(The following story by Gregory Richards appeared on The Virginian-Pilot website on February 13.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Core railroad operating rules – governing train speed, switching and other actions – are being brought under federal jurisdiction in an attempt to reduce train accidents caused by human error.
The Federal Railroad Administration said Wednesday it developed the new rules after noticing an uptick in human-caused train accidents in recent years, not ably the 2005 collision of two Norfolk Southern Corp. trains in Graniteville, S.C. In that case, nine people were killed after a tank car ruptured, releasing toxic chlorine gas.
Investigators determined that an improperly lined train switch caused one of the trains to run into the other.
At the heart of the railroad safety agency’s new, far-reaching regulations is increased accountability at all levels of railroads, said administration spokesman Warren Flatau.
“We don’t want executives, line supervisors or individual employees taking shortcuts or taking a blind eye to shortcuts,” Flatau said. “The key here is to promote full compliance with all operating rules all the time.”
The regulations, which take effect April 14, apply to all of the 600-plus freight and passenger railroads regulated by the agency, Flatau said. The maximum fine for a single violation is $16,000. Railroads, and in some cases individuals, are subject to penalties.
Among the regulation’s requirements are that employees have regular briefings to ensure accurate communication of track switch positions, and that railroads be required to conduct quarterly reviews of inspection and accident data.
Also, employees will have the right to challenge any directives, should they think the instructions would violate the operating rules.
Norfolk-based Norfolk Southern, the country’s fourth-largest railroad, was reviewing the regulations Wednesday and did not have a comment, said company spokeswoman Susan Terpay.
There will be a “negligible” cost for railroads to comply with the regulations, Flatau said.
The United Transportation Union, which represents conductors and brakemen, thinks the “intent of this rule is certainly one to be applauded,” said union spokesman Frank Wilner.
However, he said, the union contends there should be a better way of differentiating between an employee who willfully violates federal rules and one ordered to do so by a supervisor.
He questioned, for example, what would happen to an employee who caused an accident after being instructed to work beyond his allotted hours.
Human error is a leading cause of train accidents. Thirty-eight percent of 2,330 train accidents that occurred last year from January through November were primarily caused by human error, according to the most recent data from the Railroad Administration.
The second-highest cause was track defects, at 35 percent.