[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 80 (Thursday, May 11, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H2252-H2254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             DANGEROUS RAIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about an extremely 
dangerous situation in rail corridors across America. This includes the 
busy mainline rail corridor between Pittsburgh and Chicago that cuts 
across northern Ohio, including most of my district.
  In northern Ohio, rail is the spine of our economy. To stay 
competitive in today's economy and avoid expensive supply chain delays, 
industrial and agricultural America must think big about modernizing 
rail solutions. Our Nation must prioritize rail safety, give people 
more transportation options, and expand access to national and 
international markets.
  In the past year, three significant train derailments by Norfolk 
Southern have taken place in Ohio. In October 2022, a 21-car derailment 
occurred in my district at Sandusky, where Norfolk Southern has dragged 
its feet for over half a year in cleaning up the mess. That job is 
still not finished. This rail corridor again drew national attention 
with the major derailment earlier this year in East Palestine, Ohio.
  The imperative topic of rail safety has many clear and sometimes 
deadly impacts on students across our Nation.

                              {time}  1030

  I include in the Record a recent ProPublica news article which 
highlights the risks for students in Hammond, Indiana.

                         [From the ProPublica]

   As Rail Profits Soar, Blocked Crossings Force Kids to Crawl Under 
                        Trains to Get to School

(By Topher Sanders and Dan Schwartz, ProPublica, and Joce Sterman, Gray 
                       Television/InvestigateTV)

       Jeremiah Johnson couldn't convince his mother to let him 
     wear a suit, so he insisted on wearing his striped tie and 
     matching pocket square. It was picture day and the third 
     grader wanted to get to school on time. But as he and his mom 
     walked from their Hammond, Indiana, home on a cold, rainy 
     fall morning, they confronted an obstacle they'd come to 
     dread:
       A sprawling train, parked in their path.
       Lamira Samson, Jeremiah's mother, faced a choice she said 
     she has to make several times a week. They could walk around 
     the train, perhaps a mile out of the way; she could keep her 
     8-year-old son home, as she sometimes does; or they could try 
     to climb over the train, risking severe injury or death, to 
     reach Hess Elementary School four blocks away.
       She listened for the hum of an engine. Hearing none, she 
     hurried to help Jeremiah climb a ladder onto the flat 
     platform of a train car. Once up herself, she helped him 
     scramble down the other side.
       ProPublica and lnvestigateTV witnessed dozens of students 
     do the same in Hammond, climbing over, squeezing between and 
     crawling under train cars with ``Frozen'' and ``Space Jam'' 
     backpacks. An eighth grade girl waited 10 minutes before she 
     made her move, nervously scrutinizing the gap between two 
     cars. She'd seen plenty of trains start without warning. ``I 
     don't want to get crushed,'' she said.
       Recent spectacular derailments have focused attention on 
     train safety and whether the nation's powerful rail companies 
     are doing enough to protect the public--and whether federal 
     regulators are doing enough to make them, especially as the 
     companies build longer and longer trains.
       But communities like Hammond routinely face a different set 
     of risks foisted on them by those same train companies, which 
     have long acted with impunity. Every day across America, 
     their trains park in the middle of neighborhoods and major 
     intersections, waiting to enter congested rail yards or for 
     one crew to switch with another. They block crossings, 
     sometimes for hours or days, disrupting life and endangering 
     lives.
       News accounts chronicle horror stories: Ambulances can't 
     reach patients before they die or get them to the hospital in 
     time. Fire trucks can't get through and house fires blaze out 
     of control. Pedestrians trying to cut through trains have 
     been disfigured, dismembered and killed; when one train 
     abruptly began moving, an Iowa woman was dragged underneath 
     until it stripped almost all of the skin from the back of her 
     body; a Pennsylvania teenager lost her leg hopping between 
     rail cars as she rushed home to get ready for prom.
       In Hammond, the hulking trains of Norfolk Southern 
     regularly force parents, kids and caretakers into an 
     exhausting gamble: How much should they risk to get to 
     school?
       The trains, which can stretch across five or six 
     intersections at a time in this working-class suburb of 
     77,000, prevent students and teachers from getting to school 
     in the morning. Teachers must watch multiple classrooms while 
     their colleagues wait at crossings; kids sit on school buses 
     as they meander the streets of an entirely different city to 
     be dropped off a half-hour late. Brandi Odom, a seventh grade 
     teacher, estimates that at least half her class is delayed by 
     trains multiple times a week.
       The adults entrusted with their safety--parents and 
     teachers, police and fire officials, the mayor--say they are 
     well aware of the pressures on students' minds when they face 
     a blocked crossing on foot. They know some are hungry and 
     don't want to miss breakfast; the vast majority in this 86 
     percent Black and Latino district qualify for free or 
     reduced-price meals at school. And they know that many of 
     their parents commute to work an hour away to Chicago, 
     trusting older brothers or sisters to pick up or drop off 
     their siblings.
       ``I feel awful about it,'' said Scott E. Miller, the 
     superintendent. His district has asked Norfolk Southern for 
     its schedule so that the schools can plan for blockages and 
     students can adjust their routines. The company has 
     disregarded the requests, school officials said.
       Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said that his experience with 
     the rails has been similar, and that company officials have 
     reminded him the rails ``were here first,'' running through 
     Hammond before it was even a city. ``To them, I am nobody,'' 
     he said. ``They don't pay attention to me. They don't respect 
     me. They don't care about the city of Hammond. They just do 
     what they want.''
       In written responses to questions, a spokesperson for 
     Norfolk Southern said children climbing through their trains 
     concerns the company.
       ``It is never safe for members of the public to try to 
     cross the cars,'' spokesperson Connor Spielmaker said. ``We 
     understand that a stopped train is frustrating, but trains 
     can move at any time and with little warning--especially if 
     you are far from the locomotive where the warning bell is 
     sounded when a train starts.''
       He said trains routinely sit in Hammond for a number of 
     reasons: That section of track is between two busy train 
     intersections that must remain open; Norfolk Southern can't 
     easily move a train backward or forward, because that would 
     cut off the paths for other trains, which could belong to 
     other companies. And Hammond is a suburb of Chicago, which is 
     the busiest train hub in the nation, creating congestion up 
     and down the network.
       He said Norfolk Southern is working to identify an area 
     where trains can stage further down its line and to have less 
     impact on the community. The company will also review its 
     procedures to see whether its trains can give louder warnings 
     before they start moving. (ProPublica reporters witnessed 
     trains in Hammond start moving without warning.) Spielmaker 
     said that train schedules vary so much that giving Hammond 
     one might not be helpful. He said that the company is in 
     ``constant communication'' with local officials, and that 
     representatives will discuss any proposed fixes with Hammond.
       Rail companies around the country could better coordinate 
     their schedules, parking trains far from schools that are in 
     session.

