March 30, 2023 • 26 mins
Major railroad disasters tend to produce major news headlines, but there are hundreds of derailments each year in America that we never hear about. Why is that?
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Episode Transcript
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Bernie Fette (host) (00:14):
Hello.
This is Thinking Transportation-- conversations about how we
get ourselves and the things weneed from one place to another.
I'm Bernie Fette with the TexasA&M Transportation Institute.
The last decade has been thesafest period on record for
railroad transportation inAmerica.
(00:35):
Though you probably wouldn'tknow that from reading news
headlines in recent weeks.
Nor would you know thataccording to the Association of
American Railroads, the accidentrate for the biggest railroads
in America is at an all-time low-- down by 49 percent since
2000.
Here to help us understand a bitmore about the current state of
(00:58):
railroad safety is Allan Rutter,senior research scientist at TTI
and the head of the agency'sFreight and Investment Analysis
Division.
He's also a former administratorof the Federal Railroad
Administration.
And, he's a returning guest onthis show.
Welcome back, Allan.
Allan Rutter (guest) (01:19):
Hi, Bernie.
Bernie Fette (01:21):
Okay, so train derailments have been in the
news quite a bit lately.
As you certainly know, from themany calls you've gotten from
news organizations in recentweeks.
And I'm not gonna go through anexhaustive list here, but just
for a sample, we had thedisaster in early February in
the small town of EastPalestine, Ohio.
Crews had to let the toxicmaterial burn off so that they
(01:44):
could avoid an explosion.
Then about 2,000 people wereevacuated from their homes.
Then another derailment in Ohioabout a month later, followed by
one in West Virginia, only a fewdays after that.
And then in mid-March, two morein Arizona and Washington state
with one of them spilling a fewthousand gallons of diesel fuel.
(02:05):
So according to the Bureau ofTransportation Statistics, we
have seen about 1,700derailments over the past three
decades.
Every year.
Why do these events keephappening?
Allan Rutter (02:18):
Well, one thing to remember about the number of
derailments is most of thosehappen in rail yards at low
speed.
The vast majority of reportabletrain accidents is what the FRA
continues to call'em are inyards, not on mainline track.
So it's kinda like thedistinction between having a
(02:42):
wreck on the freeway and beinghit in a parking lot at the
grocery store.
There's a lot more grocery storecrashes than there are freeway
crashes when it comes to railderailments.
So that's one thing is toremember that they're not all
high consequence.
They're not all the kinds ofthings that get on the news.
I think the other thing thattends to happen, and I think has
certainly happened after theEast Palestine is it's a little
(03:04):
like when you're looking for acar and you wanna buy a car and
you're thinking about, I wannabuy this type of pickup, and
then suddenly you see thatpickup everywhere on the road
all over the place and in theparking lots.
I think it's a similar thingthat there are derailments that
are happening relativelyfrequently, but they get a lot
more reported when they'renearby a big high-profile one of
(03:27):
those thousand derailments, andthey're a lot more train
accidents than just derailments.
The FRA, the Federal RoadAdministration, in keeping track
of accidents also keeps track ofaccidents with certain levels of
damage.
There's a reportable damagethreshold that you have to
report everything above like 50or$60,000 or something.
But they keep track of trainaccidents that have damage over
(03:51):
a million dollars, and there'sabout 60 to 70 of those on
average for the past decade.
Now, that could average to beabout one a week.
That's about what we're seeingnow.
And even then, not all of thoseare the same sort of
high-profile things.
Bernie Fette (04:07):
One thing about the East Palestine incident, it
very quickly became a highlypoliticized and divisive topic
of discussion.
And you could almost say thatthe accuracy of the story went
off the rails along with part ofthe train.
How do we make sure that weseparate fact from fiction
whenever these things happen?
Allan Rutter (04:29):
Part of that is the, the nature of what Congress
gave the National TransportationSafety Board its particular job,
which is when you have one ofthese high consequence,
high-profile accidents withinany mode of transportation, the
NTSB goes out and startsinvestigating and they keep
investigating.
We probably won't have a finalreport on East Palestine for 18
(04:51):
to 24 months.
There again,
Bernie Fette (04:52):
It just takes that long.
Allan Rutter (04:54):
It takes that long.
I mean, they're looking at the23rd rail car in this 149-car
train is the first to derailbecause of a bearing problem
around the wheel.
They've got that whole truckassembly and it's being sent to
a lab, and they're gonna look atall the metal behind it and how
it got manufactured and how it'sbeen maintained over time.
(05:16):
So they go down to the molecularlevel when it comes to
materials.
They're also gonna spend a lotof time looking at the response
and the hazmat handling of allthat stuff.
Bernie Fette (05:26):
Is that typical in terms of how long an
investigation takes for anincident of this magnitude that
it's 18 to 24 months?
Just plan on it?
Allan Rutter (05:35):
Yep.
Now, one of the things the NTSBhas said in in response to this,
given the profile of it, is thatthey're gonna actually hold a
field hearing to take someadditional testimony and to talk
about it in Ohio sometime in thespring as they're getting their
work done.
But generally speaking, they,they will have a meeting to
(05:56):
discuss the results of theirinvestigation at that sort of 18
months timeframe.
So one thing is the impetus towant to have hot takes about it
exceeds the amount of actualfactual information you have at
your hand.
That hasn't kept people fromtalking about it as if they know
what they're talking about.
I think the other thing is thatsometimes, uh, and this is not a
(06:20):
rarity, particularly in ourpolarized times, people see what
they wanna see.
