SCRIPPS NEWS has a report tonight on East Palestine, OH.
A year after fiery train derailment, Biden to visit East Palestine
The president will make his first visit to the Ohio city as long-term environmental concerns linger from last year's derailment.
The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, spilled toxic chemicals with unknown effects into the water, the ground and the air, prompting evacuations and a massive cleanup effort that's still underway today.
Now the Biden Administration is taking new steps to make sure train company Norfolk Southern remains accountable for the disaster.
In an executive order signed on Wednesday, the White House made arrangements to continue recovery efforts in East Palestine and surrounding areas, and to get the resources it needs from Norfolk Southern.
"It is critical that Norfolk Southern continue to be held fully accountable under the law for this disaster, and continue to provide resources to address the effects in East Palestine and surrounding communities," the order reads.
There’s a 4 minute 34 second video at this link which reviews what happened, with a promotion at the end for the special report Scripps News will be broadcasting tonight. (If you can’t get it on your TV, there are links at the website which should make it available over the internet and you can watch Scripps News live online.)
Additional reports from Scripps News:
- White House orders continued support for East Palestine derailment Sep 20, 2023
- EPA to review toxic vinyl chloride after Ohio train derailment Aug 11, 2023
- Norfolk Southern seeks to dismiss lawsuit over Ohio derailment Jun 7, 2023
Railway Age has a report from Norfolk Southern on their efforts to date
“Over the past 12 months, we have made significant progress in East Palestine. We’re keeping our promises, and we’ll continue to listen to the community and help the area recover and thrive,”NS said in a release.
“We’re now focused on our long-term initiatives to address health concerns, protect home values, and safeguard area drinking water. We’re also committed to the long-term economic development of the community.”
The full 12 month progress report is available at this link.
While Norfolk Southern is still dealing with the aftereffects of what happened in East Palestine and what the railroad did and didn't do that led to the derailment, a new complication has entered the picture: Activist Investors.
Ancora-led group takes $1 bln stake in Norfolk Southern in bid to oust CEO - WSJ
Jan 31 (Reuters) - An Ancora Holdings-led investor group has taken a roughly $1 billion stake in Norfolk Southern (NSC.N), opens new tab and nominated a majority slate of directors to the railroad operator's board in a bid to oust CEO Alan Shaw, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The director slate includes former Ohio Governor John Kasich and Sameh Fahmy, who was an executive at railroad operator Kansas City Southern, the report said on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.In the past few weeks, Norfolk Southern - among the top-five largest railroad operators in North America by revenue - has met with the group and the group's director nominees have raised a number of issues including how the firm handled a train derailment last year and what they view as Shaw's failure to hit operating targets, the report added.
TRAINS Magazine Newswire has more:
...The post-derailment service problems also raised costs and hurt revenue as shippers diverted business to trucks and rival CSX. NS operations and service recovered late in the year, however, and its intermodal volume grew in the fourth quarter as the railroad delivered its best intermodal on-time performance in more than three years.
[Alan] Shaw, who became chief executive in May 2022, inherited a railroad with widespread crew shortages that led to significant and prolonged service problems. After a conductor hiring spree, NS operations recovered in late 2022.
And in December 2022 Shaw unveiled a long-term strategy called “a better way forward” that revolves around not furloughing train crews during downturns so that the railroad has the resources to capture volume and maintain service when freight volume recovers. Keeping train crews on the payroll during freight downturns would hurt the operating ratio over the short term, Shaw warned. But it would pay off in the long run, he said, by allowing the railroad to maintain service levels. That, in turn, would enable shippers to build more of their supply chains around the railroad, which would bring NS new traffic, higher revenue, and bigger profits.
Analysts initially welcomed the strategy. But some investors began to lose patience with NS during the third quarter, when the railroad’s operating income sank 41% and revenue was down 11%. Fourth quarter results, announced last week, also were a disappointment as costs remained elevated and profits were down again.
Shaw is taking the heat for the consequences of actions taken by his predecessors that set up Norfolk Southern for the problems it is still dealing with. Shaw is moving away from the industry’s fixation on profits over all, as embodied in the railroad operating model Precision Scheduled Railroading.
It seeks to maximize revenue by reducing operating costs as much as possible. While it has been done in the name of efficiency, in practice it has meant cutting corners on safety, on workers, on maintenance, and service. Railroads are making higher profits on the freight they move — but overall freight loads are declining as shipper go elsewhere. It has been a disaster for rail shippers and trackside communities — as East Palestine knows. But Wall Street loves it because it produces record profits.
Until things fall apart.
The Scripps News report will be looking at where East Palestine is today, a year after the disaster. What will be of interest will be what it has to say about the state of the rail industry and what it could be doing that would better serve Main Street instead of Wall Street.
(Related News: the massive theft problems in the shipping industry.)