[[Page H2253]]

     They could also build shorter trains that fit into railyards 
     so their tail ends don't block towns' crossings. Hammond 
     essentially serves as a parking lot for Norfolk Southern's 
     trains, creating a problem so pressing that Indiana plans to 
     spend $14 million--about $10 million of which is coming from 
     federal grants--to build an overpass for cars. The bridge 
     won't help many students, who would need to walk at least a 
     mile out of their way just to reach it. Norfolk Southern, the 
     multibillion-dollar corporation causing the problem, is 
     contributing just $500,000 of the bridge's cost, despite the 
     city asking for more.
       Norfolk Southern did not respond directly to questions 
     about whether it should chip in more to the upcoming project, 
     but the company said it contributes to many safety projects 
     and maintains more than 1,600 grade crossings in Indiana 
     alone. Read the company's full response here.
       On three separate occasions during the fall and winter, 
     reporters witnessed Norfolk Southern trains blocking 
     intersections leading to an elementary, a middle and a high 
     school for four, six and seven hours. ProPublica and 
     InvestigateTV showed footage of kids making the crossing, 
     including an elementary student crawling under a train, to 
     representatives of Norfolk Southern, lawmakers and Secretary 
     of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, whose remit includes rail 
     safety.
       He was shocked.
       ``Nobody,'' Buttigieg said, ``can look at a video with a 
     child having to climb over or under a railroad car to get to 
     school and think that everything is OK.''
       The video also stunned state officials who had long known 
     about the problem. ``That takes my breath away,'' said 
     Indiana state Rep. Carolyn Jackson, who represents the 
     Hammond area and has filed a bill attempting to address 
     blocked crossings every session for the past five years. None 
     has ever gotten a hearing. ``I hope that they will do 
     something about it and we won't have to wait until a parent 
     has to bury their child.''
       The blocked crossing problem is perennial, especially in 
     cities like Hammond that are near large train yards. But in 
     the era of precision scheduled railroading, a management 
     philosophy that leans heavily on running longer trains, 
     residents, first responders, rail workers and government 
     leaders told ProPublica it is getting worse as trains stretch 
     farther across more intersections and crossings. ``The length 
     of the long trains is 100% the cause of what's going on 
     across the country right now,'' said Randy Fannon, a national 
     vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and 
     Trainmen. ``No engineer wants to block a crossing.''
       The Federal Railroad Administration, the agency that 
     regulates rail safety, started a public database in late 2019 
     for complaints about blocked crossings and fielded more than 
     28,000 reports of stopped trains last year alone. Among them 
     were thousands of dispatches from 44 states about 
     pedestrians, including kids, crossing trains. Someone in 
     North Charleston, South Carolina, summarized the situation in 
     three letters: ``Wtf.''
       A rail administration spokesperson said the agency shares 
     the data monthly with companies. ``When railroads fail to act 
     quickly,'' and if a crossing is reported as blocked three 
     days in a calendar month, officials will contact a company to 
     determine the cause and try to work out solutions, Warren 
     Flatau said. ``We are receiving various levels of cooperation 
     . . . and welcome more consistent engagement.'' Read more 
     about what the agency says it is doing here.
       Buttigieg said that this spring or summer, he expects to 
     announce the first grants in a new U.S. Department of 
     Transportation program designed to help alleviate blocked 
     crossings. The federal government is putting $3 billion into 
     the program over five years.
       State lawmakers have tried to curb blocked crossings by 
     restricting the lengths of trains. Since 2019, in Arkansas, 
     Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, Nebraska, Virginia, Washington, 
     Arizona and other states, lawmakers have proposed maximum 
     lengths of 1.4 to about 1.6 miles. (There is no limit now, 
     and trains have been known to stretch for 2 or more miles.) 
     Every proposal has died before becoming law.
       Opponents, including the nation's largest railroad 
     companies, claim that the efforts are driven by unions to 
     create jobs and that the measures would violate interstate 
     commerce laws. As ProPublica has reported, train length has 
     been essential to creating record profits for rail companies 
     in recent years.
       The industry has also sued to block more modest measures. 
     In Hammond, for instance, police used to be able to write 
     tickets for about $150 every time they saw a train stalled at 
     a crossing for more than five minutes. Instead of paying the 
     individual citations, Hammond officials told ProPublica, 
     Norfolk Southern would bundle them and negotiate a lower 
     payment.
       ``We weren't getting anything,'' McDermott, the mayor, 
     said, ``but it made our residents feel good.'' An Indiana 
     court took the industry's side--as many courts in other 
     states have done--ruling that only the federal government 
     held power over the rails. ``We can't even write tickets 
     anymore,'' the mayor said. ``It was more of an illusion, and 
     we can't even play the illusion anymore.''
       He said the blockages have forced Hammond to keep more 
     firefighters and stations than would normally be needed for a 
