2023 East Palestine Train Derailment

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released a Board Meeting Summary of its final board meeting related to the investigation of the February 2023 freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. This summary serves as a written synopsis of the forthcoming report and contains several additional recommendations related to hazardous materials response to incidents on railroads.

One of the NTSB’s final recommendations is for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to require railroads to immediately provide emergency responders with train consist information after a hazardous materials incident occurs on a railroad.

Coinciding with these recommendations, the PHMSA has published its final rule: Hazardous Materials: FAST Act Requirements for Real-Time Train Consist Information. This final rule requires railroads to proactively provide first responders with real-time, electronic information about rail hazardous materials shipments to the primary Public Safety Answering Point (for example, a 911 call center or emergency responder phone app such as the AskRail mobile app) as soon as the railroad is aware of an accident or incident involving hazardous materials. The final rule will also ensure firefighters can fully utilize PHMSA’s 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG) (as well as the mobile phone ERG app).

For more details of the NTSB findings and recommendations, a recording of the NTSB’s final board meeting is available. It begins with a presentation summarizing the NTSB’s findings and recommendations followed by a lengthy deliberation among NTSB members and investigators over the draft report.