John Oliver took aim at the “terrifying” state of the US freight train industry in this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight.
The host prefaced the episode by saying that trains are “objectively good”, moving 28% of the country’s freight and are much better for the environment than other options, making up just 2% of transport emissions.
But earlier this year, the crash in East Palestine, Ohio, was an example of what can happen when things go wrong, causing $803m worth of damage.
Last year there were more than 1,000 train derailments in the US and the fact that none of them caused a huge loss of life is “more luck than anything else” given that they didn’t happen in major urban areas.
“It is terrifying to think a train disaster like East Palestine could happen in New York,” Oliver said. “Partly because I live here and partly because New Yorkers are dealing with enough dread and panic as it is.”
The industry used to be heavily regulated but there were pressures to deregulate in the 1970s to compete and a large number of companies whittled down to just six “massive, extremely powerful companies” all watched by the Federal Railroad Association, a “fairly weak regulator” that only has the capacity to oversee less than 1% of activity.
It means that “railroads themselves have the primary responsibility” which led Oliver to share the equation: industry + deregulation - government oversight = episode of Last Week Tonight.
There is then “limited insight into what’s actually happening” with neither the FRA or anyone else knowing where most trains are or what they contain.
It means danger is often scarily nearby, with volatile, highly explosive crude oil being carried next to the Hudson river for almost 50 miles. “That is not unique to the Hudson rail line,” he said. “Trains that contain combustible cargo are regularly referred to as ‘bomb trains’, which is terrifying. Bomb Train doesn’t sound like anything that should be on a railway. It sounds like a Jason Statham movie that has 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.”
A lot of problems go back to a system known as Precision Scheduled Railroading, designed to squeeze margins to please investors by aggressively pursuing efficiency to “make Wall Street idiots extremely happy”.
It means running fewer trains but making them much longer, sometimes up to three miles long which are dangerous even when they are not moving.
“In certain towns, trains can block traffic for hours and it’s not like trains can quickly get out of the way by turning around,” Oliver said. “Trains are like Liam Payne, they really only work in one direction.”
Last year there were 30,799 reports of blocked trains in the US and there have been multiple stories of them delaying emergency services.
Oliver added that “staffing has been cut to ridiculously low levels” with an attempt to get just two people manning a train down to one and those who are employed being mistreated, often being fired for being sick.
“It gets much worse when you realise some of those workers are the ones who inspect the trains to keep them safe,” he said.
There is also a “pattern of retaliation for workers who report safety violations or injuries”, with safety being dropped from first concern down to fourth.