     city its size. ``I have to have a firehouse fully staffed on 
     both sides of the rail line so that we can respond in a 
     timely manner to an emergency, which is very expensive,'' 
     McDermott said.
       The problem has become so endemic in Hammond that getting 
     ``trained,'' or stalled at crossings, has become a verb.
       Police officers are delayed several times a day, said 
     Hammond Police Department spokesperson Lt. Steve Kellogg. 
     Last October, an officer couldn't get backup as he confronted 
     a man who was holding a knife, bleeding and not responding to 
     commands. The officer pulled his weapon and the man 
     ultimately cooperated, but someone could have died, Kellogg 
     said. Hammond's powerlessness over the rails is frustrating, 
     he added. ``They're all controlled by the feds, and they do 
     whatever the hell they want to do.''
       Spielmaker, the Norfolk Southern spokesperson, said: ``We 
     work with first responders on a daily basis to assist however 
     we can. For example, there was a situation in Georgia where a 
     train was stopped on a crossing due to a broken down train 
     ahead. The train could not be moved, so we worked with the 
     first responders to make sure the train was safe for them to 
     maneuver through with it in place.''
       In his 24 years fighting fires in Hammond, Mike Hull, 
     president of a local union, said not once has he seen 
     railroads do that for first responders. ``They've never come 
     back and said, 'We're going to move this train for vou;'' he 
     said.
       State and local officials grew hopeful on March 20 when the 
     U.S. Supreme Court invited the federal government to comment 
     on a petition from Ohio seeking the authority to regulate how 
     long a train can block a crossing. The high court will likely 
     hear the case if the solicitor general recommends it, said 
     Tom Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog, which is widely seen 
     as an authority on the court. Nineteen other states have 
     signaled their support for a Supreme Court case. Goldstein 
     expects the solicitor general to respond in November or early 
     December. A favorable court opinion could allow other states 
     to finally enforce their laws on blocked crossings.
       In the meantime, Buttigieg believes federal lawmakers must 
     intervene to give the Federal Railroad Administration the 
     power to compel rail companies to keep crossings clear. This 
     time of intense public interest in railroads has opened a 
     window for action, Buttigieg said, but it is fleeting. ``Any 
     moment that the public attention starts to fade, the 
     railroads are then once again in a position to assert 
     themselves in Washington and to ignore some of the phone 
     calls they are getting in the communities,'' he said.
       Buttigieg said his staff is ready to participate in a 
     federal hearing in which it can tell lawmakers what new 
     authorities they would need to regulate blocked crossings.
       U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, said she is eager for new 
     law. A fire chief in her district, which covers parts of the 
     Houston area, told her the department has had to detour 3,200 
     times since 2019 because of blocked crossings. She and other 
     congressional Democrats introduced the Don't Block Our 
     Communities Act in early March, but it has not yet gained 
     bipartisan traction. The proposed law would prohibit rail 
     companies from blocking crossings for more than 10 minutes 
     and would allow the rail administration to fine companies for 
     repeated violations.
       Like the other officials, Garcia said she was aghast, but 
     not surprised, about the situation in Hammond. ``That is 
     outrageous, look at the little bitty baby,'' she said while 
     watching a video of a young girl crawling under a train car. 
     ``That's what I mean about making sure we do more to protect 
     the safety of our children. That happens too in Houston.''
       In Hammond, a public meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 
     5:30 p.m. at Scott Middle School to discuss the overpass 
     project. Among those who hope to voice their concerns about 
     the blocked crossings are rail workers themselves who worry 
     about the kids. ``It's just a matter of time until there is a 
     catastrophic incident,'' said Kenny Edwards, the Indiana 
     legislative director for the nation's largest rail union.
       Efrain Valdez, president of the parent teacher association, 
     said he hopes officials can adjust plans to help students who 
     need to walk to school. ``To see our children in danger like 
     that, that's just downright crazy,'' he said. ``I'm just 
     appalled and heartbroken that [the railroad] would think 
     that's OK. That their money means more to them than a child's 
     life.''
       Until there's a better solution, the ritual continues. Some 
     parents act as de facto crossing guards, standing beside 
     trains to help their children and others cross. Others ask 
     their kids to call them before and after they make the climb, 
     while warning them about the worst that can happen.
       Rudy Costello tells his daughter, who is in high school, to 
     be careful, because if the train moves she ``could slip and 
     then there goes your leg and your foot. Or you get pulled 
     under the train and there goes you all together.'' He added: 
     ``That's been my biggest fear, her foot slipping off. . . . 
     But what can you do? Because those trains are always stopping 
     over there, for hours.''
       Akicia Henderson said she has tried to avoid making the 
     dangerous climb with her 10-year-old daughter. ``I called a 
     Lyft,'' she said. ``The Lyft driver actually canceled on me 
     twice because he couldn't get around the train.''

