NTSB derailment investigation raises new concerns about detectors, tank cars and Norfolk Southern

The National Transportation Safety Board’s all-day hearing on the causes of the devastating train derailment in East Palestine near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border last year gave the public, railroad companies and policymakers plenty of food for thought.

The NTSB confirmed that the accident was caused by an overheated bearing on one of the railroad cars and explained in detail why officials were wrong to blow up five vinyl chloride tank cars and burn the contents.

Here are some of the key findings from Tuesday’s hearing:

Trackside detectors

A focus of the NTSB’s investigation was the detectors that railroad companies use along their tracks to detect overheated bearings, flat wheels and dangling equipment.

The Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine passed three so-called “hot box detectors” immediately before the accident, but the overheating of the train’s bearings was not detected in time, even though surveillance footage showed a fire under the car as it passed through Salem, Ohio.

The detectors noticed the temperature rise but did not sound the alarm in time. NTSB investigators said the detector in Salem did not take an accurate temperature reading, even though it indicated the bearing was 103 degrees hotter than the outside temperature. That’s partly because it can take a while for heat from a burning bearing to reach the outside of the axle, where it can be measured.

The NTSB says more research and regulation of detectors is needed because there are no federal standards for them. The major railroads developed the devices on their own, with no guidelines on where they should be placed or when they should sound an alarm. Industry research has shown that it would be ideal to have a hot box detector every 15 miles, but researchers say more study is needed.

After East Palestine, the six major railroad companies pledged to install hot-wheel detectors at an average distance of 15 miles (24 kilometers) and introduced a uniform standard that requires trains to be stopped whenever a bearing registers a temperature more than 77 degrees above ambient.

But none of these measures would have made a difference in this derailment. Although the detectors in Salem and East Palestine are 20 miles apart, the previous one was only 10 miles away, so the average distance between them was already 15 miles. Norfolk Southern was already using 170 degrees as a threshold.

Problem tank wagons

The East Palestine derailment has revived long-standing concerns about certain tank cars known as DOT-111s. Three of the hazardous materials cars that derailed, burst open and caught fire that night were of that model. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said if those cars had not burst open, the days-long fire that prompted officials to unnecessarily blow up five vinyl chloride tank cars and burn their contents three days after the derailment. Authorities did this because they feared the cars might explode.

The DOT-111 tank cars have a steel shell less than half an inch thick, which has been proven time and again to be much more susceptible to cracking than newer cars made of thicker steel.

The same tank cars were also involved in the worst rail accident in recent history, when a crude oil train derailed in the small Canadian town of Lac Megantic in 2013, killing 47 people. DOT-111 tank cars were also involved in several devastating derailments of crude oil and ethanol trains in the early 2000s, when railroads regularly transported entire trains of these highly flammable goods.

In 2015, regulators issued a regulation requiring that all DOT-111 tank cars carrying flammable liquids be replaced or modernized by 2025. But Congress pushed the deadline back to 2029. The tank car owners — typically chemical companies, other trucking companies and leasing companies, not the railroad — have long resisted a more aggressive modernization plan because a more powerful DOT-117 tank car would cost about $135,000.

According to the Association of American Railroads, there are about 25,000 DOT-111 tank cars still in service. That’s a relatively small portion of North America’s tank car fleet of about 450,000. Many of them carry much more benign cargo, such as corn syrup.

Despite concerns raised by the NTSB since at least 1991, current regulations will continue to allow DOT-111 tank cars to transport some hazardous materials, such as flammable liquids like diesel, even after the 2029 deadline. They just can’t be used for things classified as flammable liquids, like the butyl acrylate that spilled in eastern Palestine.

Delayed reforms

Unions and rail safety advocates hope that now that the NTSB has spoken out, Congress will finally move on reforms that stalled for months after East Palestine. Republican leaders said they want to see the agency’s final report before considering imposing new rules.

In the Senate, supporters of the rail safety bill remained optimistic that the bill could come to a vote. But so far, opposition from Republicans and railroad companies has prevented the bill from moving forward. Similar bills have failed to gain momentum in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.

Republicans are expected to put forward a much narrower rail safety proposal that likely won’t include all of the inspection standards and two-person crew requirements now included in the Senate bill. With attention turning to the November election, congressional leaders have little time left to complete lengthy negotiations that comprehensive rail safety legislation would likely require.

Crisis of confidence

Homendy refused to give in to pressure from Norfolk Southern, saying the railroad did not push for venting and burning the vinyl chloride cars because it wanted to get trains moving again quickly. The railroad has long said it was concerned about safety — not its delivery schedule or bottom line — when it recommended this last resort.

Railroad safety experts said the “vent and burn” strategy was actually the quickest way to reopen the tracks. Waiting for the fire to die down and trucks to unload the damaged tank cars might have taken weeks.

“When you have 35 or 45 trains waiting in an area, there’s no way around it,” says Randy Fannon, head of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen’s safety task force and a participant in the NTSB investigation.

“The railway company wants to get its main line back in operation as soon as possible,” he said.

The NTSB’s findings and Homendy’s criticism sparked new calls for accountability. Norfolk Southern has already settled with the federal government and agreed with local residents on a $600 million class-action lawsuit. State investigations in Ohio and Pennsylvania and individual lawsuits appear to be the only remaining possible consequences.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said, “The NTSB’s findings answered some questions but also raised more. Our lawsuit is ongoing.”

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AP reporter Stephen Groves contributed to this report from Washington.