Today is a big day for Norfolk Southern Corp. as CEO Alan Shaw testifies at a congressional hearing into the Feb. 3 derailment at East Palestine, Ohio.
Norfolk Southern has had a rough month safety-wise. East Palestine was the worst incident, but there were others.
Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board announced a special investigation of Norfolk Southern’s organization and safety culture. Since December 2021, the NTSB has investigated five significant accidents involving Norfolk Southern. Three were in Ohio, and three had fatalities. The NTSB will also review another incident in Ohio last year.
“The NTSB is concerned that several organizational factors may be involved in the accidents, including safety culture,” the agency said in its announcement.
Also on Tuesday, Norfolk Southern announced five safety initiatives in response to the NTSB’s preliminary report on the Feb. 3 derailment. The first is evaluating the distance between hot bearing detectors, which currently averages 13.9 miles on its core network. Additional detectors will be added where the current distance is more than 15 miles and more where terrain and operating conditions allow. The NTSB preliminary report said an overheated bearing in a car carrying plastic pellets likely caused a fire that led to the derailment.
The railroad said it is working with manufacturers to accelerate the testing and deployment of technology that can scan a greater cross-section of a railcar’s bearings and wheels. It will also work with the industry on a comprehensive review of standards and practices for the use of hot bearing detectors, including re-evaluating the temperature threshold at which an alarm is triggered.
It will also increase the use of acoustic hot bearing detectors, which analyze the acoustic signature of vibration inside the axle and can identify potential problems that a visual inspection could not. It will add 13 detectors to the five already in service.
The fifth measure is partnering with Georgia Tech Research Institute to develop technology that uses machine vision and algorithms powered by artificial intelligence to identify defects and needed repairs. The methods will give the railroad a 360-degree health check on railcars, improving its ability to detect, diagnose, and repair defects before they become issues. Deployment will begin on the company’s Premier Corridor, which connects the Midwest and Northeast and is the line that runs through East Palestine.
And Norfolk Southern has agreed to join the Federal Railroad Administration’s Confidential Close Call Reporting System, a voluntary, confidential program allowing railroads and their employees to report close calls.
Since the derailment, Norfolk Southern has become the center of the ongoing debate between profit and safety. People who live along Norfolk Southern tracks — or CSX tracks or another other railroad — rightly wonder about the freight that passes by their homes every day.
Technology is important, but so is the human element. That ranges from the CEO level to the workers in the field. March and April should tell us much about how all railroads’ priorities regarding safety will change following East Palestine.