There's a little bit of sort ofconfirmation bias and or if
you're in the hammer business,all you see is nails.
And so that's, a lot of peoplehave looked at this and said,
well, this is clearly a resultof the previous administration
(06:41):
doing something to do away witha regulation.
It's like, well, actually, thatregulation has nothing to do
with this particular type oftrain and probably wouldn't have
had anything to do with thecause of the train accident, but
there's too much to be gainedout of finger pointing.
Bernie Fette (06:56):
Right.
And for some, they're just notgoing to let facts get in the
way of their narrative, itseems.
Allan Rutter (07:02):
Yeah.
And one of those unfortunatethings is for the thousands of
people who were forced toevacuate their homes and farms
mm-hmm.
, all the fingerpointing doesn't do anything to
help them.
It doesn't resolve theirparticular issues.
And the amount of invective andunfounded certainty that comes
(07:23):
out of a lot of people reallydoesn't help them get to a point
of, why'd this happen and how doI get back to feeling safe about
being in my property?
Those people are stillsuffering.
Bernie Fette (07:35):
Let's talk about safety a little more broadly for
just a minute.
You and I and everybody outthere on the highways, we are
required to get a safetyinspection on the cars that we
drive every year.
Does the rail industry have asimilar requirement?
Allan Rutter (07:51):
Yes, they do.
And there are all kinds oflayers of those kinds of safety
inspections.
The railroads themselves haveextensive operating codes or
operating rule books, justbecause as we saw in East
Palestine, when something goeswrong, it goes catastrophically
wrong.
So there are all kinds ofreasons why you want to have
(08:12):
clear expectations about howwe're gonna run our railroad.
Here's what everybody needs toexpect from each other to
maintain a safe operation.
So the railroads have themselvesa fairly extensive set of
expectations and rules.
There are kind of differentsafety disciplines on the
railroads.
There's track-- what goes intoit, making sure that the rails
(08:35):
are the right spacing and thatthose get maintained to a
certain standard.
There's operating practices, youknow, making sure that the crews
will follow signals and will dothe kinds of things that the
dispatchers expect them to do.
There are mechanical andoperating procedures such as
this derailment in Ohio comesabout because of a bearing
(08:58):
overheating that seizes up andcauses the car to crash and with
it the rest of the train.
So the railroads themselves haveall kinds of expectations and
fairly extensive people that goout and do this job and lots of
technology that helps'em do thatjob.
On top of that, you have theFederal Railroad Administration,
which is a regulatory body thathas a series of its own
(09:22):
regulations, and they have a setof 400 or 500 safety inspectors
all across the country in thosesame disciplines looking after,
leveraging all this activitythat happens on the rail side.
So there's an awful lot ofattention that goes into making
sure that all the elements ofhaving a safe railroad are doing
(09:43):
what everybody expects them todo.
I think one of the things theNTSB is gonna be looking at in
this particular issue about thisprivately-owned hopper car with
plastic pellets in it, is what'sthe maintenance record look like
on that car for the last year ortwo?
How has it been maintained?
How was it that it failed sospectacularly so quickly?
(10:07):
So there's an awful lot ofpractices, responsibilities, and
technology that goes intokeeping railroads safe.
Bernie Fette (10:14):
And you mentioned the Federal Railroad
Administration.
You were the administrator ofthat regulatory agency in the U.
S.
Government for a few years,couple of decades ago, and you
had many years in other parts ofthe transportation policy world
before that.
So you have seen railroad safetythrough multiple lenses.
(10:36):
I'm wondering, how would youdescribe the typical
conversations or interactionsthat happen between the FRA and
the rail industry when majordisasters happen?
Allan Rutter (10:48):
Part of that is a matter of how well you continue
to maintain those relationshipsand the communication before you
have one of those kinds ofdisasters.
Uh, the ability to have anhonest, open conversation about
what's going on really dependson you having a relationship to
begin with.
So.
Part of each of those class oneCEOs they have, and one of their
(11:12):
responsibilities is to maintaina relationship with the
regulators, both the economicregulators at the Surface
Transportation Board and thesafety folks at the FRA.
Bernie Fette (11:21):
And you mentioned class one CEOs, I guess those,
uh, you're talking about the,the big few rail companies in
the United States.
Allan Rutter (11:29):
Yes.
That is a nomenclature thatstems from the Surface
Transportation Board'sclassification of rail.
Do you meet a certain revenuethreshold?
Today, there are seven class onerailroads in the United States.
By April there will be sixbecause Kansas City Southern and
Canadian Pacific have beencleared to combine and will be
(11:51):
the Canadian Pacific Kansas CityRailroad.
So those bigger guys who controlmost of the rail traffic, those
are the folks that you'd want tohave that kind of conversation.
But yet, to get to your point,what happens in that room when
you have that conversation?
It needs to be data-driven.
It needs to be about how is whatjust happened an anomaly?
(12:13):
Is it a trend?
Is there something going on thatwe need to pay attention to?
The second thing is, what is itthat you as a person responsible
for railroad, what are you doingabout it?
And then what is it that theregulatory agency can do to help
advance, leverage, make surethat that kind of activity
(12:34):
continues to take place.
Sometimes those conversationsare tough ones because the
railroad may not see things thesame way the regulators do and
or they have some issues betweenmanagement and labor having
different perspectives.
But generally speaking, theability to have that direct,
honest and data-drivenconversation is what's gonna get
(12:56):
to the bottom of how do wecontinue to make progress in
making rail safe.
