It seems that literally every day there’s news of another train derailment, so the question on many city official’s minds should be, “Are we prepared in the event of a train derailment in our community?”

One community — Whitemarsh, Pa. — put that question to the test on Monday, July 17, 2023, when calls came through dispatch that there’d been a derailment. Police Chief Christopher Ward said the official dispatch time was 4:50 a.m. Monday and calls came from several sources — from residents who heard noises and directly from the rail company — CSX — informing them there was a derailment in the area.

He said the CSX train was running on a Norfolk-Southern rail line, and the one road involved was a residential street. Ward said fire, police and EMS responded immediately, trying to determine the exact area.

“Fortunately for us, Montgomery County had assets and people close by and were able to deploy drones to better pinpoint the location of the derailed cars,” Ward said.

The public safety divisions were immediately dispatched as well as numerous fire resources, police and ambulance and the county-based hazardous materials team.

“They immediately responded to assist us,” he said.

Ward said the train was actually a short one for that line with 40 cars, and 14 to 15 of those cars derailed. He said the incident command contacted the rail company to get information on what type of materials were on the train.

“Based on the information we received from the hazmat team and hazmat resources, we decided to use an evacuation plan — encompassing 100 meters from the rail — and that evacuation encompassed about a dozen homes.”

Chief Ward said there’s also an active limestone quarry near the derailment that operates a midnight shift running blacktop, so they immediately shut the quarry down and evacuated the workers. Ward shared that the property is large enough that the management could stay on-site and wait for further instructions or to assist them if needed.

Officials also delayed the opening of a golf course and clubhouse. “We notified them and delayed their opening until 10 a.m.”

Ward said officials also deployed their public works department to assist with road closings and supplying equipment. The public works employees helped with the closings until the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation arrived.

“By the end of the day, every alphabet you can think of was there,” he said with a laugh, explaining the railway is interstate and federal. “Very little local (agencies) governs the railroad.”

Chief Ward said the railroad response was pretty immediate as well. “By the time I arrived, there was already a local rail representative there, and as time went on, higher rank officials arrived.”

Whitemarsh is in Montgomery County, which abuts Philadelphia County on the eastern border, and the chief believes the community’s proximity to the metro Philadelphia area made it easier to get people there.

Danger averted

The train was carrying hazardous and flammable materials like propane, a degreaser and urea — a fertilizer. Thankfully, none of those cars were involved in the derailment and none ruptured. The cars that derailed were carrying plastic or silicone beads used in plastic manufacturing.

“The only thing that spilled were the plastic beads, which was very fortunate for us,” he said.

There were no immediate waterways connected to the derailment site. There is a waterway involved in the quarry operation, but other than that, the closest waterway was a half-mile away — a creek that leads into a river, which connects to the water company’s intake.

“So, if that had been in a different location or had the release been different, it could’ve been a whole different story,” he said.

Asked if there was any concern about the cars with more dangerous materials derailing after the initial derailment, Chief Ward said no, explaining that two locomotives and a front car were clear and the first cars after the derailment were actually empty before getting to the propane. Response crews could just unhook them.

The police department handled scene security and evacuations, along with other parties. He said the evacuation went well.

“Of course, there was shock when someone is at your door at 5 a.m. and then figuring out what to bring, etc.,” he said. “Thank goodness it was only 12 (homes). If it was more, we’d have to have mapping assignments, etc. We could see all these houses from the command post.”

Chief Ward said he contacted the local school district, and they opened up an elementary school as an evacuation shelter and his department supplied security there, too. The department didn’t contact the Red Cross because it heard the evacuation would likely be of short duration.

“We were very fortunate in the grand scale of things. By 10 a.m., we cleared the evacuation, opened roads and turned the scene over to the railroad,” he said.

Cleanup was all the responsibility of the railroad. “We helped in terms of connecting them with the quarry property owners; that’s such a large space they were able to get their contracted equipment onto the quarry and we didn’t have to close any roadways,” he said. “Once we showed them the area, they were out of our community’s way.”

The railroad company determined it could access the derailment through the quarry, and once in there, the railroad police came in to provide security.

Advance training

The chief said the training the department has done in advance of the incident helped in the response. Officers train on different levels, including how to conduct evacuations in emergency situations. That training starts at the police academy and continues on the job. He said in this case it was due to hazardous materials, but the Whitemarsh area is prone to flooding. The name Whitemarsh lends itself to the potential for flooding, and residents are warned they may have to leave.

