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In February 2023, a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, enveloping the town in a toxic cloud. Afterward, the country's largest freight railroads promised to join a successful federal safety program that lets employees anonymously report mistakes. But 2 1/2 years later, only two of the biggest freight railroads have launched pilot programs. Kate Kelly of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism has more.
KATE KELLY: For years, the National Transportation Safety Board has said railroads need a program that allows employees to report mistakes or close calls without facing discipline. The agency says similar programs save lives in other industries. The Federal Railroad Administration launched such a program in 2014, but so far, only Amtrak and 23 smaller railroads have joined.
LESLIE RADANOVICH: We want to enhance safety by providing to our employees a way to report close calls, near misses and safety concerns without any fear of retribution.
KELLY: Leslie Radanovich manages system safety at Metrolink. Metrolink is a passenger railroad in Southern California that joined the federal program in 2023. The program is called the Confidential Close Call Reporting System, or C3RS for short. Radanovich says C3RS reports explain why a mistake happened so problems can be corrected.
RADANOVICH: So I really think that C3RS allows us to see the whole picture, and I think any organization could probably benefit from that.
KELLY: A federal study found railroads that participated cut their accident rate by around 20%. But despite encouragement from federal agencies, rail unions and legislators, no major freight railroad has stayed in C3RS past a pilot.
JIM MATHEWS: So think about how much better and how much safer it could be if we could add all of those 120,000 employees into the mix and all of those operations of hundreds and hundreds of trains a day all across the country.
KELLY: Jim Mathews leads the Rail Passengers Association. He served on a federal working group that tried for two years to bring the big railroads into C3RS. That group was disbanded this spring.
MATHEWS: This is about real human beings getting killed. This is about families being disrupted. You know, this is real stuff. And we had an opportunity, as a group, to make things better and make things safer, and we didn't do it.
KELLY: After the East Palestine derailment in 2023, all six major freight railroads promised to join the Close Call program, but only two - BNSF and Norfolk Southern -initiated pilots.
SCOTT BUNTEN: You know, we go through a lot of people's backyards on the railroad.
KELLY: Scott Bunten is a general chairman of one of the biggest rail unions. He helps coordinate the Norfolk Southern pilot in Roanoke, Virginia.
BUNTEN: I think the general public doesn't know it, but they have a huge stake in C3RS as well. And if all the railroads were on the same page with it, I think it'd be huge for the industry.
KELLY: He says the pilot led to clearing vegetation that blocked signals and placing barriers along the tracks where people frequently trespass. And yet, Bunten says the program only works when workers and management are invested.
BUNTEN: I can't force them to be in it. They can't force me to be in it. So it's got to be a collective effort, and I don't want it to be one-sided.
KELLY: Bunten says expanding the program to all railroads and all workers could help prevent the next East Palestine.
BUNTEN: We've put a lot into it, and I think it's paid dividends for everybody involved. And if it ends, it would be a shame.
KELLY: None of the biggest freight railroads would agree to an interview about C3RS. In statements, BNSF and Norfolk Southern said they'll continue to evaluate the pilot programs. For NPR, I'm Kate Kelly.
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