Nationalize the Railroads

The disaster in Ohio was an inevitable result of decisions made for profit

On February 3rd, 50 cars from a 150-car Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio and erupted into flames. As has been widely reported, some of these cars were carrying a highly combustible and toxic chemical called vinyl chloride, which came spewing out of the crumpled tankers. 

Vinyl chloride is used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC). PVC is a plastic used in all sorts of things like wires, packaging, and the eponymous pipes. Everyone in a two mile radius of the crash was ordered to evacuate due to the serious threat of air pollution, both from the leaking tankers and the subsequent fires used by cleanup crews to burn off the vinyl chloride. After the latter and some EPA air and water quality testing, East Palestine residents were told they could return home on Wednesday.

However, the extent of the damage—and long-term danger—is not yet clear. The controlled burn produced a giant plume of dangerous gasses phosgene (which has been used as a chemical weapon) and hydrogen chloride in the air. Prolonged exposure to vinyl chloride is associated with an increased risk of several types of cancer. The chemicals spilled into the Ohio River and there are reports of sick and dead fish, chickens, and pets in the area. And, according to a recent EPA letter sent to Norfolk Southern, some of the cars contained other toxic chemicals not previously reported:

Approximately 20 rail cars were listed as carrying hazardous materials. Cars containing vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether are known to have been and continue to be released to the air, surface soils, and surface waters.  

This calamity was not natural or unavoidable, and we can expect more catastrophic accidents like it if the political choices that produced it remain intact. As reported by The Lever, Norfolk Southern (and other rail industry interests) successfully lobbied against safety regulations for trains carrying hazardous chemicals such as requiring improved braking systems. This particular train was on fire for 20 miles before it derailed, seemingly without detection. 

For years, railroad workers have been calling for increased safety measures and warning about the inevitability of disasters like this due to railroad companies’ deadly focus on maximizing short-term profit. Railroad Workers United has highlighted several glaring safety issues with this particular train—like insufficient inspection and excessive weight and length—that are associated with precision scheduled railroading, which is basically a business euphemism for minimizing “inefficient” labor and safety expenses.

You may remember a couple months ago when Congress and President Biden intervened to break a rail strike by forcing a contract onto unions that had voted it down. These workers do not even get paid sick leave and they have to labor under increasingly onerous and dangerous conditions due to rail companies’ extreme cost-cutting measures. Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern and the other US rail corporations have spent $196 billion dollars on stock buybacks and dividends since 2010. Imagine if they had used that money to pay workers a little more and invest in better safety measures. 

It is a tale as old as time: a corporation runs roughshod over workers and the environment because the people who control it are driven entirely by wealth accumulation while the ostensible regulators are controlled by or subservient to capital. Usually what happens is the corporation gets a fine, somebody cleans it up a bit (to the extent that is even possible), nothing meaningful changes to prevent it from happening again, and no one in power is ever held accountable.

Thus far, there has been a bizarre silence from the federal government; as far as I can tell, no one in the Biden administration has even commented on this situation. This does not bode well for the potential for more stringent regulations or corporate accountability on the near-term horizon. And continuing their long track record of stepping up and doing the right thing, Norfolk Southern has offered a paltry $25,000 donation to support the residents of East Palestine. 

Perhaps sustained, organized pressure can get more significant voluntary changes or even some stronger laws. But freight trains carrying toxic and dangerous substances (whether classified that way or not) crisscross the US on a daily basis, and we also have to dramatically expand passenger capacity (i.e. Amtrak) to build a more just and sustainable transit system. Norfolk Southern and their ilk have shown they cannot be entrusted with overseeing or accommodating these tasks. Because freight and Amtrak share our inadequate and privately owned railroads, the former is typically given preference and passenger service is often slow and undependable—despite the fact that rail corporations promised to prioritize passenger trains. 

Bloated executive salaries and societally useless dividends and stock buybacks are essentially theft from workers and, as this toxic spill shows, from all of us. You might not live in or near East Palestine, but next time it could be your town. The burden of this risk is unnecessary and unevenly distributed; it will always flow downward to workers and to the poor and racialized communities who lack the political power in our society to resist it.

Additionally, this is yet another example of how plastics and the fossil fuels that they are made from have social and ecological costs throughout their entire supply chains, not just from their end usage. The quantity and variety of polluting substances that are produced in this country should not be taken for granted, and neither should the conditions of their transportation.

The rail system is too important for both our present and future health to leave in the hands of corporations and their wealthy executives and shareholders who focus on profit over the health of people and our planet. The disaster in East Palestine shows how labor and environmental justice are fundamentally intertwined, so struggles and policies to materially prioritize workers and to prevent pollution must be combined as well. We can start with the necessary-but-insufficient task of nationalizing the railroad system.