Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Officials: Broken rail caused West Virginia train derailment

MONTGOMERY, W.Va. — A broken rail that wasn't found on two previous inspections led to a fiery oil train derailment in southern West Virginia in February, federal investigators said Friday.

A CSX train was carrying 3 million gallons of Bakken crude when it derailed Feb. 16 during a snowstorm in Mount Carbon. Twenty-seven of the train's 109 cars derailed. Twenty cars leaked crude oil.

The Federal Railroad Administration said the broken rail resulted from a vertical split head rail defect. The problem was missed by CSX Corp. and a contractor on two separate inspections in the months leading up the accident. The rail was near the location of a previous broken rail discovered by an FRA inspector that was repaired in May 2014.

The previous inspections that missed the defect were conducted in December 2014 and January 2015. Data from both inspections show evidence of the defect, the FRA said. But neither CSX nor contractor Sperry Rail Service discovered it.

CSX and the contractor have been fined $25,000 apiece for failing to verify a potential rail defect, the FRA said.

"Our country relies on the safety transportation of large quantities of energy products across the nation, and it is our responsibility to require operators to implement strict safety standards," U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a news release. "FRA's findings and action today should make it clear to rail operators that we will do exactly that."

The derailment shot fireballs into the sky, burned down a nearby house and caused fires on the ground that smoldered for days.

The owner of the destroyed home was treated for inhalation injuries. No one else in the area was hurt.

The FRA said it also will issue an advisory urging more detailed inspections where defects and flaws are suspected. It also will seek advanced training for rail inspection vehicle operators.

The administration also will look into the need for rail-head wear standards and possibly requiring railroads to slow trains or replace rails where certain conditions pose safety risks.

Speed had previously been ruled out as a factor. The FRA has said the train was going 33 mph at the time of the crash. The speed limit was 50 mph.

Oil from the tank cars caused a sludge deposit in the Kanawha River and an adjoining creek, as well as a sheen along the shorelines, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Two water treatment plants downstream closed their intakes temporarily after the derailment and customers were asked to conserve water.

Under a March consent order with the EPA, the railroad agreed to a long-term plan for cleaning up and restoring the area around the derailment. CSX has said more than 181,000 gallons of crude oil was recovered after the accident and thousands of tons of soil has been removed and shipped for disposal.

The train was bound for Yorktown, Virginia. In recent years, trains hauling crude from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana have been involved in fiery derailments in six states.

A lawsuit was filed in September against CSX on behalf of more than 200 residents of Fayette County.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy