Authors: U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Date of Publication:  April 1990

Sponsoring Agency:  U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Performing Organization:  U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

Report No: GAO/RCED-90-140

Abstract:

Railroads and rail shippers are required to transport hazardous materials in accordance with safety regulations. The inspection program in FRA Region 2 may not be adequate to ensure that railroads and shippers are adhering to this requirement due to (1) lists of inspection locations that are not updated or complete, (2) lower than expected inspection coverage, and (3) possible insufficient inspector resources. Because Region 2 has no formal inspection goals by which to measure performance, we could not clearly determine whether the inspection program was accomplishing what it should. These problems mirror those we found in FRA’s inspection program nationwide.

Regarding system assessments, we found that they identified more hazardous materials defects than did routine inspections. This is to be expected because system assessments are intended to be more comprehensive and also use considerably more resources.

FRA could better exercise its statutory authority to regulate and enforce train speeds. While FRA has the statutory authority to regulate and enforce all areas of rail safety, including train speeds, it does not cite railroads when inspectors detect speeding during inspections or as the cause of rail accidents unless the track is defective. In their operating rules, railroads declare the track classification that they will meet and in our opinion, should be held accountable for obeying the maximum speeds corresponding to those classifications. FRA relies on the rail industry to enforce its own speed rules but provides little oversight of railroads' enforcement actions. Without adequate oversight, FRA may not be able to ensure that trains are operated safely and that the public is protected from releases of hazardous materials.

Railroads make their own decisions regarding routing of trains carrying hazardous materials, and FRA does not get involved in these decisions. In the Pittsburgh area, trains carrying hazardous materials often traverse highly populated areas because the route is more direct and the track is generally of higher quality, and therefore safer, than alternate routes. Consequently, rerouting these trains around Pittsburgh would not significantly increase safety.

In 1987 and 1988, nine hazardous materials rail accidents occurred in Pennsylvania. FRA did not issue violations in seven accidents because either no regulation was violated or it did not believe it had the authority or sufficient evidence to issue a violation. FRA issued violations for track and hazardous materials violations in the remaining two accidents. In addition, we determined that railroad reports of evacuations due to hazardous materials releases were generally consistent with other federal investigators’ reports, and in our view were reasonably accurate.
 

No. of Pages:  27