Business Week published an interesting article last week
about a specific rail car that transports thousands of gallons of ethanol every
year across the United States. If there is a train crash, the thin exterior of
this type of rail car is almost guaranteed to sever and leak fuel which and
lead to fires and explosions that will pretty much destroy all of the shipped products in the car. That is why it is important for a company to know exactly what they sent out by using a supply chain management just in case of emergencies like this.
The railroad industry
has vowed to manufacture and use a new rail car that has a stronger shell,
which will help prevent leaking in case of an accident. Regardless, the train
industry has pushed back requesting lawmakers not require them to modify the current
design of existing rail cars. The first question that needs to be asked about
this resistance, is why? The short answer is money. There are apparently 30,000 to 45,000 of these types of tankers out there today. The article reports that
the railroad industry has known about this design flaw since 1991, yet have
done nothing about it until 2011. Despite knowing about this design flaw, there
have been 40 serious train accidents since 2000, which has caused 2 deaths and
multiple injuries.
The National Traffic
Safety Board has asked for the higher standards to be applied to all tankers,
meaning existing cars would have to be retrofitted or phased out.
The industry’s
proposal “ignores the safety risks posed by the current fleet,” the
NTSB said in a report on safety recommendations, adding that those cars
“can almost always be expected to breach in derailments that involve
pileups or multiple car-to-car impacts.”
The federal Pipeline
and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, part of the U.S. Department of
Transportation, is considering both arguments, but the regulatory process is
slow and could take several years, experts said.
If there is another
crash involving these existing faulty rail cars and people are injured (or even
killed), then the rail road company will be on the hook for those injuries. Why
not bite the bullet now and start removing these existing cars from their
fleets as soon as possible. It could save lives and their company’s money in
the long run.
If you or someone you
love has been injured in a Chicago car accident or Chicago train accident, then
call Chicago injury lawyer, Aaron Bryant, for a free consultation at
312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com.