Jaipur: Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday said world-class stations will be set up in Rajasthan which has seen a multifold increase in grants for the rail sector.
Addressing a ‘Brahmin Mahapanchayat’ called by Vipra Sena, he said, “The grant given to Rajasthan 10 years ago was Rs 600 crore, but this time the state has got a grant of Rs 9,532 crore.”
Vaishnaw said world-class railway stations will be built in Abu Road, Ajmer, Alwar, Asalpur, Jobner, Balotra, Bandikui, Chittorgarh and Dausa, among other places.
“We have to give a new future to Rajasthan,” he said.
In the programme, the Vipra Sena raised multiple demands such as increasing the 10 per cent reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) to 14 per cent, making misbehaviour and assault on priests a non-bailable offence and removing encroachments from temple lands.
The BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Ghanshyam Tiwari said a board for the Hindu religion should be made on the lines of the Waqf board.
Former BJP state president Arun Chaturvedi said that the country will strengthen when Brahmin is empowered. He also called upon the people of the community to help the needy people belonging to the Brahmin community.
Congress leader Pushpendra Bhardwaj said the Congress and BJP each should give tickets to 30 Brahmin leaders in the upcoming assembly elections.
STB chair Martin Oberman said the board approved the merger because “on balance the merger of these two railroads will benefit the American economy, and will be an improvement for all citizens in terms of safety and the environment.” He also argued that the bigger entity will be more competitive against larger railroads. He also suggested that in approving the merger, the board was constrained by the laws Congress has enacted, saying their decision “has to be measured against the backdrop of what is our congressional mandate.”
In a sign of the board’s normally-sleepy stature, Oberman observed that this was the board’s first press conference in recent memory — maybe ever.
Wednesday’s decision is a discordant note in a time when the Biden administration has sought to combat consolidation across a swath of industries ranging from technology giants to airlines. However, the board is not strictly an arm of the administration, but rather helmed by presidential appointees from both parties who are confirmed by the Senate.
A White House official noted that the STB is an independent agency and said the White House is “currently reviewing the text of their decision.”
Shortly after the STB’s announcement, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who sits on the Senate committee that oversees railroads, said the decision “needs to be scrutinized.”
The five-member board was not unanimous in its decision — board member Robert Primus dissented, saying he was concerned that the merger increases consolidation, risks service disruptions and could harm communities along the path of the railroad. “Because these detriments to the public interest outweigh the expected benefits, I dissent,” he said.
Erik Peinert, research manager at the progressive anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project, called the decision “disgraceful” and said it “sets the stage for future disasters like East Palestine and will likely lead to railroad staffing cuts, higher cargo loads, and other profit-driven safety shortcuts.”
“Nothing in the history of rail consolidation suggests it is a good idea,” he added.
The Surface Transportation Board placed some conditions on the merger, including a seven-year period of oversight during which certain decisions involving competition, customer service and other transit agencies or Amtrak will have extra scrutiny, along with extensive data reporting requirements intended to help protect competition.
A decision has been expected since the board released the environmental impact statement earlier this year finding that the merger would have minimal impact other than increased train noise in some communities, and that while increased volumes would also mean more hazardous materials spills, the risk on any specific segment “would continue to be low” and any release “would be contained quickly.”
Chicago-area lawmakers asked STB to delay its decision, saying the environmental report cited faulty statistics provided by Canadian Pacific, while the region’s commuter railroad, Metra, predicted a greater increase in freight rail traffic than CP did.
Rep. Katie Porter and Sen. Elizabeth Warren also opposed the merger out of concern that it would mean even more consolidation in an industry that’s already controlled by just a handful of companies. On the other hand, four lawmakers from Kansas and Missouri, including House Transportation Chair Sam Graves, last year urged STB to approve the merger.
The STB has increased oversight over the freight railroads over the last year in an attempt to force better service for customers and to help rebuild the railroad workforce, which has been hollowed out over the last eight years as the industry has cut costs through layoffs.
Josh Sisco and Kayla Guo contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Republicans, meanwhile, decried what they suggested was a lack of transparent communication from the EPA, which has met skepticism for its assurances that the community’s air and water are safe.
“A month after the accident, it’s clear to me that EPA’s risk communication strategy fell short,” said top committee Republican Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “The initial delays in messaging and response has meant that the residents still do not trust these results enough to feel safe.”
