(The following story by Angela Macias and Jacqueline Lane appeared at RedNova.com on July 5. Terry Briggs is Chairman of the BLET’s Texas State Legislative Board.)
DALLAS — Blocks away from where people were slurping gumbo at a cook-off in Orange in May 2001, 11 boxcars and four tankers derailed, sparking an evacuation.
Train cars tumbled into a concrete drainage ditch in August 1999 near Beaumont’s Piney Point Lane, triggering unfounded concerns that leaking material might contaminate the Lower Neches Valley Authority irrigation canal.
On June 24, 11 cars slipped from a track south of Evadale, narrowly missing the Neches River.
Major derailments such as these draw attention from gawking neighbors and a fearful public.
But most derailments don’t happen on such a large scale, and garner notice only by the railroads and federal regulators required to investigate the incidents.
From 1999 to 2004, 71 derailments in Jefferson County were reported to the Federal Railroad Administration, with damages to equipment and rails totaling $5 million.
In the same five years there were 16 derailments in Hardin County, causing $1.1 million in damages, and Orange County had 11 derailments costing $1.6 million.
Railroads are required to report accidents when the train carries hazardous materials, an injury occurs or if the accident involves more than $6,700 in damages, said Warren Flatau, an administration spokesman.
No injuries or deaths were reported in the mishaps, and most derailments nationwide happen in the rail yard.
Track defects — from a worn switch point to vandalism — are the most common cause of train derailments.
Derailments appear to be commonplace — something the industry expects because of the 170,000 miles of track in the United States exposed to the elements, and the heavy loads carried daily.
“Derailments do happen, we recognize that,” said Terry Briggs of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a labor union representing railroad workers.
“There is just an endless list of things that might happen,” he said.
Orange Fire Marshal Capt. Joe Mires and Fire Chief David Frenzel were parking cars at a gumbo cook-off, raising money for the Boy Scouts, when a 90-car freight train jumped the tracks in the city’s downtown near Green Avenue in 2001.
Soon, a three-block area was evacauted amid fears of a chemical spill.
“It was the loudest sound I think I’ve ever heard in my life — one loud, metallic ‘SMACK’,” bar owner Lonnie Givens recalled during an interview in 2001. “I’ll never forget it.”
Mires switched into firefighter mode, spending the next 11 hours assisting at the scene.
“We had to get somebody else to watch the (Scouts) while we got involved in all that,” he said.
“We were dealing with (the accident) all night long.”
Derailments interrupt service and upset customers, Union Pacific Railroad spokesman John Bromley said.
Clearing mangled sites means rerailing or removing damaged cars and repairing the track, which could take anywhere from 12 to 24 hours or longer, he said.
Since partial deregulation of the industry in 1980, there has been a lot of investment in maintenance and technology improves every year, Bromley said.
Union Pacific alone spends more than $1 billion annually on track maintenance, the company’s single biggest capital expenditure.
Tracks today are in the best shape they’ve been in for many years, he said.
“In the long term, things are getting better all the time,” he said. “That said, everybody’s long-term goal is no accidents. Better tracks equates to a safer railroad.”
More could be done to prevent derailments, Briggs, who serves as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen’s Texas legislative chairman, said.
Limiting when someone is called back to duty could reduce worker fatigue, which can lead to mishaps. Rules now allow companies to cut into an employee’s mandatory time off by calling them back to work during the period, he said in a phone interview.
Inspectors also could check tracks more frequently, Briggs said.
“We realize it is very expensive to increase inspections, but we think more could be done.”