OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The changes railroads announced after last year’s fiery crash in East Palestine, Ohio, haven’t yet made a major difference, statistics show, and reforms have stalled in Congress.
A few key measures in the latest Federal Railroad Administration statistics, including the total number of train accidents, worsened over the first 11 months of last year compared to the same period in previous years. Meanwhile there were some improvements with other numbers, like total derailments.
The overall picture is that rail safety hasn’t significantly improved in recent years — and as the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine last Feb. 3 and others demonstrate, just one derailment can be disastrous when hazardous chemicals are involved. The small town near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border is still struggling to recover a year later.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said there was a meaningful 15% decrease in derailments along mainline tracks after Congress responded to a number of high-profile train crashes involving crude oil in the early 2010s. “Progress has plateaued as derailments and preventable incidents are happening at an unacceptable rate,” Buttigieg said, urging Congress to pass the reforms now.