Proposed freight rail legislation could make us less safe and cost us more

The spectacular and horrifying train derailment in New Palestine, Ohio sparked a public outcry on the risks of hazardous material transport (hazmat) and a subsequent bipartisan proposal of The Railway Safety Act of 2023 by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

As someone who has worked for and consulted with railroads, I can tell you that while the bill is aimed at making rail safer, it misses the mark in many ways. If the bill was enacted as currently drafted, rail would become costlier and more cumbersome, product shipping will shift even more to trucks, which is even more costly and less safe than rail; and delivered product costs will rise. Worst of all, while geared toward safety, the bill would actually force hazmat to trucks. 

The bill does four things, which each sound good on the surface, but would have a marginal effect on safety or huge costs to rails — or both. 

1. Enhancing safety procedures for all trains carrying hazardous materials. This proposal requires increased oversight, individualized emergency procedures and town-by-town notification on hazmat shipping. This sounds practical, but no town will be “on alert” — increasing staffing or awareness — for trains carrying hazmat, when it happens every day. Communities will become numb to such information, as they have with overused weather and flood alerts. Further, it in no way would reduce the number of derailments.
   The provision also creates size and weight restrictions on trains, when there is no evidence that size or weight of the train contributed to this derailment. This stipulation appears to be driven by rail worker unions, likely in an attempt to protect jobs, not necessarily make rail safer.
2. Preventing wheel bearing failures. Hot bearing detectors monitor if a bearing is likely to fail. Currently, there are 6,000 in use in the U.S., spaced approximately every 25 miles, on average. The regulation would require a maximum of 10 miles between detectors, causing an estimated $1.1 billion to $2.2 billion investment to railroads. Other safety systems are equally, or more, costly. This mandatory investment outlined in the bill would likely force railroads to raise rates, and ironically, may squeeze out other track investments that directly reduce derailments.
3. Making rail carriers pay for their wrongdoing. Railroads, and all carriers, already are responsible for their substantial costs as well as social costs of cleanup of events. While some might debate how much is enough compensation, this provision merely increases the penalty for such incidents, not the payment to the impacted community where an incident occurred.
4. Requiring two-person crews. There is no evidence fatigue contributes to derailments. Even the fateful train in New Palestine had a three-person crew. This provision seems more likely to be another effort to maintain employment levels, rather than a proven way to improve safety related to derailments. 

So, what would the proposed bill accomplish? Apart from having little impact on public safety related to train derailments and huge costs to the railroads, it would increase the costs of shipping by forcing more expensive rail transport, thereby shifting some shipping to far more costly truck transport. This, in turn, would increase overall costs of goods to consumers. 

Far worse — because pound-for-pound and mile-for-mile, rail is far safer than road for hazardous material — it would put more hazmat on America’s roads among thousands of other vehicles. 

Is rail safer than truck? Yes. Rail operates in a “closed system” — with train movement controlled by dispatchers and trains locked on the track only with other trains. As a result, there are fewer unexpected events and far fewer accidents. Yes, because railcars are larger and a large number of them can be involved in a single incident, derailments or collisions can be spectacular, national events. However, truck accidents are 16 times more frequent, causing far more overall damage, injuries and deaths than the relatively rare but more easily recalled train events. During the last decade, truck incidents have doubled, while rail incidents have actually fallen by 40 percent.

Although regulators and lawmakers may have their heart in the right place seeking out changes like those in The Railway Safety Act, we need more thought and analysis, rather than this knee-jerk legislation that, if passed and implemented, would cause more harm than good. Regulating a relatively safe, and constantly improving mode of transport because of a harrowing event ignores the unintended consequences of such a policy.

Michael F. Gorman is the Niehaus chair in business analytics and operations management at the University of Dayton. He has worked for and consulted with railroads, and he researches the rail industry.