Trending
Federal lawmakers who have been quietly ignoring calls to reform railroad safety regulations and enforcement appear to have given at least one rail giant the courage it needed to continue to ignore safety in general.
It has been more than seven months since a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire in East Palestine.
In the wake of that disaster, a brief sense of urgency gripped a few in Congress. But the results of a recent Federal Railroad Administration inspection of Union Pacific locomotives and railcars in a Nebraska railyard indicate that sense of urgency was not contagious.
According to Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose the 19.93% defect rate on Union Pacific rail cars and the 72.69% rate for locomotives that inspectors found in July and August are both twice the national average.
"The compliance of the rolling stock (freight cars and locomotives) on the UP network is poor, and UP was unwilling or unable to take steps to improve the condition of their equipment," Bose said in a letter to the company.
Of course, company spokeswoman Kristen South fired back that "Union Pacific will never compromise on the safety of our employees. Safety is always our first priority, and we are reviewing and will address the concerns raised by the FRA."
A 72.69% defect rate for locomotives does not exactly inspire confidence that there will be much addressing after the reviewing. And why did it take a federal inspection to prompt a review to begin with?
Union Pacific is just one company, but it has 32,400 miles of track over 23 Western states. If a company that large -- and with rail lines running through that many communities -- believes it can get away with such abysmal defect rates after a spotlight was turned onto the industry's safety standards, imagine how companies across the industry will behave once they are certain the sense of urgency in Washington, D.C. has fizzled completely.
Our representatives must not allow that to happen.