Republicans highlighted that first responders arriving on the scene didn’t immediately know what chemicals they were dealing with. In addition, residents still don’t believe EPA assurances that the air and water are safe because it still doesn’t smell right, Capito said. And, Republicans suggested that the EPA hasn’t provided direct answers on where the soil removed from the site is being shipped.
Capito grilled Debra Shore, EPA’s regional administrator, about how it is handling waste removal at the accident site, echoing complaints from Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance that large amounts of contaminated soil remain. When the soil is disturbed, “it brings the odor and then here comes a lack of trust right back down onto the community,” Capito said.
Shore reported that tests of the contaminated soil revealed only low levels of dioxins, which will allow the waste to be transported to facilities qualified for disposal as soon as Thursday.
Democrats also sought to pin down Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw about whether his company will support a bipartisan rail bill that Vance is offering with senators including Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown
and Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey.
“It’s bipartisan — that never happens around here on the big bills,” said Casey. “It’d be a good start by Norfolk Southern to tell us today — in addition to what they’re going to do for the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania — tell us today that they support the bill. That would help, if a major rail company said: ‘We support these reforms, and we’ll help you pass this bill.’”
Shaw did not directly answer the question. But later in the hearing, Shaw praised provisions included in the bill that intend to tighten tank car standards and increase training for first responders. He also mentioned his desire to improve the devices on tracks that detect overheating wheels, which investigators are eyeing as a factor in the derailment.
Other Democrats, including Brown and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, criticized Norfolk Southern for what they characterized as focusing more on profits than rail and chemical safety.
“Norfolk Southern chose to invest much of its massive profits in making its executives and shareholders wealthy at the expense of Ohio communities along its rail tracks,” Brown said. He noted that in the last decade, Norfolk Southern eliminated 38 percent of its workforce.
Sanders tried to get Shaw to commit to providing paid sick leave for its workers — one of the changes the Biden administration is seeking. Shaw demurred.
At various points senators also sought to pin Shaw down on specific actions the railroad would take to make residents whole, including compensating people for long term medical costs and economic damages. Shaw responded to that and other attempts to pin him down on specifics with: “We’re committed to doing what’s right for the folks in East Palestine.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders answered: “What’s right is to cover their health care needs. Will you do that?”
Shaw only replied that “everything is on the table.”
“All of us are committed to doing what’s right,” Sanders shot back. “But the devil is in the details.”
Opening the hearing, Shaw apologized for the derailment and pledged “to improve safety immediately.”
“I want to begin today by expressing how deeply sorry I am for the impact this has had on the residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities,” Shaw said. “I am determined to make this right.”
He said that while federal investigators have preliminarily found that the three-person crew behind the controls “was operating the train below the speed limit and in an approved manner,” it is still “clear the safety mechanisms in place were not enough.”
Norfolk Southern has announced safety changes in the wake of the accident that are tailored to addressing the likely cause — an overheating wheel on a car carrying plastic pellets, which then caught fire. The railroad industry as a whole has also made new safety promises, though they are also tailored to the specific likely cause of the accident.
Still, Shaw acknowledged that those voluntary initiatives “are just the start.”
“The events of the last month are not who we are as a company,” Shaw said, referring not just to the East Palestine derailment but at least two other incidents since then, including one this week that resulted in the death of a conductor.
Alex Guillén contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
A view of the scene Friday, Feb. 24, 2023, as the cleanup continues at the site of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailment that happened on Feb. 3, in East Palestine, Ohio. | AP Photo/Matt Freed, File
President Joe Biden on Thursday praised bipartisan legislation that would strengthen safety rules governing railroads, following the fiery Ohio train derailment that left residents concerned about the air and water quality in the town of East Palestine.
The legislation was introduced by Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican, and four other senators Wednesday. The Railway Safety Act would bolster a slew of railroad safety measures including raising fines for safety infractions, increasing inspections and imposing new requirements for trains carrying toxic or hazardous materials.
“I applaud the bipartisan group of senators for proposing rail safety legislation that provides many of the solutions that my administration has been calling for,” Biden said in a statement Thursday. “This legislation provides us with tools to hold companies accountable to prevent terrible tragedies like the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine and to make those communities whole.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
ATHENS — Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was supposed to be preparing to call an early election — instead he’s dealing with protestors throwing Molotov cocktails at police as a wave of public rage convulses Greece following a train crash that killed 57 people.
