EAST PALESTINE – When the 38 cars of the Norfolk Southern train derailed –including 11 hauling hazardous material –the residents of East Palestine and people far beyond Columbiana County waited for an explanation. In the weeks that followed, it was learned that an overheated wheel bearing was the likely culprit.
That was the simple answer to a complicated chain of events and left yet more questions to be answered. The most pressing being what could have prevented the disaster. It’s a question that Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw has asked himself repeatedly since.
“I’ve had personal conversations with each of the rail CEOs. I’ve asked my team what we could have done differently?” Shaw said during a media roundtable held at East Palestine’s Centenary United Methodist Church on March 17. “I’ve asked myself what could we have done differently? As you can imagine, I’ve been asking myself that every day since Feb. 3.”
While the disaster cannot be undone, improvements can be made. One such change has already been implemented as the railroad has installed more hot-box detectors to its tracks. The addition of more hot-box detectors by Norfolk Southern was a direct result of the East Palestine derailment.
“The hot box detectors that measure the wheel bearings were working as designed,” Shaw said. “Our hotbox detectors were already spaced at the shortest intervals on average in the rail industry and we are going to add 200 more. And the first one we added was right outside of East Palestine.”
Wayside hot-box detectors are placed on rail tracks every 20 miles, give or take. The detectors record the temperatures of railroad bearings as trains pass by using infrared sensors. If an overheated bearing, one that reads a certain degree over ambient temperature, an alarm is triggered and the crew is notified of a potential failure. The crew then stops and inspects the train.
