caught fire and spilled toxic chemicals near an Ohio town, but the company is nowhere near the "gold standard for safety" it is striving to be, according to federal regulators. Instead, the railroad is too often only willing to meet minimum safety requirements.
The agency has promised to conduct similar safety culture reviews at all the major freight railroads, including CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, but it hasn't set a timeline for those reviews. "We aren't waiting" to act, Shaw said. He said the railroad will keep working on improvements it announced in March while trying to address the regulators' recommendations.
And as investigators looked into the railroad's practices, they "encountered multiple instances of lapses in trust between employees and their frontline supervisors," including times when employees refused to meet with investigators because they feared they would be disciplined for speaking out about their safety concerns.
Just last year the agency audited Norfolk Southern's safety practices and training programs after three railroad employees -- including two conductors who had been on the job less than a year -- suffered amputations while on duty. The agency made 25 recommendations in that audit that the railroad didn't promptly or comprehensively respond to.
In addition to Wednesday's report, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it had fined the railroad US$49,111 for failing to provide proper protective gear and adequate hazardous materials training to the workers who were sent to East Palestine immediately after the derailment to rebuild the tracks.
Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: CTVToronto - 🏆 9. / 84 Read more »