Union Pacific Trains Derail in Texas, Rail Safety Gutted by Monopolies

A Union Pacific train derailed in a train yard in Forth Worth, Texas, on Sunday (8/31) leaving some of the 12 cars which derailed leaking carbon dioxide. This comes after 35 Union Pacific rail cars derailed near the small town of Gordon, Texas, 65 miles southwest of Fort Worth on 8/12. No injuries were reported in either derailment, though the Forth Worth carbon dioxide leak led to emergency officials declaring a limited shelter-in-place order around the train yard. The direct causes of both are still under investigation.

Railroad derailments are down 15% from the early 2010s according to a 2023 US Department of Transportation report, but the railroad industry is actively lobbying Congress to weaken safety regulations—in part by pushing for more automated safety inspections, which would mean layoffs of safety inspectors and corner-cutting inspections. Last year, The New York Times reported that derailments have risen since 2023, even after the catastrophic derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio, which led to a severe hazardous chemical contamination in the town. The number of injuries and deaths from the rail monopolists’ drive for profits in East Palestine are still being contested between advocates of the residents and the company and government.

In July, Norfolk Southern Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, two of the largest railroads in the US, signed a $72 billion deal that would have the two combined, with plans to create the first transcontinental freight railroad. The merger would be the biggest in the rail industry, an industry that has already become increasingly monopolized in recent decades. The deal may eventually force other railroads, such as CSX Transportation and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), to merge as well in order to stay competitive, according to monopoly analysts. Rail worker unions and rail passenger advocates, along with shipping capitalists, have been pushing against the merger—for the sake of safety for the former and their own profits for the latter.

As previously reported in The Worker, rail monopolies have created an industry standard of 1-3 mile long trains manned by only two employees, and are aiming at trains crewed by a single worker—against union and worker opposition on the grounds of safety and labor intensity. Workers on the railroads have been sounding the alarm about dismal working conditions and safety concerns for years, with tensions reaching a boiling point in 2022 when then-President Biden blocked a looming national rail workers’ strike and forced a sell-out contract down the workers’ throats. Massive layoffs and increased workloads have left rail workers overworked and exhausted, increasing the likelihood of accidents and derailments, while workers have told monopoly media of systematic management retaliation against safety whistle-blowers.

This trend of companies skirting safety regulations spans across industries as the bosses cut corners, increase labor tempo, and lay off workers as part of their efforts to maintain profitability in the developing economic crisis. A Surface Transportation Board report in 2022 found that there were 30% fewer rail workers that year than in 2018. At the same time, there is a steady rate of rail workers killed on the job, sacrificed to the rail monopolies’ drive for greater profitability, according to the cross-union organization Railroad Workers United. These include two rail workers killed in a derailment crash of a Union Pacific train in Pecos, Texas, in December of last year.

Emergency services across the country are often ill-equipped to deal with railroad derailments, according to a recent University of Maryland report. Data provided by the company RailState LLC showed that over the last six months at least 130,000 rail cars displaying placards for hazardous materials moved along sections of rail lines stretching from Washington state to Texas. These cars passed the homes of at least 2.5 million people living within a mile of the tracks, along with more than 1,000 schools and 80 hospitals. Since 2015, an average 1000 gallons of hazardous materials is spilled in derailments every two months, according to an analysis of federal derailment data. Almost half of these derailments result in evacuations, and more than a quarter result in fires or explosions.

Image: Palo Pinto County Emergency Services image of the August 12 derailment.

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