Bernie Fette (13:01):
Well, and I guess one of the reasons, correct, me
here if I'm reaching, but one ofthe reasons that those
conversations might beuncomfortable is that the more
that is spent on safety can eatinto profits.
Am I oversimplifying there andis that one of the reasons that
some of those conversations canbe challenging?
Allan Rutter (13:19):
No, not necessarily.
I, I think having a saferailroad is really incredibly
important part of having asuccessful railroad.
A railroad's ability to makemoney depends on them having
free, clear, safe operations.
When you have something likewhat happened in East Palestine
for Norfolk Southern, not onlydoes that line, you know, it
(13:40):
took three or four days for themto get traffic on it again, but
tens of millions of dollars thathave already been spent to
remediate it and will likelycontinue to be spent in terms of
the sort of accident industrialinsurance, uh, trial lawyer
complex, that that comes inafterwards.
So the, the railroad hasincredible direct financial
(14:02):
incentives to make theiroperations as safe as possible,
and it requires an awful lot ofmoney to operate safely.
Mm-hmm.
railroads areincredibly capital intensive.
They spend an awful lot more oftheir revenues than most other
industrial industries, like thecustomers they serve in
chemicals or motor vehiclemanufacturing, railroads are
(14:24):
putting a lot more of theirrevenues back into their capital
network in large part becausethat's the kind of thing they
have to do to make sure thatthey can make money.
Bernie Fette (14:33):
Taking into account what we've talked about
up to this point today, wherewould you say we are in terms of
railroad safety overall in theUnited States, broadly speaking?
Allan Rutter (14:46):
I think generally speaking, if you look at it over
a course of a couple of decades,all metrics of safety have been
improving.
Train accidents, particularly ifyou look at rates of accidents,
rates of injuries, rates offatalities, a lot of those
numbers have been coming down.
I think it's also fair to saythat, you know, things have sort
of plateaued at a lower part ofthat curve for the last four or
(15:09):
five years.
So the need to, or the sort ofimpetus to make the next break
in continuing to push the curvedownward, there are probably
gonna need to be some additionalinvestments or additional
breakthroughs to make thathappen.
But generally speaking,railroads have been making real
substantial inroads and safety.
The other thing that I thinkpeople need to understand is
(15:31):
that when FRA looks at thoseconsequences or measures of
safety, if you think aboutfatalities that are
rail-related, 90 percent ofthose fatalities are grade
crossing crashes, and those arepeople in cars, or they're
trespass or pedestrian incidentswith people being struck on the
(15:52):
train right-of-way.
It's not necessarily railroademployees or the people that are
being affected by some of theserail accidents.
Bernie Fette (16:00):
Right.
And a lot of the news of, ofevents, like the ones we're
talking about, tend to befocused on what the trains are
carrying.
And they're carrying to be morespecific toxic hazardous
chemicals.
But is it not true that rail isstill statistically the safest
way to move those products?
Allan Rutter (16:21):
Between railroads, pipelines, and barges, those are
probably your safest ways ofgetting some of these chemicals
to different places.
Pipeline network really requiresa certain amount of bulk of
those materials to be movedbefore you can make those kinds
of investments.
But you know, there's an awfullot of oil and natural gas that
(16:43):
gets moved by pipeline and movedin large amounts, long distances
and done so safely.
The alternative that you mightthink about in, if it's not in a
rail car, which has beendesigned to withstand rail crash
forces, then it would be in atank car, in a truck, uh, on the
(17:04):
highway next to you.
So I think generally speaking,that movement of those volumes
of hazardous materials, it's abetter place to have them moving
by rail than by some other mode.
Bernie Fette (17:16):
Right.
And we need to move thosematerials one way or another,
right?
Because we, consumers, dependupon certain products like
plastics in living our dailylives.
And those products are made inpart from the chemicals that the
trains are hauling or thosesemi-trucks are hauling.
Allan Rutter (17:34):
Very much so.
Railroads.
And frankly, if you're a motorcarrier, uh, somebody who
operates a truck fleet, you havelegal common carrier obligations
that if somebody has something,and in some cases, you know, 60
percent of the rail cars thatare out on the rail network in
general are owned by the privateshipper themselves, not by the
(17:54):
railroad.
The railroads are obligated tooffer service to that shipper.
There's a question about priceand a question about service
levels, but they don't get tosay,"Gee, that's a really nasty
chemical.
I'm really uncomfortablecarrying that.
I'd rather not." So if thatmaterial is in a vessel that's
(18:14):
been manufactured and maintainedto certain federal standards,
the railroad is obligated totake that.
And it's incumbent on everybody-- the shippers themselves, the
manufacturers of those rail carsand the railroads-- everybody to
do what's mandated and set outin safety regulations to make
sure that that happens safely.
(18:34):
So that's the first thing.
Second thing is, you're right,those chemicals are being moved
because they're being taken tosomeplace because somebody's
gonna make something with it, orthere's a process, an industrial
process.
They're still an awful lot ofcoal that gets carried on.
Uh, the rail network in general,they're still coalfire utility
(18:56):
plants.
There's some toxic biannulationchemicals like chlorine, which
is used in drinking water.
So there's an awful lot ofthings that we depend on that
really requires some of thosechemicals to be moved.
Bernie Fette (19:08):
A few months ago, you and I on this podcast had a
conversation about the railstrike that was just barely
averted just before Christmas,but the two sides continue to
have differences.
