East Palestine, Ohio, is not the only place where Norfolk Southern has tracks and runs trains.
The Georgia-based railroad company is the fifth-largest railway in the country. It operates about 19,500 miles of track crisscrossing the eastern United States. It pulled in $11.14 billion in revenue in 2021.
The company moves about 7.5 million carloads of various freight every year. Each train can stretch to as many as 280 cars, sometimes stacked double in height. Of those cars, about 7% are carrying chemicals. Not all of those have to be hazardous materials, but a proportion of them are.
The Association of American Railroads says that of the 2.2 million carloads of hazardous materials that travel by rail every year, 99.9% are delivered without incident.
But then you have East Palestine and the derailment that caused leaks into the water and the earth. To control a would-be explosion, there was a controlled burn of the chemicals, causing a billowing tower of black smoke just across the Pennsylvania border.
It is the 0.1% tragedy. The fire and wreckage doesn’t change the fact that — statistically — rail remains the safest way to move freight, including chemicals.
It does, however, make it all the more important that trust be maintained. The government must be open and honest and window-glass clear about every action taken before the crash and every test of water, air, soil and human health taken afterward.
And so must the company.
On Wednesday, Norfolk Southern representatives did not attend a community meeting about the incident. The reason? Fear of physical threats.
That was a breathtaking admission that seems almost certain to be recreated in a Hollywood screenplay. It was especially tone deaf as less violent but still dangerous threats to physical well-being from the train’s contaminants are exactly what East Palestine and other communities fear.
On Saturday, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw visited East Palestine to “support the community.” He should get to know every street corner, every back road and every family name. He shouldn’t make a quick stop and a hasty departure, like a train keeping a schedule.
If Norfolk Southern wants the community — and every other community its trains travel — to believe the 3,500 dead fish were a one-time thing and the effect of an inferno of vinyl chloride is transitory, then Norfolk Southern reps starting with Shaw need to be a daily fixture in the area until all concerns are mitigated.
Maybe the company and the government are right and it won’t take long to handle — perhaps less than the months to years the NTSB investigation of the crash will require.
But if not, living in the crash’s backyard should impress the importance of rail safety and crash cleanup on everyone from the top down.