Last week’s train collision was caused when a freight train and a passenger train were allowed on the same rail line. The station-master accused of causing the crash was charged with negligent homicide and jailed Sunday pending a trial.
The crash has raised deeper questions about the functioning of the Greek state, following reports that Athens hadn’t updated its rail network to meet EU requirements and that the state rail company was accused of mismanagement.
Mitsotakis initially blamed the incident on “tragic human error” but was forced to backtrack after he was accused to trying to cover up the government’s role. The first political victim was Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis, who resigned soon after the accident. Mitsotakis put out a new message over the weekend saying: “We cannot, will not and must not hide behind human error.”
“As prime minister, I owe everyone, but above all the relatives of the victims, a big SORRY. Both personal, and in the name of all those who have ruled the country for years,” Mitsotakis wrote on Facebook.
His conservative New Democracy party is now weighing the political implications of the crash.
Before Tuesday’s deadly event, it was widely expected that the government would hold a final Cabinet meeting where it would announce a rise in the minimum wage. Mitsotakis would then dissolve parliament, with the likeliest election date being April 9.
But that’s now very uncertain. If the April 9 date slips away, alternatives range from a first round vote later in April, May or even July.
“Anyone who hinted to the prime minister these days that we need to see what we do about the elections was kicked out of the meeting,” government spokesperson Giannis Oikonomou told Skai local TV. “It is not yet time to get into that kind of discussion.”
Instead of election plans, the government is dealing with a massive outpouring of public rage at the accident that has seen large protest rallies and clashes between demonstrators and police.
“When a national tragedy like this is underway, it is difficult to assess the political consequences,” said Alexis Routzounis, a researcher at pollster Kapa Research. “Society will demand clear explanations, and a careful and discreet response from the political leadership is paramount. For now, the political system is responding with understanding.”
Opposition parties have so far kept a low profile, but that is starting to change.
“Mitsotakis is well aware that the debate on the causes of the tragedy will not be avoided by the resignation of his [transport] minister, but becomes even more urgent,” the main opposition Syriza party said.
Before the crash, New Democracy was comfortably ahead of its rivals, according to POLITICO’s poll of polls.
GREECE NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS
For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.
That lead came despite a growing series of problems, including high inflation, skyrocketing food prices, financial wrongdoing by conservative MPs, a wiretapping scandal and reports of a secret offer by Saudi Arabia to pay for football stadiums for Greece and Egypt if they agreed to team up and host the 2030 World Cup.
“The government has managed to weather previous crises, including devastating wildfires in 2021 and the recent surveillance scandal, while suffering only a minor impact to its ratings,” said Wolfango Piccoli, co-founder of risk analysis company Teneo.
He added that the government is now scrambling to ensure it’s not hurt politically by the crash.
“It is following a similar strategy in wake of the train crash, with Mitsotakis playing a central role in establishing the narrative and swiftly announcing action aimed at getting ahead of the story,” Piccoli said.
Missed warnings
People are especially outraged because the tragedy appears to have been avoidable.
The rail line was supposed to use a modern electronic light signaling and safety system called ETCS that was purchased in the early 2000s, but never worked.
Even the current outdated system was not fully operational, with key signal lights always stuck on red due to technical failure and station managers only warning one another of approaching trains via walkie-talkie.
The rail employees’ union sent three legal warning notes in recent months to the transport minister and rail companies asking for speedy upgrades to railway infrastructure.
“We will not wait for the accident to happen to see them shed crocodile tears,” said one sent on February 7.
In mid-February, the European Commission referred Greece to court for the eight-year delay in signing and publishing the contract between the national authorities and the company that manages rail infrastructure.
Last April, the head of the automated train control system resigned, complaining that trains were running at 200 kilometres per hour without the safety system.
The government even voted to allow Hellenic Train a five-year delay in paying any compensation for an accident or a death, while EU rules call for a 15-day time limit. The company said on Sunday it would not use the exemption.
On Monday, Mitsotakis met with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and she pledged that Brussels would help Greece “to modernize its railways and improve their safety.”
All of that is grim news for a party aiming to win a second term in office.