[[Page H2254]]

       So she walks toward the tracks, picturing all that can go 
     wrong--a jacket snags, a backpack tangles, the wheels begin 
     to turn. She prays that this will be one of the days their 
     path isn't blocked and that she doesn't hear the sound she 
     has most come to fear, a horn in the distance.
       ``It's like, `Oh my God, the train is coming.' ''

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, children are forced to crawl over or under 
very long parked trains that block their path to school. ProPublica and 
InvestigateTV witnessed dozens of students in Hammond climbing over, 
squeezing between, and crawling under the train cars just to make their 
way to and from school.
  Railroads of America, wake up.
  In my district in northwest Ohio, I have also witnessed situations 
with students in extremely dangerous and deadly situations.
  In December of 2009 along that same mainline rail crossing at McCord 
Road in Lucas County, Ohio, a train hit two students on foot in my 
district, killing one of them and putting the other in critical 
condition at Toledo Hospital where she underwent surgery.
  Cody L. Brown, a 15-year-old freshman, was pronounced dead at the 
scene. Brianna Mullinger was taken in critical condition to Toledo 
Hospital. The students, both band members, were walking to school when 
that westbound Amtrak train struck them.
  In the wake of this tragedy, our community constructed an underpass 
below the Norfolk Southern rail line at McCord Road to try to avoid 
future tragedies at this same rail crossing.
  There are numerous such places across this corridor. Our effort 
protects students, pedestrians, and drivers without interrupting 
traffic or flow of trains, pedestrians, or cars that pass through this 
intersection.
  These stories are emblematic of some of the longstanding and 
unaddressed real issues America continues to face to this day.
  Railroads of America, wake up.
  Let us use our bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to 
fix these rail problems that exist and take steps to address them coast 
to coast. Now is a pivotal point where our Nation can fix these 
challenges with funds available from the Infrastructure Investment and 
Jobs Act.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and 
President Biden to pay particular attention to this regional corridor 
from Pittsburgh to Chicago. It is so dangerous. Help us convene rail 
stakeholders to relieve congestion and identify key infrastructure 
improvement projects.
  This is a time freight companies like Norfolk Southern, CSX, and 
Amtrak should come together at the same table. Let us craft solutions 
to address longstanding issues regarding rail safety.
  Communities are begging to work with these companies that never 
return phone calls to help fix these longstanding, solvable challenges. 
We must look to the future and join together to protect the public: our 
students, our rail workers, and our communities.
  Let us deliver both transformative and safe commercial and passenger 
rail solutions. The tools are at our disposal. The money is there.
  Where are the rail companies?
  The time is now. Let's do what we in the industrial Midwest do best. 
Let's get to work.

                          ____________________