percent increase over 1994. Yet the 13,706 train accidents or incidents that occurred last year represent a 6 percent decrease from 2002 and a 41 percent decrease from a decade ago, according to the FRA.
Western Colorado, however, appears to be bucking the national trend.
The area has had a total of six derailments so far this year, putting it in a position to have the most derailments since 1975, the first year the FRA began keeping data on train accidents. The high for derailments came in 1975 and 1994, when 10 occurred in the area each year.
What has made this year’s derailments noteworthy, in addition to the number and the short time in which they have occurred, is the severity of them.
Four of the accidents have combined to cause $4.9 million in damage to railroad equipment and tracks, according to Union Pacific and the FRA. Already, it’s the second-highest amount of damage caused by Western Slope derailments ever. The only year that saw more damage was 1996, when seven derailments caused $6.5 million damage. That included an Eagle County derailment that killed two train engineers, injured a conductor and racked up more than $4.6 million in damage.
The four derailments this year occurred on:
June 29, when two engines and nine cars went off the tracks near Wolcott in Eagle County. About 80 tons of coal and a small amount of oil from an overturned engine spilled into the Colorado River. A broken rail was blamed for the derailment.
June 24, when 29 cars derailed in southern Grand Junction. More than 400 tons of coal dumped into the Gunnison River. A “sun kink,” in which the rails heat, expand and buckle, caused the accident, according to Bromley.
Feb. 15, when two locomotives and 41 cars derailed in Glenwood Canyon, four miles east of Glenwood Springs. No coal went into the Colorado River, but Amtrak’s California Zephyr was detoured through Wyoming for several days. The railroad identified a fault in the tracks as the primary cause of the derailment.
Feb. 9, when 18 cars went off the tracks along the Gunnison River near Austin. No coal went into the river. The accident happened when a bridge beam collapsed.
The FRA is investigating three of the four derailments, said spokesman Steve Kulm. Officials will attempt to determine what factors contributed to the derailments and look at the maintenance history of the tracks where the accidents occurred.
The agency has a number of enforcement tools at its disposal to ensure railroads comply with federal safety standards, including issuing emergency orders, compliance orders, disqualification orders and notices for repair. In the most serious cases, it can cite railroads for a violation and fine them.
Kulm said he doesn’t know whether the FRA will take any action against Union Pacific for any of the four derailments.
For Union Pacific’s part, Bromley acknowledged it is “unusual to have that number of significant derailments” and insisted company officials are paying heed to them.
“Believe me, everybody’s attention is focused on what’s happening up there right now,” he said.
Railroad officials attribute the spike in derailments to a surge in coal production in Colorado. The state has set records for coal production three years in a row, reaching 35.9 million tons in 2003. Mines in the North Fork Valley accounted for 45 percent of the entire state’s production last year.
The increase in coal production is the first piece in a domino effect; more coal means more traffic on the railroads, and more traffic means a greater likelihood of train accidents.
Bromley said Union Pacific inspects its railroads routinely and bases maintenance on the weight of the loads carried by the cars. Tracks that carry heavy loads, such as coal, are maintained more often than those that carry light trains, he said.
Because coal is one of the primary commodities handled by Union Pacific, Bromley said the railroad company has spent millions of dollars in the last couple of years improving the railroad on the Western Slope.
He didn’t have specific dates as to when the work was done, but indicated in the past year workers put in new curve rails on the North Fork Branch, which runs between Grand Junction and Delta, and on the Glenwood Springs main line.
He said new railroad ties were also installed between Grand Junction and the coal mines.
Residents who live above the tracks on Orchard Mesa said they saw maintenance workers on the tracks in the days preceding the June 24 derailment.
“We’ve done extensive maintenance work on the tracks in that area,” Bromley said.
But John Bentley, a spokesman with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a Cleveland, Ohio, union with more than 59,000 members, said the derailments show more can and should be done to improve safety.
“I think that’s probably attributable to railroad companies not paying enough attention, not investing enough money in their infrastructures,” Bentley said. “There’s a great deal of pressure to look good for Wall Street.”
Meanwhile, conservation groups including the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are keeping a watchful eye over the railroads and monitoring the impacts of the derailments. The two derailments last month combined to send 500 tons of coal into rivers home to endangered fish and high-quality trout-fishing waters.
When asked whether the accidents have spawned concerns, DOW spokesman Randy Hampton replied, “Absolutely. It’s a cause for concern, especially when these derailments take place in areas adjacent to endangered fish habitats and some of Colorado’s top fisheries.”
Biologists took water samples to analyze them for trace metals and are now waiting for the results on tests of those samples. Officials indicated it didn’t appear that the coal had adversely affected aquatic life initially but say that could change with the passage of time.
“In any situation where you bring anything to that environment that is foreign to that environment, you deal with a situation where you may have impacts down the road,” Hampton said.
The potential for harm caused by the coal could increase with the combination of hot temperatures and low-running rivers, said Rick Krueger, environmental contaminants specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The DOW has been in contact with Union Pacific since the derailments in an effort to more effectively respond to any future accidents and protect wildlife, Hampton said.