Do you expect these recenthigh-profile derailments to have
(19:28):
any impact at all on the ongoingdiscussions between labor and
management in the rail industry?
Allan Rutter (19:35):
I'd say there are probably two things to note
about that.
One is the fact that there havebeen, as was talked about in the
strike itself, a number of classone railroads have come to terms
with different unions about sickleave, additional sick leave
days they can have and take.
It's happening union by union,railroad by railroad.
(19:58):
But there's been an awful lot ofmovement across the board that's
been happening since the strikewas averted in December.
Since December, a number ofclass one railroads have reached
agreements with individualunions, and there's 13 of them
and seven railroads.
So that's an awful lot ofagreements that have to be
reached.
But a number of large railroadshave reached agreements with
(20:21):
large unions to have additionalsick days and additional sick
leave, which was one of the bighigh-profile issues in the
strike.
So some of that is beingresolved as part of the overall
collective bargaining process.
That being said, the ability tomake progress collectively on
safety between rail labor andrail management is gonna be
(20:43):
complicated by the relationshipsthat were frayed during those
months of tough negotiations.
And I think each of the classone CEOs really have to find
ways of bridging and healingsome of those divides so that
continued progress can be madeon safety.
(21:04):
It's hard to have a collectiveconversation about keeping rail
labor folks safe out on theroads if there's a lack of
trust.
And so building that trust isgonna have to happen in the
aftermath of that strikeconversation.
Bernie Fette (21:21):
Much like the relationships that you were
talking about between theindustry and the Federal
Railroad Administration a fewminutes ago, right?
Allan Rutter (21:29):
Yes.
But I think the railroads andthe union folks at the same time
have common interest in makingsure that things are safe for
the folks.
Bernie Fette (21:39):
Okay.
Let's turn to research as westart to wrap up here.
From a research perspective,what do you think are the
biggest one or two questionsthat scientists like you should
be trying to answer in theinterest of maintaining,
improving railroad freighttransportation and safer
passenger rail safety as well?
Allan Rutter (22:00):
There been an awful lot of advances made in
technology, particularly waysidetechnology.
This is sensors and devices thatare along the rail right of way
pointed at the trains as they goby.
There are cameras, there'sinfrared, there's temperature
gauges, there are audio thingsthat listen for the wheel rail
(22:24):
interaction and detect ifthere's a wheel metal problem.
So there's an awful lot ofactivity that's been done on
pointing devices at the cars asthey go by.
I think the next phase, andthere are already a number of
people doing some reallyimportant research on this, is
how do we have more instrumentedcars themselves so that not only
(22:47):
can shippers know where theirstuff is, but know under what
conditions and what's the realtime performance of those cars
as they're out on the railroad.
There's a joint venture calledrail pulse that's being done by
a couple of class one railroads,a couple of manufacturers of
rail cars, and some technologyfirms that are looking to
(23:07):
provide a sort of open sourcetechnology platform that it
allows for shippers andmanufacturers to put together
instrumentation to have the carsthemselves tell the story about
how well they're doing.
I think that's a reallyinteresting and and high outcome
(23:28):
area of research that a lot ofpeople are investing an awful
lot of money in.
Bernie Fette (23:32):
So we could see a lot of payoff just in terms of
safety from those particularquestions you're talking about.
Allan Rutter (23:39):
Yeah.
And there have been an awful lotof people who sort of are in
that space who have also takenadvantage of some of these
incidents to say, you know, I'vegot an idea on something that
would help with that kind ofthing.
So I think there's an awful lotof opportunity to have
additional safety gained by therail cars themselves, pushing
(24:00):
out a lot more information abouthow well they're doing in the
same way that our cars arepumping out information to the
cloud, to the manufacturers totell how well our car is
performing.
Bernie Fette (24:12):
Continuing that exploration-- is, is that what
keeps you showing up for workevery day?
Allan Rutter (24:18):
Absolutely.
I mean, it's uh,
Bernie Fette (24:19):
What else?
What else keeps you showing upto work every day?
Allan Rutter (24:22):
I think the biggest thing that motivates me
is the opportunity to work withthe people both at TTI that I
get to be alongside of in my 30or 40 years of my professional
life.
I've had the opportunity to workwith lots of really smart
people, and that's the bigmotivator for me.
And the fact that we get to workwith a lot of sponsors who are
(24:44):
interested in doing some clever,innovative things-- that makes
working here at TTI very, veryrewarding, and that's why I
enjoy showing up.
Bernie Fette (24:55):
We're glad that you do, and also really glad
that you could share some ofyour time and insight with us
today.
Allan Rutter, senior researchscientist at TTI and former
administrator at the FederalRailroad Administration.
Thanks very much, Allan.
Allan Rutter (25:13):
Thanks for the opportunity, Bernie.
It was a pleasure.
Bernie Fette (25:18):
The first railroad in North America was chartered
almost 200 years ago.
By 1850, more than 9,000 milesof track had been installed as
much as the total mileage in therest of the world combined.
Since that time, railtransportation has been central
to U.
S.
History, and to some extent wesometimes take it for granted.
(25:43):
We hardly think about trainsunless something goes wrong,
something like a catastrophicderailment.
But the news of majorderailments in early 2023 runs
counter to the actual record.
More than 99 percent of allhazardous material moved by rail
reaches its destination withoutany problems.
(26:06):
It's that kind of performancethat's made railroads the safest
way to move goods over land.
Thanks for listening.
Please take just a minute togive us a review, subscribe and
share this episode, and we hopeyou'll be back next time.