“Historically, when the state, instead of stability, causes insecurity, it is primarily the current government that is affected, but also all the governing parties, because the tragedy brings back memories of similar dramas of the past,” Routzounis said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
So don’t expect him to charge into the Senate’s famed bipartisan gangs. He’s still skeptical of “bipartisanship for its own sake,” quipping in an interview in his temporary basement office this week that “the Iraq war was bipartisan, and it was a fucking disaster.”
Even so, the 38-year-old quickly built an intriguing dynamic with Brown, a flinty 70-year-old who needs support from some of Vance’s voters next November to win his own tough reelection battle. After predicting that Vance would lose his Senate race and move to California, Brown called to congratulate him on beating former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and it’s been surprisingly rosy between them since.
If the duo can get their bill done, it could prove that Congress can actually respond to emergencies, while boosting Brown’s prospects for a fourth term and perhaps replacing some of Vance’s pugnacious reputation with the congenial aura of the man he replaced. Former Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a buttoned-up Washington fixture, enjoyed a collegial and productive relationship with Brown, making the populist Vance’s arrival a significant transition for the state and the Senate itself.
Circumstances quickly forced Brown and Vance to establish an alliance of sorts. The Marine veteran, author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and first-time office holder landed on the Banking Committee, which Brown chairs — meaning their partnership could extend beyond East Palestine.
“I certainly came in expecting the political environment to be so partisan, that it would be harder to get anything done,” Vance said. “In reality, so long as you’re not being a total jerk about it, I think it’s possible to do things.”
Brown and Vance’s new rail bill would require minimum train crews of two people, enact new safety standards for carrying hazardous materials and increase fines for railroads found at fault. That’s in addition to a series of bipartisan letters from both senators in response to the crash.
“He’s been nothing but cooperative on this. We’ve done a lot of letters together. We’re talking about a lot of things,” Brown said of his new colleague. “I operate under the assumption we’ll work together. Portman and I did a ton of things together, you know.”
Brown added that while Portman “has a different tone,” Vance has offered “nothing but encouragement.”
Whether Brown’s 2024 race will strain that early bonhomie is TBD. Portman and Brown had an understanding that they wouldn’t explicitly campaign against each other, and it’s not clear if that dynamic will carry over to Vance’s tenure. While Vance said he’d be more effective making an affirmative case for a Republican than attacking Brown, he also acknowledged he may “say negative things about Sherrod during his reelection.”
“I certainly would prefer there to be a Republican in his seat,” Vance said, declining to rule out a role in the GOP primary to challenge Brown. “If I think that there’s a candidate who’s clearly better than the rest, then yeah, I’ll get involved.”
It’s too early to say where Vance’s politics fit in the clubby Senate. He initially criticized Trump, then won the former president’s endorsement in his GOP primary and is now officially supporting Trump in 2024. But within the Capitol, Vance is not off to a hard-charging and colleague-alienating start like the Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) of 10 years ago.
Even so, he can still take culture wars into Senate hearing rooms. Vance questioned acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen last month about the agency “preoccupying itself” with gendered language.
He’s also adamant that sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine is a mistake, a view that’s nails on a chalkboard in Senate GOP meetings. Vance admits he’s on a Ukraine-aid island of perhaps 10 Republicans but will still “be very assertive in my view that it’s at best a waste of money.”
“I like J.D. It may be good politics to go soft on Putin and hard on China. It’s terrible national security policy,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has also endorsed Trump.
The fight over more Ukraine funding is somewhat theoretical — it’s unclear exactly when the Biden administration will ask for more money. The response to the Norfolk Southern crash is more urgent.
Vance has had preliminary discussions about his priorities with McConnell and other Senate colleagues. And he’s getting positive Democratic reviews from more than just Brown.
“We had a great first experience working with his office. They were good-faith negotiators and very solutions-oriented,” said Adam Jentleson, chief of staff for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a co-sponsor of the new rail bill.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) invited Vance to appear at a hearing next week on the disaster at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And he’d like to see Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw also testify in front of Congress.
He even envisions a Paycheck Protection Plan-style aid package for East Palestine — a throwback to a bipartisan Covid-era policy — and hopes in the end that Norfolk Southern pays for it.
“We have a broadly accepted principle in our government that when people become destitute through no fault of their own, there should be some social safety net to step in. And I think that that’s basically what’s going on with East Palestine,” Vance said.
