Bipartisan Answer to National Railroad Crisis Needed
Washington,
Sep 19, 2006 -
In December of 2004, on the eve of my joining the United States Congress, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison invited me to a Texas bipartisan delegation meeting in Washington, D. C. with top executives from Union Pacific Railroad.
The agenda: to discuss the inordinately high number of train accidents and derailments that had been occurring in Texas, and more importantly, the growing number of fatalities tied to these accidents.
I learned that the 28th Congressional District I was about to represent had the dubious distinction of having the highest number of fatalities in Texas, and one of the highest railway fatality rates in all of the United States in 2004.
During this meeting we were told that changes would be made and the problems would receive immediate attention at the highest levels of the railroads’ administration.
Unfortunately, some of the issues we addressed in 2004 still exist in 2006, and the derailments and fatalities continue to occur. Action must be taken to make American railroads safe.
The most common cause of many of these railway deaths is one that is completely preventable: chronic fatigue and exhaustion.
A 1997 survey of more than 1,500 freight crew members by the North American Rail Alertness Partnership—a group of industry, government and union officials—found that about 80% of the workers had reported to work while tired, extremely tired or exhausted. In the years since that study, the issues of documented fatigue have continued to grow.
Following a 2004 train derailment in the 28th Congressional District in Southern San Antonio, the Federal Railroad Administration concluded that crew fatigue was the likely cause of the accident that resulted in three fatalities and serious injuries to over fifty residents that had been sleeping only moments before. The deaths and injuries were caused by a toxic cloud of chlorine gas that escaped from a damaged tanker car and descended on an unsuspecting community. Had that derailment occurred only a mile up the rail line and just three hours later, hundreds of school children could have been killed.
Many of these locomotives are carrying dangerous chemicals that, if spilled could prove hazardous to local communities.
Railroad commerce is and always will be an important part of our national economy. But that commerce must be balanced with safety.
This issue clearly crosses partisan lines as surely as the rail lines crisscross our nation. Derailments don’t occur in Republican or Democratic communities. They occur all over America—period.
Now is the time for the Congress—Democrats and Republicans alike—to hold hearings, get to the bottom of the problem. Together, America can do better.