(26:33):
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University System.
The show is edited and producedby Chris Pourteau.
I'm your writer and host, BernieFette.
Thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time.
Hello.
This is Thinking Transportation-- conversations about how we
get ourselves and the things weneed from one place to another.
I'm Bernie Fette with the TexasA&M Transportation Institute.
The last decade has been thesafest period on record for
railroad transportation inAmerica.
(00:35):
Though you probably wouldn'tknow that from reading news
headlines in recent weeks.
Nor would you know thataccording to the Association of
American Railroads, the accidentrate for the biggest railroads
in America is at an all-time low-- down by 49 percent since
2000.
Here to help us understand a bitmore about the current state of
(00:58):
railroad safety is Allan Rutter,senior research scientist at TTI
and the head of the agency'sFreight and Investment Analysis
Division.
He's also a former administratorof the Federal Railroad
Administration.
And, he's a returning guest onthis show.
Welcome back, Allan.
Allan Rutter (guest) (01:19):
Hi, Bernie.
Bernie Fette (01:21):
Okay, so train derailments have been in the
news quite a bit lately.
As you certainly know, from themany calls you've gotten from
news organizations in recentweeks.
And I'm not gonna go through anexhaustive list here, but just
for a sample, we had thedisaster in early February in
the small town of EastPalestine, Ohio.
Crews had to let the toxicmaterial burn off so that they
(01:44):
could avoid an explosion.
Then about 2,000 people wereevacuated from their homes.
Then another derailment in Ohioabout a month later, followed by
one in West Virginia, only a fewdays after that.
And then in mid-March, two morein Arizona and Washington state
with one of them spilling a fewthousand gallons of diesel fuel.
(02:05):
So according to the Bureau ofTransportation Statistics, we
have seen about 1,700derailments over the past three
decades.
Every year.
Why do these events keephappening?
Allan Rutter (02:18):
Well, one thing to remember about the number of
derailments is most of thosehappen in rail yards at low
speed.
The vast majority of reportabletrain accidents is what the FRA
continues to call'em are inyards, not on mainline track.
So it's kinda like thedistinction between having a
(02:42):
wreck on the freeway and beinghit in a parking lot at the
grocery store.
There's a lot more grocery storecrashes than there are freeway
crashes when it comes to railderailments.
So that's one thing is toremember that they're not all
high consequence.
They're not all the kinds ofthings that get on the news.
I think the other thing thattends to happen, and I think has
certainly happened after theEast Palestine is it's a little
(03:04):
like when you're looking for acar and you wanna buy a car and
you're thinking about, I wannabuy this type of pickup, and
then suddenly you see thatpickup everywhere on the road
all over the place and in theparking lots.
I think it's a similar thingthat there are derailments that
are happening relativelyfrequently, but they get a lot
more reported when they'renearby a big high-profile one of
(03:27):
those thousand derailments, andthey're a lot more train
accidents than just derailments.
The FRA, the Federal RoadAdministration, in keeping track
of accidents also keeps track ofaccidents with certain levels of
damage.
There's a reportable damagethreshold that you have to
report everything above like 50or$60,000 or something.
But they keep track of trainaccidents that have damage over
(03:51):
a million dollars, and there'sabout 60 to 70 of those on
average for the past decade.
Now, that could average to beabout one a week.
That's about what we're seeingnow.
And even then, not all of thoseare the same sort of
high-profile things.
Bernie Fette (04:07):
One thing about the East Palestine incident, it
very quickly became a highlypoliticized and divisive topic
of discussion.
And you could almost say thatthe accuracy of the story went
off the rails along with part ofthe train.
How do we make sure that weseparate fact from fiction
whenever these things happen?
Allan Rutter (04:29):
Part of that is the, the nature of what Congress
gave the National TransportationSafety Board its particular job,
which is when you have one ofthese high consequence,
high-profile accidents withinany mode of transportation, the
NTSB goes out and startsinvestigating and they keep
investigating.
We probably won't have a finalreport on East Palestine for 18
(04:51):
to 24 months.
There again,
Bernie Fette (04:52):
It just takes that long.
Allan Rutter (04:54):
It takes that long.
I mean, they're looking at the23rd rail car in this 149-car
train is the first to derailbecause of a bearing problem
around the wheel.
They've got that whole truckassembly and it's being sent to
a lab, and they're gonna look atall the metal behind it and how
it got manufactured and how it'sbeen maintained over time.
(05:16):
So they go down to the molecularlevel when it comes to
materials.
They're also gonna spend a lotof time looking at the response
and the hazmat handling of allthat stuff.
Bernie Fette (05:26):
Is that typical in terms of how long an
investigation takes for anincident of this magnitude that
it's 18 to 24 months?
Just plan on it?
Allan Rutter (05:35):
Yep.
Now, one of the things the NTSBhas said in in response to this,
given the profile of it, is thatthey're gonna actually hold a
field hearing to take someadditional testimony and to talk
about it in Ohio sometime in thespring as they're getting their
work done.
But generally speaking, they,they will have a meeting to
(05:56):
discuss the results of theirinvestigation at that sort of 18
months timeframe.
So one thing is the impetus towant to have hot takes about it
exceeds the amount of actualfactual information you have at
your hand.
That hasn't kept people fromtalking about it as if they know
what they're talking about.
I think the other thing is thatsometimes, uh, and this is not a
(06:20):
rarity, particularly in ourpolarized times, people see what
they wanna see.