Getting anything done quickly may be a challenge, though, as senators from disaster-wracked states often discover. Schumer said he wants to take up and pass Brown and Vance’s rail bill, which could conceivably include money for East Palestine too. That requires 60 votes, at least nine of them Republican, which may take significant work — so Vance has added a PR component to his pitch.
Two weeks ago, Vance visited a polluted creek and posted a video of the chemical sheen in the water, drawing millions of views. And he appeared alongside Trump last week as the former president visited the town.
“He was bringing a spotlight to the fact that these people are being ignored,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a like-minded Republican.
Hawley, Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are co-sponsoring the railroad bill, but it’s not yet clear how far GOP support extends for more regulations or a major aid package for East Palestine. In a statement, McConnell praised Vance for “delivering strong leadership for Ohio and making sure that communities like East Palestine are never forgotten or left behind.”
McConnell, a Portman ally, hoped to get Vance’s vote last year in his leadership race against Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). Asked how he voted in that secret-ballot contest, Vance heeded his own advice about Senate diplomacy and not being an “asshole.”
“The Senate leadership race is over. Mitch McConnell won,” Vance said. “It makes a lot more sense to look forward as a caucus than backwards.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who has criticized Buttigieg for waiting three weeks to visit the site of the Feb. 3 accident, tweeting last week that Buttigieg should “show up, do your job and stop playing politics.”
Asked on Tuesday what Congress should do after the Ohio derailment, Scott would only say that lawmakers should “start doing our oversight and stop approving people that don’t know how to do the job.”
Other Republicans say they want to wait until the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent agency probing the accident, finishes its work. That could take up to 18 months.
“A lot of people have a lot of ideas right now,” Nehls told POLITICO. “The NTSB had their preliminary report. There’ll be more information coming.”
One of DOT’s requests for Congress is an increase in the maximum penalties to railroads for safety violations — an idea Nehls dismissed, instead praising the industry’s safety record.
“The rail industry has a very high success rate of moving hazardous material — to the point of 99-percent-plus,” Nehls said. “Let’s not have more burdensome regulations and all this other stuff.”
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), who served as top Republican on the rail panel before the House flipped control, agreed on waiting for the experts to weigh in “before we start speculating on what legislative fixes might be offered, if it’s necessary, and if so what would they be.”
“Probably a little premature at this point,” he added.
And Graves told Fox News Digital on Feb. 16 that he wants to “fully understand the facts involved” before considering legislation, noting that the NTSB is still investigating. Then, he said, “Congress can consider what steps may be necessary.”
Democrats on the whole have been much swifter to call for changes — including Buttigieg, who has pledged to tighten the way his agency regulates trains, but has also asked Congress to increase the $225,455 cap on fines his agency can level and to strengthen braking and tank car requirements.
A few Republicans are showing signs they’re willing to join Democrats sooner rather than later.
Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, for example, is working with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on a rail-safety bill expected to be out soon. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who has called for Buttigieg’s resignation over the derailment, has said he’s interested in teaming up on their bill.
“There’s a Vance-Sherrod Brown bill that we’re looking at, that we’re very interested in maybe being a part of,” Rubio said in an interview Tuesday.
Brown said the bill he’s working on will likely include provisions including setting minimum requirements for how many employees should be on board a train, along with train length, speed limits and notifications to states when hazardous materials are on their way, he told reporters Tuesday.
He noted that the 150-car train that derailed in East Palestine, carrying hazardous chemicals such as vinyl chloride, had “one trainee and two staff people” aboard when the disaster occurred.
A Brown-Vance team-up may seem to some like an odd couple pairing, but Rubio and Vance previously wrote to Buttigieg asking whether a two-person crew is adequate. Democrats have pushed to enshrine a two-person minimum crew in federal regulations, a move opposed by the railroad industry and, historically, most Republicans. The Trump administration backed the railroad industry when it mothballed a rule that would have mandated at least two crewmembers on board every train. That rule had originally been proposed under the Obama administration.
“Republicans have seen what’s happened, too,” Brown said, explaining the bipartisan interest he’s seen so far. “The rail companies have done pretty effective lobbying in keeping Congress and the administration, the [Federal Railroad Administration] and others from doing what we ought to be doing.”