“Unfortunately, or fortunately, most of our officers have had opportunities to participate in evacuations,” he said.

On the township level, Whitemarsh has emergency services with fire and ambulance companies and includes those agencies and public works in training sessions. The police chief said they do tabletops and conduct general training and planning for these situations.

“In light of the situation in Ohio, recently we’ve been training and working more on rail safety,” he said, adding Whitemarsh has both commercial freight trains and commuter trains from South East Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

At the county level, the county public safety helps with equipment, setting up a command post and evacuations. His department, likewise, helps when an emergency occurs in other locations.

“Monday morning we were the object of all the attention, but we had support offered us from county and local agencies, from our closest neighbors,” he said, adding they also heard from state partners.

Awareness and training heightened in Camanche, Iowa

Another community that has heightened awareness of possible train derailments is Camanche. Camanche Fire Chief Dave Schutte said thankfully his community has not experienced a derailment yet, and he hopes it stays that way.

According to Schutte, Camanche has always trained in the event of this type of emergency, especially since the tracks divide the community. He estimates something occurring on the riverside tracks could isolate approximately 25% of the population or 1,000 residents.

Schutte said, “Now with longer trains, we’re doing more frequent training to familiarize ourselves with what hazardous materials are on the trains and how to respond.”

He said the recent merger of the Canadian Pacific with the Kansas City Southern railroad has resulted in longer and more frequent trains.

In a CNBC report from April titled “Why do Trains Keep Derailing,” Mark Burrows, a former engineer and member of Railroad Workers United, said railroads started practicing Precision Scheduled Railroading or PSR — a management strategy meant to increase efficiency and reduce costs. But Burrows claimed that meant “maximum exploitation of as minimum workers as possible.”

The CNBC report stated that since 2022 all railroads are running longer trains — sometimes, a 33% increase since 2011 — resulting in trains that are over 12,000 feet long or two miles long. This was an increase from 3% to 25% from 2017. In the Midwest, railroads reportedly run longer trains. There are reportedly an average of 1,000 train derailments a year — although many occur in the train yards.

Chief Schutte said his community is seeing those longer trains and has been utilizing local resources like the hazardous materials team, which he said is a “key player.”

“There are also a lot of apps where you can get information on what the chemicals are and how to respond,” he said.

Some of those apps include the Ask Rail app by the Association of American Railroads, which is by invitation only; the Wiser app for hazardous materials; and the Emergency Response Guidebook, or ERG, app, which is much more convenient on-site than the book. There’s also a Rail Crossing Locator app, which helps search the location of crossings and how to find and call the emergency notification if there’s an incident.

Chief Schutte said there is no cost for these apps. He shared that because Camanche is segmented by the tracks, it keeps some equipment on the south side of the tracks, including a fire truck, brush truck and pumper. However, the difficulty is “limited staffing — (there’s) only a few firefighters who live on that side of the tracks.”

The chief said if anything “of any substance were to occur, it’d be an all-hands-on-deck thing. We rely heavily on outside agencies — mutual aid, hazardous materials team, railroad resources — it would be fairly involved.”

When asked if and how Camanche prepares residents for the potential of a derailment, he said it’s a matter of “heightened awareness so they know a lot of things come through on these trains, and if something were to go wrong, it could be detrimental.”

Schutte said, “Most are aware because of the whole merger thing and seeing several high-profile derailments that these trains could be carrying pretty nasty stuff.”

After incident review

When asked if everything went as it should for the Whitemarsh Police Department, Ward said he believed it had.

“Everybody could Monday morning quarterback, but I think everything went well.”

He shared one thing his department was unsure about when it came to dealing with the railroad was “who’s responsible for notifying some agencies — we don’t investigate train accidents, so we notified NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) — whether we were supposed to or not.”

Pennsylvania Emergency Management was there as well as the hazardous materials team and fire resources, so Whitemarsh looked to those agencies for their specialties.

Ward said his department will have a debriefing, but “I think it went very well, all things considered, given the situation and the initial unknowns.”

He added that both Pennsylvania senators have signed on to a railway safety initiative, and both had representatives on-site quickly as did state representatives.

“There was plenty of concern and plenty of things talked about,” he said.

He noted it was interesting to see how the response “kept stepping up: from local to county to state and federal agencies.” He said they’ll run through it all again at a debriefing and examine what could be done better, but he offered this takeaway, “Thank God we had these relationships and the training beforehand.”

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