Sen. Schumer Calls for Increased Freight Railroad Safety
The freight train derailment on the Newburgh and New Windsor waterfront March 7 was just one of several making news across the country during the week of March 13.
Freight trains also derailed in places such as Rhode Island, Iowa, Maryland, the Bronx and western New York. Some carried such hazardous materials as sulfuric acid or ethanol, although there were no serious spills or leaks.
The derailments had Sen. Chuck Schumer calling for action to make trains safer for those who live and work in the communities the trains pass through.
On March 10, Schumer stood at the Newburgh waterfront where a CSX freight train derailed on March 7. Three locomotives and 16 freight cars, including five tankers carrying such hazardous materials as sulfuric acid, derailed when the train hit a boom lift stopped on the tracks.
"I'm fed up with the federal government," Schumer said. "They've got to move their butts and do a lot more."
Schumer is asking the Federal Railroad Administration to look into whether more time is needed than the 20 to 25 seconds between the moment that warning signals sound and gates come down at crossings, and the train arrives.
He also wants federal funding for railroad safety to be restored to the $100 million level, where it once was, from the present level of less than $25 million.
And he wants a notification system so that businesses whose equipment might have to cross the tracks, especially slow-moving equipment, will know well in advance when trains are coming through.
In March 10 years ago, a freight train derailed in Oneida, setting off a propane fire that burned for hours and forced evacuations. That area was less densely populated than the communities along the Hudson River where freight trains, many carrying Bakken crude oil and other hazardous materials, roll through every day.
Schumer, who had called for a congressional investigation and hearings after that crash, along with tougher fines and better maintenance, said some changes affecting the trains carrying oil came out of that disaster. Among them was a notification system for the oil trains, like the system he is now calling for with other freight trains.
Brendan Casey, Orange County's commissioner of emergency services, who was among several officials joining Schumer on March 10, had some advice for anyone who ever gets caught in a vehicle between railroad crossing gates, such as a Steelways employee who was in the boom lift on March 7: The gates are held in place by shear pins and you can drive through them.
"You're not trapped," Casey said. "Those gates break away easily.”
