Employees Say Derailed Train Had Failed On Route Days Before East Palestine

According to train workers, there had been a mechanical issue on the route prior to the 50-car Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine (Ohio) on February 3.

According to railway employees, the 151-car, 18,000-ton train that started its journey in Madison (Illinois) reportedly crashed on February 1. This was just two days after the East Palestine crash.

“We shouldn’t be running trains that are 150 car lengths long,” An employee told CBS News. “There should be some limitations to the weight and the length of the trains. In this case, had the train not been 18,000 tons, it’s very likely the effects of the derailment would have been mitigated.”

A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern said that the company told CBS News “the weight distribution of this train was uniform throughout” With a mid-train locomotive “which helps manage the dynamic forces of the train” Reduces mechanical problems.

“Assigning a ‘reputation’ to a train that fluctuates by thousands of tons on a regular basis is inaccurate,” The spokesperson continued by stating that “a “longer and heavier train” The same route was taken as the derail train.

“There’s a good chance the car that derailed had not been properly inspected for some time,” said SMART Transportation Division Alt. Jared Cassity is the National Legislative Director, representing many railroad workers. “You combine that with the added length and tonnage, plus the fact that it had all this hazardous material, and this was predictable. If nothing changes, it will happen again.”

“Two years ago SMART President Jeremy Ferguson warned your publication and anyone that would listen that something like this was going to happen,” An employee of Norfolk Southern told the story Motherboard. “They’re going to keep happening if regulators continue to allow this business model to ravage our nation’s freight rail system in the pursuit of profit. My fear is that these corporations have so much money and political influence that nothing is going to change.”

Motherboard was also informed by another employee that the train had been called “Derailment Train”. “32 Nasty.”

“When I was FRA administrator, I was not happy with the lengths of the trains, and they were 80 or 90 cars long,” Sarah Feinberg, an ex-administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), stated. “This train was 50% longer.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO). Not noted in December that Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR), implemented by the railroad industry for cost-efficiency reasons, has catalyzed longer trains and a 28% reduction in staff among the nation’s seven largest freight railroads, including Norfolk Southern.