There's a little bit of sort ofconfirmation bias and or if
you're in the hammer business,all you see is nails.
And so that's, a lot of peoplehave looked at this and said,
well, this is clearly a resultof the previous administration
(06:41):
doing something to do away witha regulation.
It's like, well, actually, thatregulation has nothing to do
with this particular type oftrain and probably wouldn't have
had anything to do with thecause of the train accident, but
there's too much to be gainedout of finger pointing.
Bernie Fette (06:56):
Right.
And for some, they're just notgoing to let facts get in the
way of their narrative, itseems.
Allan Rutter (07:02):
Yeah.
And one of those unfortunatethings is for the thousands of
people who were forced toevacuate their homes and farms
mm-hmm.
help them.
It doesn't resolve theirparticular issues.
And the amount of invective andunfounded certainty that comes
(07:23):
out of a lot of people reallydoesn't help them get to a point
of, why'd this happen and how doI get back to feeling safe about
being in my property?
Those people are stillsuffering.
Bernie Fette (07:35):
Let's talk about safety a little more broadly for
just a minute.
You and I and everybody outthere on the highways, we are
required to get a safetyinspection on the cars that we
drive every year.
Does the rail industry have asimilar requirement?
Allan Rutter (07:51):
Yes, they do.
And there are all kinds oflayers of those kinds of safety
inspections.
The railroads themselves haveextensive operating codes or
operating rule books, justbecause as we saw in East
Palestine, when something goeswrong, it goes catastrophically
wrong.
So there are all kinds ofreasons why you want to have
(08:12):
clear expectations about howwe're gonna run our railroad.
Here's what everybody needs toexpect from each other to
maintain a safe operation.
So the railroads have themselvesa fairly extensive set of
expectations and rules.
There are kind of differentsafety disciplines on the
railroads.
There's track-- what goes intoit, making sure that the rails
(08:35):
are the right spacing and thatthose get maintained to a
certain standard.
There's operating practices, youknow, making sure that the crews
will follow signals and will dothe kinds of things that the
dispatchers expect them to do.
There are mechanical andoperating procedures such as
this derailment in Ohio comesabout because of a bearing
(08:58):
overheating that seizes up andcauses the car to crash and with
it the rest of the train.
So the railroads themselves haveall kinds of expectations and
fairly extensive people that goout and do this job and lots of
technology that helps'em do thatjob.
On top of that, you have theFederal Railroad Administration,
which is a regulatory body thathas a series of its own
(09:22):
regulations, and they have a setof 400 or 500 safety inspectors
all across the country in thosesame disciplines looking after,
leveraging all this activitythat happens on the rail side.
So there's an awful lot ofattention that goes into making
sure that all the elements ofhaving a safe railroad are doing
(09:43):
what everybody expects them todo.
I think one of the things theNTSB is gonna be looking at in
this particular issue about thisprivately-owned hopper car with
plastic pellets in it, is what'sthe maintenance record look like
on that car for the last year ortwo?
How has it been maintained?
How was it that it failed sospectacularly so quickly?
(10:07):
So there's an awful lot ofpractices, responsibilities, and
technology that goes intokeeping railroads safe.
Bernie Fette (10:14):
And you mentioned the Federal Railroad
Administration.
You were the administrator ofthat regulatory agency in the U.
S.
Government for a few years,couple of decades ago, and you
had many years in other parts ofthe transportation policy world
before that.
So you have seen railroad safetythrough multiple lenses.
(10:36):
I'm wondering, how would youdescribe the typical
conversations or interactionsthat happen between the FRA and
the rail industry when majordisasters happen?
Allan Rutter (10:48):
Part of that is a matter of how well you continue
to maintain those relationshipsand the communication before you
have one of those kinds ofdisasters.
Uh, the ability to have anhonest, open conversation about
what's going on really dependson you having a relationship to
begin with.
So.
Part of each of those class oneCEOs they have, and one of their
(11:12):
responsibilities is to maintaina relationship with the
regulators, both the economicregulators at the Surface
Transportation Board and thesafety folks at the FRA.
Bernie Fette (11:21):
And you mentioned class one CEOs, I guess those,
uh, you're talking about the,the big few rail companies in
the United States.
Allan Rutter (11:29):
Yes.
That is a nomenclature thatstems from the Surface
Transportation Board'sclassification of rail.
Do you meet a certain revenuethreshold?
Today, there are seven class onerailroads in the United States.
By April there will be sixbecause Kansas City Southern and
Canadian Pacific have beencleared to combine and will be
(11:51):
the Canadian Pacific Kansas CityRailroad.
So those bigger guys who controlmost of the rail traffic, those
are the folks that you'd want tohave that kind of conversation.
But yet, to get to your point,what happens in that room when
you have that conversation?
It needs to be data-driven.
It needs to be about how is whatjust happened an anomaly?
(12:13):
Is it a trend?
Is there something going on thatwe need to pay attention to?
The second thing is, what is itthat you as a person responsible
for railroad, what are you doingabout it?
And then what is it that theregulatory agency can do to help
advance, leverage, make surethat that kind of activity
(12:34):
continues to take place.
Sometimes those conversationsare tough ones because the
railroad may not see things thesame way the regulators do and
or they have some issues betweenmanagement and labor having
different perspectives.
But generally speaking, theability to have that direct,
honest and data-drivenconversation is what's gonna get
(12:56):
to the bottom of how do wecontinue to make progress in
making rail safe.
