UPPER DELAWARE RIVER VALLEY — When you consider that according to published reports, there are nearly 140,000 miles of privately owned track spanning the United States, it puts things in perspective locally.

A spokesperson from the New York Susquehanna Railway, whose Norfolk Southern line suffered a derailment in Ohio in early February, stated that the railway only operates about 123 miles within the Delaware River corridor. 

For the record, there are about 3,500 miles of track in New York State, down from a reported 8,400 miles during the halcyon days of the 1920s. Pennsylvania ranks near the top with 5,600 miles of rail.

According to the Association of American Railroads (AAR), a trade association, the United States moves one-third of all the nation’s exports, plus an estimated 40 percent of long-distance freight volume. 

Seven major freight lines connect North America, including Union Pacific and BNSF (the major players in the West).

CSX and Norfolk Southern are the primary operators on the East Coast. Kansas City Southern, Canadian Pacific and Canadian National run routes north and south, while Amtrak, the country’s passenger service, owns about three percent of the nation’s rail lines.

While tank cars—which are used to transport often hazardous materials on roadways—are somewhat limited in capacity, railcars can carry much greater loads: up to 30,000 gallons for hazardous materials, and up to 45,000 gallons for materials identified as non-hazardous.

Environmental watchdogs say that if a railroad tank car comes off the tracks and is ruptured in the process, the potential for the environmental degradation of a river system such as the Delaware River could be catastrophic.

Rail derailment incidents usually involve multiple railcars, and often result in multi-agency responses, from the first on the scene, to federal and state organizations, including professional investigators.

These days, officials with knowledge of what hazardous materials are transported by rail are at pains not to be overly specific about the types of materials, due to concerns about homeland security.

As a result of the highly publicized derailment in East Palestine, OH, emergency response personnel and residents were reportedly exposed to a toxic brew of chemicals such as vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, isobutylene, and butyl acrylates, resulting in numerous complaints of health-related concerns and environmental contamination.

Let’s talk railcars

Railcars are categorized into three basic types: non-pressurized (which can carry materials at pressures below 100 psi), pressurized and specialized cars. Similar to highway transportation tank cars, they are required by law to be identified with placards stating the materials on board.

According to information published in the “Firefighter’s Handbook: Essentials of Firefighting and Emergency Response,” published by Delmar, the chapter dealing with rail transportation defines non-pressurized tank cars as potentially carrying chemicals, combustible and flammable liquids, corrosives and slurries; pressurized cars are designed to carry flammable gases like propane and poisonous gases like chlorine and sulfur dioxide; and specialized railcars “have the same characteristics as highway vehicles.”

In a recent communication with a public affairs specialist with the New York Susquehanna and Western Railway, an entity with connections to Norfolk Southern, they noted the line does not transport materials defined as Poison Inhalation Hazards, Toxic Inhalation Hazards or crude oil in the river valley.

But because a locomotive “consist”—a document showing the numbers of rail cars and their contents, along with the required safety warning placards indicating the type of hazardous materials being carried—can be difficult to locate in accidents, it puts first responders and the general public at potential risk.

According to data published by the United States Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) reported that from 1990-2021, there was an average of 1,705 train derailments annually nationwide. Recent statistics show 1,013 in 2020, 1,087 in 2121, and 1,044 in 2022. Overall, that represents a downward trend from the early ‘90s.

“Rail transportation of hazardous materials in the United States is recognized to be the safest method of moving large quantities of chemicals long distances,” stated the FRA in a publication titled “Hazardous Materials Transportation.” It continues in part, “The vast majority of hazardous materials shipped by rail every year arrive safely and without incident… for all hazardous materials, in the last 12 years (1994-2005), hazardous materials released from railroad accidents resulted in a total of 14 fatalities.” The publication noted that in the same period, 116 people died in highway-related hazardous materials incidents.

But all is not well in railroad land, as numerous reports indicate problems, exacerbated in part by the recent pandemic and hoped-for subsidies to the industry. This resulted in a lack of staffing (one report stated that over the last six years, Class I railroads have cut their workforce by 29 percent, according to congressional testimony by Martin Oberman, chair of the Surface Transportation Board), and long-standing issues related to overall infrastructure, track maintenance and some antiquated braking systems. 

According to the AAR, “As a result of the rail industry’s well over $20 billion in annual investments over the past five years for infrastructure and technological innovation, rigorous employee training and community safety efforts, more than 99.9 percent of rail hazardous materials shipments reach their destination without a train accident-caused release.”

And nothing compares to what was recorded as the worst train wreck in American history. Early in the morning of July 8, 1918, two passenger trains collided head-on near Nashville, TN.

The so-called “Train Wreck of 1918” claimed at least 101 lives and injured another 171 passengers, as both trains crashed and derailed on a single section of track known as “Dutchman’s Curve.” 

To put things in perspective, while chances of derailments in the rural Delaware River Valley are at first glance extremely small, they have happened, and the effects of hazardous materials spilling into the pristine waterway could be devastating to the environment and residents living in the river valley corridor.