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January 6 marked 20 years since the fatal derailment of a Norfolk Southern train and the related chemical spill in Graniteville, South Carolina that led to nine deaths including a BLET member, Chris Seeling. In addition to those who lost their lives, more than 500 people were sent to the hospital for treatment due to chemical exposure. Some of those hospitalized two decades ago are still suffering the aftereffects from breathing in hazardous fumes from the toxic cloud that spread across the community after the wreck released 60 tons of chlorine. The Graniteville tragedy, like the more recent wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, raised national awareness for the need to improve rail safety and calls for new regulations.

The Graniteville train wreck was triggered when a misaligned switch caused an NS freight train carrying hazardous materials to divert off the main track and collide with a train parked in a siding. The train’s 28-year-old locomotive engineer Chris Seeling, who was Secretary-Treasurer of BLET Division 85 (Columbia, S.C.) at the time, survived the crash. However, he later died from chlorine gas exposure after heroically carrying his unconscious conductor to safety.

The Graniteville catastrophe directly led to the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which became law three years after the accident. The new law addressed the Graniteville crash by mandating that railroads provide emergency escape breathing apparatuses to keep train crews safe. Outrageously, and despite pressure from BLET and other organizations, it wasn’t until last year, when on January 25, 2024, a full 19 years later, that the Federal Railroad Administration announced a final rule requiring railroads to provide the breathing apparatuses to train crew members who work on hazardous materials trains.

This month, in an interview with The State, one of South Carolina’s largest newspapers, BLET First Vice President Mark Wallace said much work needs to be done to prevent another accident like Graniteville or East Palestine. He criticized Class I railroads for their refusal to join the C3RS safety program, condemned the PSR operating model that slashed jobs and forced fewer employees to pick up the slack, and questioned the safety of longer and longer trains.

“Railroad companies calculate whether it’s less expensive to pay off a lawsuit than make safety improvements,” Wallace told the newspaper. “When they base this stuff on cost, it’s cheaper for them to pay for one big wreck every decade than it is to put money into the infrastructure and update their tracks.”

Visit The State’s website to read the full article.

Monument photo: Mike Stroud, HMdb.org