Bernie Fette (13:01):
Well, and I guess one of the reasons, correct, me
here if I'm reaching, but one ofthe reasons that those
conversations might beuncomfortable is that the more
that is spent on safety can eatinto profits.
Am I oversimplifying there andis that one of the reasons that
some of those conversations canbe challenging?
Allan Rutter (13:19):
No, not necessarily.
I, I think having a saferailroad is really incredibly
important part of having asuccessful railroad.
A railroad's ability to makemoney depends on them having
free, clear, safe operations.
When you have something likewhat happened in East Palestine
for Norfolk Southern, not onlydoes that line, you know, it
(13:40):
took three or four days for themto get traffic on it again, but
tens of millions of dollars thathave already been spent to
remediate it and will likelycontinue to be spent in terms of
the sort of accident industrialinsurance, uh, trial lawyer
complex, that that comes inafterwards.
So the, the railroad hasincredible direct financial
(14:02):
incentives to make theiroperations as safe as possible,
and it requires an awful lot ofmoney to operate safely.
Mm-hmm.
They spend an awful lot more oftheir revenues than most other
industrial industries, like thecustomers they serve in
chemicals or motor vehiclemanufacturing, railroads are
(14:24):
putting a lot more of theirrevenues back into their capital
network in large part becausethat's the kind of thing they
have to do to make sure thatthey can make money.
Bernie Fette (14:33):
Taking into account what we've talked about
up to this point today, wherewould you say we are in terms of
railroad safety overall in theUnited States, broadly speaking?
Allan Rutter (14:46):
I think generally speaking, if you look at it over
a course of a couple of decades,all metrics of safety have been
improving.
Train accidents, particularly ifyou look at rates of accidents,
rates of injuries, rates offatalities, a lot of those
numbers have been coming down.
I think it's also fair to saythat, you know, things have sort
of plateaued at a lower part ofthat curve for the last four or
(15:09):
five years.
So the need to, or the sort ofimpetus to make the next break
in continuing to push the curvedownward, there are probably
gonna need to be some additionalinvestments or additional
breakthroughs to make thathappen.
But generally speaking,railroads have been making real
substantial inroads and safety.
The other thing that I thinkpeople need to understand is
(15:31):
that when FRA looks at thoseconsequences or measures of
safety, if you think aboutfatalities that are
rail-related, 90 percent ofthose fatalities are grade
crossing crashes, and those arepeople in cars, or they're
trespass or pedestrian incidentswith people being struck on the
(15:52):
train right-of-way.
It's not necessarily railroademployees or the people that are
being affected by some of theserail accidents.
Bernie Fette (16:00):
Right.
And a lot of the news of, ofevents, like the ones we're
talking about, tend to befocused on what the trains are
carrying.
And they're carrying to be morespecific toxic hazardous
chemicals.
But is it not true that rail isstill statistically the safest
way to move those products?
Allan Rutter (16:21):
Between railroads, pipelines, and barges, those are
probably your safest ways ofgetting some of these chemicals
to different places.
Pipeline network really requiresa certain amount of bulk of
those materials to be movedbefore you can make those kinds
of investments.
But you know, there's an awfullot of oil and natural gas that
(16:43):
gets moved by pipeline and movedin large amounts, long distances
and done so safely.
The alternative that you mightthink about in, if it's not in a
rail car, which has beendesigned to withstand rail crash
forces, then it would be in atank car, in a truck, uh, on the
(17:04):
highway next to you.
So I think generally speaking,that movement of those volumes
of hazardous materials, it's abetter place to have them moving
by rail than by some other mode.
Bernie Fette (17:16):
Right.
And we need to move thosematerials one way or another,
right?
Because we, consumers, dependupon certain products like
plastics in living our dailylives.
And those products are made inpart from the chemicals that the
trains are hauling or thosesemi-trucks are hauling.
Allan Rutter (17:34):
Very much so.
Railroads.
And frankly, if you're a motorcarrier, uh, somebody who
operates a truck fleet, you havelegal common carrier obligations
that if somebody has something,and in some cases, you know, 60
percent of the rail cars thatare out on the rail network in
general are owned by the privateshipper themselves, not by the
(17:54):
railroad.
The railroads are obligated tooffer service to that shipper.
There's a question about priceand a question about service
levels, but they don't get tosay,"Gee, that's a really nasty
chemical.
I'm really uncomfortablecarrying that.
I'd rather not." So if thatmaterial is in a vessel that's
(18:14):
been manufactured and maintainedto certain federal standards,
the railroad is obligated totake that.
And it's incumbent on everybody-- the shippers themselves, the
manufacturers of those rail carsand the railroads-- everybody to
do what's mandated and set outin safety regulations to make
sure that that happens safely.
(18:34):
So that's the first thing.
Second thing is, you're right,those chemicals are being moved
because they're being taken tosomeplace because somebody's
gonna make something with it, orthere's a process, an industrial
process.
They're still an awful lot ofcoal that gets carried on.
Uh, the rail network in general,they're still coalfire utility
(18:56):
plants.
There's some toxic biannulationchemicals like chlorine, which
is used in drinking water.
So there's an awful lot ofthings that we depend on that
really requires some of thosechemicals to be moved.
Bernie Fette (19:08):
A few months ago, you and I on this podcast had a
conversation about the railstrike that was just barely
averted just before Christmas,but the two sides continue to
have differences.
Do you expect these recenthigh-profile derailments to have
(19:28):
any impact at all on the ongoingdiscussions between labor and
management in the rail industry?
Allan Rutter (19:35):
I'd say there are probably two things to note
about that.
