(The following article by Patrick Driscoll was posted on the San Antonio Express-News website on December 7.)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — For the first time since a string of local train crashes this year resulted in leaked toxins and five deaths, Union Pacific officials faced a crowd of residents to answer questions and offer hope Monday.
The comments at the public meeting left Union Pacific looking like a Picasso painting in which half the woman’s face is one color and the other side is strikingly different.
“Our assurance is that we are working very, very hard to come to grips with safety,” UP spokeswoman Kathryn Blackwell told almost 60 people who attended the meeting at the city’s One Stop Center.
Not everybody was convinced, especially the 20 or so people who protested outside before the meeting and lofted signs that said “Re-route Union Pacific’s toxic tracks.”
They painted UP as a large railroad company that needs to get its act together.
“What we’re hearing is Union Pacific trying to cover their back,” Genaro Rendon of the Southwest Workers’ Union said as he listened and waited for a chance to speak. “The talk and talk and talk is not going to take care of the problems.”
Others said the company is doing all right and to quit picking on it. Hauling chemicals and cargo by rail is one of the safest ways to go, one person said, but when there’s an accident it’s blown out of proportion compared to those involving trucks or planes.
“I think it’s gone too far,” said M.C. Wikman, a former railroader and now a consultant who said he’s never worked for UP. “Someone dies here from railroads, and you make a big deal out of it.”
City and county officials who addressed the meeting said UP is making valiant efforts to improve safety, especially in San Antonio.
“We’ve been living in a railroad hell, but Union Pacific is not the devil,” said Seth Mitchell, chief of staff for Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. “I think they’re understanding that they need to reach out.”
UP replaced its superintendent in San Antonio, added workers, increased training, opened a safety command center here, and began monitoring the testing of its crews.
State and local officials plan to start a $500,000 study next year to look at possible ways to reroute trains around the city’s core. The study could take 18 months.
But a bigger struggle could be looming at the federal level, where regulatory agencies can’t even agree on safety standards, Mayor Ed Garza told the crowd.
A congressional hearing is expected to be held in San Antonio early next year.
“I want you to put that on your radar,” Garza said. “The bigger issue that we need to stay on top of is at the federal level.”