Second Ohio Derailment Raises Ire in Congress on Rail Safety

(Bloomberg) -- A second freight train derailment in Ohio within a month is giving new impetus for rail safety legislation in Congress, as Democrats and Republicans prepare to grill Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw when he testifies to a Senate committee Thursday. Most Read from Bloomberg“The big railroads have weakened safety rules or resisted safety rules for years,” Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “But you’d think a disaster that happened in East Palestine would have gotten their attention.”Saturday’s train derailment happened outside Springfield, Ohio — about 180 miles (400 kilometers) west of East Palestine, where a derailment last month spilled toxic chemicals into the rural community along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. “And the fact that we’re having derailment after derailment shows really the lack of investment, the disinvestment, in our infrastructure, and that needs to change.”Still, some ideological rifts were apparent. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, said opposition to pipelines had put more stress on the rail system.