(The following article by Rick Brundrett was posted on the State website on May 26.)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Norfolk Southern railroad changed its safety procedures for operating manual switches eight days after the January crash that killed nine in Graniteville.
Company spokesman Robin Chapman confirmed the new rule this week, saying it was in response to a Federal Railroad Administration safety advisory issued to all railroads a short time after the wreck.
“We adopted the rule because it was reasonable,” Chapman said. “It added another layer of safety procedures.”
Asked whether the rule could have prevented the Graniteville crash, Chapman declined to comment.
He said the rule is in effect for all Norfolk operations in 22 Eastern states.
Attorneys involved in lawsuits stemming from the Graniteville crash say the rule — had it been in effect then — could have prevented a 42-car freight train from entering a side track at Avondale Mills on Jan. 6 and slamming into a parked train.
The wreck occurred because a manual switch was left in the side position by the crew of the parked train, lawsuits claim.
The new procedures require crews to give train dispatchers specifics when reporting that main lines with manual switches are “clear” for traffic.
In the old procedure, crews only had to notify dispatchers about switch changes, Chapman said.
“You would think that the rule would have been in place a long time before this,” said Hampton attorney Johnny Parker, who is involved in one of the Graniteville cases. “It’s elementary, but railroads are very hard to change.”
The Graniteville collision resulted in the release of tons of chlorine from one of the derailed cars on the moving train. Nine people died, hundreds were injured and more than 5,400 residents were forced to evacuate their homes. It was the nation’s worst chemical accident involving a train since 1978.
The new safety procedure was issued Jan. 14 by Stephen C. Tobias, Norfolk’s vice chairman and chief operating officer.
It applies only to track sections without warning signals, known as “dark territory.” Lawyers and railroad experts have said the Graniteville crash could have been prevented had warning signals been in place. Of 16,630 miles of main line track owned by Norfolk, 5,578 miles, or about 34 percent, are in “dark territory” areas, the railroad said.
In court papers, the parked train’s crew — conductor Jimmy Thornton, engineer Benjamin Aiken and brakeman Mike Ford — said they thought the switch had been returned to the main track.
But they didn’t give details about their actions before leaving Graniteville around 7 p.m. Jan. 5, about eight hours before the crash.
In a deposition last week, the Greenville dispatcher testified that after the crew had returned to Aiken to complete paperwork, Ford notified the dispatcher that the main line was clear for traffic, said Barnwell lawyer Terry Richardson, who is representing several plaintiffs.
The Virginia-based railroad fired the three men in early February. Chapman at the time said only that they were terminated because they “failed to perform their duties properly.”
Chapman on Monday declined comment on the crew; the railroad in recent court papers said it would not comment on their actions because it was conducting an internal investigation.
The parked train crew members are all Columbia-area residents; each has at least 25 years of experience with trains, according to railroad labor unions. They have declined repeated interview requests by The State.