(The Florida Times-Union posted the following article by Timothy J. Gibbons on its website on February 28.)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Federal Railroad Administration found defects in about 170 CSX railroad cars at the company’s Baldwin Yard in Jacksonville during a focused inspection that began last week.
The cars, many of which are used to carry phosphate from the Bone Valley mining area near Tampa, were pulled from service to be fixed, disrupting shipments over the past few days, according to some local customers.
The inspection began when union workers called the federal government with concerns about defective cars, said Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau, prompting the FRA to send out an inspection team. As well as problems with the cars, Flatau said, the inspectors discovered that an outside contractor hired by the phosphate company to inspect the cars was not qualified to do the job and that some CSX inspectors needed to be better trained.
“It became very apparent to us that the concerns raised were in fact legitimate,” Flatau said. “It’s a textbook example of our practice of investigating any safety complaint.”
It is as yet unknown if the violations could lead to punishments like fines for either the railroad or the outside contractor.
The Federal Railroad Administration should have an official memo in response to the situation issued in the next week.
Among the issues found were problems with braking systems and safety appliances, among others – problems that, for the most part, CSX said, were issues that could be dealt with fairly easily.
“A lot of the defects are defects we can repair quickly in place,” rather than having to move the car to repair facilities, said CSX spokesman Gary Sease. CSX does have a mechanics shop at Baldwin for cars that require more extensive repairs.
The inspection has not caused a significant disruption to operations, Sease said, pointing out that Baldwin Yard has about 2,000 cars a day flowing through it. “A couple of customers have called, but things have turned out fine,” he said.
One of those customers – Sanderson Pipe Corp., a PVC piping manufacturer with operations west of Jacksonville – was staring at a rapidly depleting warehouse Tuesday morning, with the five-car shipment of PVC resin the plant receives every two or three days not having shown up since last week.
“It’s getting tight,” said Tom Hiday, controller of the company, said Tuesday afternoon. “We could maybe go another couple days.”
Late Tuesday, though, Sanderson’s cars had been released. “I want to thank CSX for getting it done,” Hiday said.
Mechanical defects have not been a major problem for CSX recently, with such defects causing only 11.1 percent of its accidents last year. During the first 11 months of 2006 – the latest period for which data are available – CSX had 39 accidents caused by defective equipment. The accidents resulted in $3.3 million in reportable damage and one non-fatal casualty.