East Palestine Train Derailment: Norfolk Southern Hazardous Chemical Disaster

On February 3, 2023, at 8:55 PM EST, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, with 38 cars derailing and 20 containing hazardous chemicals including vinyl chloride. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that a defective, overheated wheel bearing on a hopper car caused the derailment. Three days later, officials conducted a controlled “vent and burn” of five tank cars containing vinyl chloride monomer, creating a massive toxic mushroom cloud over the small town of approximately 4,700 residents.

The NTSB’s investigation revealed that Norfolk Southern officials and contractors provided “incomplete and misleading information” to local incident commanders, falsely claiming the tank cars were at risk of catastrophic failure from a polymerization reaction. This created unwarranted urgency and led to the unnecessary decision to vent and burn the vinyl chloride, when three other safer removal methods had been rejected by the railroad. The NTSB concluded the vent and burn “was not necessary to prevent a tank car failure.”

The disaster exemplifies regulatory capture: Norfolk Southern had spent years lobbying against safety regulations that could have prevented or mitigated the catastrophe. Despite previously touting Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes in 2007 as “making railroad history” with “potential to reduce train stopping distances by as much as 60 percent,” the company’s lobby group, the American Association of Railroads (AAR), fought against mandating ECP brakes. In 2015 alone, Norfolk Southern retained 47 federal lobbyists focused on fighting ECP regulation. After rail industry donors delivered over $6 million to GOP campaigns, the Trump administration rescinded the ECP brake rule in 2018, echoing industry claims that costs outweighed benefits—despite safety experts confirming ECP brakes would have reduced the accident’s severity.

Environmental analysis in June 2024 revealed “extreme concentrations of multiple pollutants” including chloride and “exceptionally high” pH levels over a widespread area covering 1.4 million km² across portions of 16 US states, with toxic chemicals lingering in buildings for months after the derailment.