NTSB Investigative Hearing: Norfolk Southern Train Derailment with Subsequent Hazmat Release & Fires
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ย. 2024
- Day 2 of 2
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will hold an investigative hearing open to the public in East Palestine, Ohio, on June 22-23. During the hearing, the NTSB will gather sworn testimony about the Feb. 3, 2023, Norfolk Southern Railway train derailment with subsequent hazardous material release and fires. It is a fact-finding step in our safety investigation, and the testimony will become part of the public record of the investigation.
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11:03 Start
11:59 Parties in Attendance
16:00 Agenda
23:25 Panel 3 - Wheel bearings
36:20 Exhibit H54 (Professor Tarawneh, University of Texas)
54:08 Exhibit E1
2:01:53 Break Start
2:28:45 Break End
5:03:10 Break Start
6:11:50 Break End
Thanks to the NTSB AV staff! Your hard work and dedication is appreciated by at least two people (me and Chair Homandy)!
Great questioning. The live CC is fantastic and much appreciated, however it covers the name plate of who is speaking. Could you maybe in the future have them zoom out just a bit to fit them both?
The deliberate release and burning of the hazardous chemicals wasn't really necessary as the tanks were not actually at risk of exploding. It was just a much more expedient means of taking care of the chemicals in order to to get the rail line reopened sooner.
Crazy that Carmen are not being expanded with better tools to help them. BNSF got a waiver from FRA to do detector based “air brake inspections” called BHE inspections. It shows that regulators (FRA) are letting the public down. 15yrs railroading has taught me it is a broken system from regulators to the Class I RR’s mindset. FRA gave RR’s a waiver for inspections when cars are not on air. It went from 4hrs off air to 24hrs! Just insane and dangerous.
See the AP article "Rail union says Virginia derailment renews questions about Norfolk Southern's safety practices" (July 7, 2023) for information indicating that Norfolk Southern hasn't significantly changed its shoddy operating practices regarding unsafe wheel bearings.
The board did an excellent job. Hopefully the NTSB investigation into NS safety culture could have it's own hearing. Reading it will be fine too.
Thank you all for holding these people accountable
As mentioned a few comments earlier, the inability of hot box / bearing detectors to detect a wheel / axle / car on fire with easily visible flames, suggests those detectors have too narrow focus and range. Without knowing the evolution of hot box detectors I naively imagined they were vertical scanner things standing on either side of tracks looking at passing trains from the side, maybe just from track level to cargo floor level, but able to detect any excess temps from bearings or over heating and fires from brakes or dragging equipment. Someone mentioned current detectors may see the part of bearing they are looking at as being in acceptable range, but miss a nearby overheated portion, possibly just inches away. Which makes me wonder, what exactly ignited those fires visible 20-30 miles before derailment? A fire started from friction of brakes or something else rubbing a wheel or axle, if it catches exposed bearing grease or anything else flammable on fire, could subject a bearing, even one in perfect running condition, to so much external heat that it will fail catastrophically in short order through no fault of the bearing itself. Seems we need to be able to detect fires!
Dr. Tarawneh did state near the end of his testimony in this hearing that on-board hot wheel bearing detectors (which would be affixed to the bottoms of the train cars themselves, and transmit their data in real time via wireless transmissions to the cloud) would be greatly preferable to ones situated on the railway. However, the industry has not adopted such on-board detectors, to my knowledge.
Each side of each rail car has 90 to 105 inspection points? And Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) under the direction of Norfolk Southern allows rail car inspectors an average of just 30 to 45 seconds' inspection time per car?
Great hearing. Got a lot into 2days
23.25. DO FORGET THE AXLE SIDE FRAME KEYS under the bearing. You know that the need to be in there by design. How many axle/ wheels set were out of the truck frames? If the keys were in place you would not be setting in those hot sets. A A R know about them and at on time we could grease them because the had a flat face grease fixing on the three bolt end caps. Just Google Side frame key. When that axle broke the side frame key on the opposite side would help to keep in from dislodgeig. Safety first.
Despite the excuse Dr. Tarawneh gave, it seems ludicrous that, as pointed out in this hearing, Norfolk Southern's hot box detector in Salem, Ohio read just 103°F above ambient temperature when it was clearly on fire (a household match burns at between 600°F and 800°F, and the wheel bearing fire on the train that derailed in East Palestine was likely much hotter than that). Ideally, a hot box detector should detect a hot bearing, wheel, or axle long before it is on fire. Can't Norfolk Southern, a company that is worth $53 billion and authorized a program for the repurchase of up to $10 billion of its common stock beginning April 1, 2022, do better than this?
I'm also pretty sure that a conductor in the caboose at the rear of the train, if there had been one--"Precision Scheduled Railroading" has for the most part eliminated this position as a cost-cutting measure--would have smelled the smoke from the wheel bearing fire, since it was burning for 20 miles and 30 minutes before the train derailed.
Keep in mind that, in addition to the surveillance video showing the train's axle on fire 20 miles before the derailment, there were not one, but five (5!) 911 calls reporting that the train's axle was on fire--the earliest coming in from Sebring, Ohio, a full 30 miles west of East Palestine, and an hour prior to the derailment. These 911 calls were ignored by Norfolk Southern, which instead apparently advised the conductor to keep the train moving and get it into the Norfolk Southern Conway Rail Yard in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, which is located just a few miles to the east of East Palestine.
3:33:00
GOD BLESS N GOOD A.M. > Put on less car's. Then checking wheel's and barriers won't be so overwhelming.
Also a speed limit of 10 mph for trains carrying hazardous materials (as some municipalities in the U.S. have) would have prevented any kind of derailment. That and adding a conductor back to the caboose of each train (if there had been one on the train that derailed in East Palestine, he would surely have smelled the smoke coming from the flaming wheel bearing).
What?? Nobody blames Trump?? or guns? something very odd here..
🤗 *promo sm*
Hearing: Day 1 of 2:
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