By John Cooper, Railroad Accident/FELA Lawyer
Courtesy of Chattanoogapulse.com
A Norfolk Southern train traveling through Chattanooga, Tennessee (TN) near Lookout Mountain derailed leading to a highway shut down and punctured propane tank, according to firefightingnews.com.
A portion of Cummings highway was shut down for at least two days and firefighters needed to patch a 1,000 propane tank which fuels a switch heater on the rail track.
The details of what exactly caused the derailment are still unknown. There are many questions that need to be answered including: was there a malfunction on the track? Had the carrier maintained the tracks properly? Well have to wait and see what the accident investigation reveals.
There were 199 reported Norfolk Southern train wrecks in the United States, and that isnt including highway-rail accidents, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. In addition, there were 134 derailments.
The number of derailments and accidents needs to decrease. If you break down the NS stats, it means an NS train accident occurred roughly every two days. This is simply unacceptable. Fortunately, the rail companies are required to take steps to improve rail safety by implementing new positive train control (PTC) systems under the Railroad Safety Improvement Act which could help reduce and/or prevent major train wrecks. All railroad companies need to comply with the PTC system requirement by 2015. NS would be better served if they installed their PTC system sooner rather than later.
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