One is the fact that there havebeen, as was talked about in the
strike itself, a number of classone railroads have come to terms
with different unions about sickleave, additional sick leave
days they can have and take.
It's happening union by union,railroad by railroad.
(19:58):
But there's been an awful lot ofmovement across the board that's
been happening since the strikewas averted in December.
Since December, a number ofclass one railroads have reached
agreements with individualunions, and there's 13 of them
and seven railroads.
So that's an awful lot ofagreements that have to be
reached.
But a number of large railroadshave reached agreements with
(20:21):
large unions to have additionalsick days and additional sick
leave, which was one of the bighigh-profile issues in the
strike.
So some of that is beingresolved as part of the overall
collective bargaining process.
That being said, the ability tomake progress collectively on
safety between rail labor andrail management is gonna be
(20:43):
complicated by the relationshipsthat were frayed during those
months of tough negotiations.
And I think each of the classone CEOs really have to find
ways of bridging and healingsome of those divides so that
continued progress can be madeon safety.
(21:04):
It's hard to have a collectiveconversation about keeping rail
labor folks safe out on theroads if there's a lack of
trust.
And so building that trust isgonna have to happen in the
aftermath of that strikeconversation.
Bernie Fette (21:21):
Much like the relationships that you were
talking about between theindustry and the Federal
Railroad Administration a fewminutes ago, right?
Allan Rutter (21:29):
Yes.
But I think the railroads andthe union folks at the same time
have common interest in makingsure that things are safe for
the folks.
Bernie Fette (21:39):
Okay.
Let's turn to research as westart to wrap up here.
From a research perspective,what do you think are the
biggest one or two questionsthat scientists like you should
be trying to answer in theinterest of maintaining,
improving railroad freighttransportation and safer
passenger rail safety as well?
Allan Rutter (22:00):
There been an awful lot of advances made in
technology, particularly waysidetechnology.
This is sensors and devices thatare along the rail right of way
pointed at the trains as they goby.
There are cameras, there'sinfrared, there's temperature
gauges, there are audio thingsthat listen for the wheel rail
(22:24):
interaction and detect ifthere's a wheel metal problem.
So there's an awful lot ofactivity that's been done on
pointing devices at the cars asthey go by.
I think the next phase, andthere are already a number of
people doing some reallyimportant research on this, is
how do we have more instrumentedcars themselves so that not only
(22:47):
can shippers know where theirstuff is, but know under what
conditions and what's the realtime performance of those cars
as they're out on the railroad.
There's a joint venture calledrail pulse that's being done by
a couple of class one railroads,a couple of manufacturers of
rail cars, and some technologyfirms that are looking to
(23:07):
provide a sort of open sourcetechnology platform that it
allows for shippers andmanufacturers to put together
instrumentation to have the carsthemselves tell the story about
how well they're doing.
I think that's a reallyinteresting and and high outcome
(23:28):
area of research that a lot ofpeople are investing an awful
lot of money in.
Bernie Fette (23:32):
So we could see a lot of payoff just in terms of
safety from those particularquestions you're talking about.
Allan Rutter (23:39):
Yeah.
And there have been an awful lotof people who sort of are in
that space who have also takenadvantage of some of these
incidents to say, you know, I'vegot an idea on something that
would help with that kind ofthing.
So I think there's an awful lotof opportunity to have
additional safety gained by therail cars themselves, pushing
(24:00):
out a lot more information abouthow well they're doing in the
same way that our cars arepumping out information to the
cloud, to the manufacturers totell how well our car is
performing.
Bernie Fette (24:12):
Continuing that exploration-- is, is that what
keeps you showing up for workevery day?
Allan Rutter (24:18):
Absolutely.
I mean, it's uh,
Bernie Fette (24:19):
What else?
What else keeps you showing upto work every day?
Allan Rutter (24:22):
I think the biggest thing that motivates me
is the opportunity to work withthe people both at TTI that I
get to be alongside of in my 30or 40 years of my professional
life.
I've had the opportunity to workwith lots of really smart
people, and that's the bigmotivator for me.
And the fact that we get to workwith a lot of sponsors who are
(24:44):
interested in doing some clever,innovative things-- that makes
working here at TTI very, veryrewarding, and that's why I
enjoy showing up.
Bernie Fette (24:55):
We're glad that you do, and also really glad
that you could share some ofyour time and insight with us
today.
Allan Rutter, senior researchscientist at TTI and former
administrator at the FederalRailroad Administration.
Thanks very much, Allan.
Allan Rutter (25:13):
Thanks for the opportunity, Bernie.
It was a pleasure.
Bernie Fette (25:18):
The first railroad in North America was chartered
almost 200 years ago.
By 1850, more than 9,000 milesof track had been installed as
much as the total mileage in therest of the world combined.
Since that time, railtransportation has been central
to U.
S.
History, and to some extent wesometimes take it for granted.
(25:43):
We hardly think about trainsunless something goes wrong,
something like a catastrophicderailment.
But the news of majorderailments in early 2023 runs
counter to the actual record.
More than 99 percent of allhazardous material moved by rail
reaches its destination withoutany problems.
(26:06):
It's that kind of performancethat's made railroads the safest
way to move goods over land.
Thanks for listening.
Please take just a minute togive us a review, subscribe and
share this episode, and we hopeyou'll be back next time.
(26:33):
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University System.
The show is edited and producedby Chris Pourteau.
I'm your writer and host, BernieFette.
Thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time.
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