Railroads balking at safety proposals being advanced
Railroad industry representatives on Thursday pushed back against legislative proposals to tighten rail safety regulations, saying they were being rushed and would particularly hurt smaller railroads in the state.
Art Arnold, executive director of the Ohio Railroad Association, criticized measures in the pending two-year transportation budget bill to require at least two crew members per train and mandate wayside detectors every 10-15 miles of track. Wayside detectors use cameras and sensors to catch malfunctioning or broken equipment on passing trains before accidents happen.
The proposals were added to the transportation budget, House Bill 23, following the release of toxic chemicals from the Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, as well as a second derailment near Springfield, and the death of a train conductor in Cleveland. All involved Norfolk Southern trains.
Ohio has one of the most dense concentrations of rail in the country with more than 5,000 miles of track from a mix of large operators, like Norfolk Southern and CSX, and smaller shortline railroads.
Arnold said the two-person-crew and wayside detector proposals would add “significant costs” for railroads — particularly for more than 20 short-line railroads in Ohio, which often have limited sources of revenue.
Many short lines have one crew member on the train and another driving along with it in a vehicle, Arnold said. He said these short lines, which only have a few miles of track, don’t have wayside detectors — which can cost $200,000 or more — because their trains move relatively short distances at relatively low speeds.
Brendan Keener, manager for Midwest & Bluegrass Rail, which operates the Camp Chase Industrial Railroad short line in Columbus, echoed those comments, saying that cost would take up at least 10% of the annual revenue of a railroad like his. “Not really sure how we would pull it off economically,” he said.
Lawmakers are still working on the transportation budget, but the Senate is likely to pass it this week, according to Senate Transportation Committee Chair Stephanie Kunze, a Columbus-area Republican. Arnold suggested lawmakers remove the rail-safety provisions.
“The railroads have been caught in a rush to act on proposals that have nothing to do with the derailment in East Palestine or any of the other incidents,” he said.