(The following article by Justin Gest was posted on the Houston Chronicle website on June 29.)
HOUSTON — A train carrying extremely toxic chemicals, such as the one that crashed Monday near San Antonio, can rumble through Houston at the same speed as a locomotive hauling grain, according to federal law. It also can traverse any commercial or residential neighborhood where quality track has been laid.
That concerns some residents of Houston’s East End, where most of the area’s rail transit is concentrated.
“There is nothing to stop any transport of any chemical by rail through the city,” said community activist Mary Vargo, who lives in Meadowbrook. “My concern is over hauling some of the most dangerous, highly explosive, carcinogenic, volatile chemicals through the most densely populated areas of Houston.”
However, an official with the Federal Railroad Administration countered Tuesday that local and national regulations are adequate to prevent accidents. Federal law sets strict standards on how tank cars for hazardous material are built, which types of tracks they can run over and the order in which cars with different materials are hitched together on trains. Flammable chemicals are not allowed near explosives, for instance.
Other regulations require the companies to document what the trains are carrying and where they are headed. And speed limits are set for individual routes depending on the quality of the track laid there, said Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau. He said freight trains carrying hazardous cargo typically do not exceed 80 mph, even if the track is rated for higher speeds.
“But faster speeds do not cause more accidents,” said Flatau. “They just increase the potential severity.”
But concerns persist in the East End, where an average of more than 125 trains cross eight major rail lines each day to serve the dozens of petrochemical company plants in the Houston region.
“We still need stricter guidelines and policies as it relates to the regulation of trains,” said Houston City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, who represents the East End. “We are proposing more grade separations to be built over tracks and limiting the expansion of rail traffic in residential areas.”
The Houston rail network is dominated by the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads, the companies whose trains collided Monday morning. These trains connect to such nearby destinations as Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, San Antonio, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, New Orleans and Shreveport, La.
A recent inventory of railroad conditions in the East End estimated that the average train there is 5,000 to 6,000 feet long and travels at 20 mph.
The February 2003 report by the Texas Transportation Institute also warned that the lines with the highest train volumes run through heavily residential areas, raising “concerns about pedestrian safety and emergency access.”