Indeed, Rubio said Tuesday that the freight rail industry’s “push for efficiency — the desire to put more cargo, longer lines, longer stretches and less people” — creates vulnerabilities.
“We have not just dangerous but important cargo being transported on longer [trains] with less people,” he said.
Other legislation has been floated in the House. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), whose district includes the area affected by the Ohio spill, has introduced a bill along with a dozen other Democrats that seeks to include more types of trains under stricter laws governing hazardous materials transport. That means more types of materials would be subject to tougher safety requirements such as slower speeds, newer rail cars and better braking equipment.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on the derailment, featuring the Environmental Protection Agency, top committee Republican Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said Tuesday. She said the Senate Commerce Committee would also hold a hearing, though as yet nothing has been scheduled.
Like many of her GOP colleagues, Capito didn’t have many positive words for the Biden administration.
The federal response to the derailment “has been, I think, miserable to watch,” she said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had sounded a similar theme Monday, accusing Buttigieg of seeming “more interested in pursuing press coverage for woke initiatives and climate nonsense than in attending to the basic elements of his day job.”
But so far, McConnell hasn’t said what, if any, legislation he thinks is needed to make rail safer.
Buttigieg shot back Tuesday.
“The freight rail industry has wielded a lot of power here in Washington,” he said on CNN. “I would love to see Leader McConnell join us in standing up to them.”
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The officials also defended the furor of criticism of what some see as a delayed response by the administration, in particular DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg who did not speak publicly about the derailment until over a week after it happened, by saying an evacuation order was in place early on because of the danger of an explosion and local authorities were telling people to stay out of the area. Beyond that, they said that visits by high-ranking officials can create a distraction to crews working on the ground.
Officials on the call touched on the debate over whether electronically controlled pneumatic brakes could have averted the disaster. In 2015, after a National Academy of Sciences study could not find conclusively that they were better than other braking options, a rule that would have mandated their use on certain trains carrying very dangerous substances was withdrawn under the Trump administration, as required by statute.
“We got an avalanche of lawsuits opposing it immediately after we finalized it, which was in 2015,” one administration official said. “In 2016, Congress created a new bar for the cost-benefit analysis of the rule and directed us to essentially revisit it, with additional costs to consider.”
“So we found the safety benefit benefit was sufficient,” the official went on. “Then Congress weighed in. So that created an artificially higher bar for that rule and demonstrated a lack of support for that portion of the rule.”
On Thursday, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy took to Twitter to insist that “even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes” because it would have “applied ONLY to HIGH HAZARD FLAMMABLE TRAINS.”
“The train that derailed in East Palestine was a MIXED FREIGHT TRAIN containing only 3 placarded Class 3 flammable liquids cars,” she explained.
Several administration officials on the call said that ECP brakes have safety benefits and challenged Congress to act, since legislative action is quicker than regulatory action.
Officials also spoke about a pending rule that would require freight trains to have at least two crew members on board and to keep a sufficient maintenance and inspection workforce, saying it is “important it is not to curtail mechanical and brake safety inspections” as well as “making sure that the right people within the railroads are conducting those investigations.”
They also noted that the Biden administration has reinstituted audits of the railroads after they were suspended by the Trump administration.
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Hyderabad: South Central Railway (SCR) has commenced its first Parcel Train Service under Joint Parcel Product concept namely “Rail Post Gati Shakti Express Cargo Service” carrying parcel consignments including 15 tonnes of Cadbury chocolates, SCR officials said on Thursday.
The first parcel train from Kacheguda to Hazrat Nizamuddin (New Delhi) commenced its maiden journey from Kacheguda Railway station here on Wednesday, they said.
Leveraging the timetable nature of the Gati Shakti Cargo Express, Cadbury chocolates loaded from Renigunta (in Andhra Pradesh) were also attached for timely delivery, a release from SCR said.
This parcel service launched jointly by Indian Railways and India Post is aimed at providing door-to-door parcel service for the parcel customers, South Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Ch Rakesh said.
While first-mile and last-mile connectivity will be provided by the Department of Posts, the intermediate connectivity from station to station shall be done through Railways.
It ensures doorstep pick-up of parcels, loading of the same through parcel train and doorstep delivery thus enabling seamless first mile and last mile connectivity, he said. To safely handle the parcel consignments of the customers, this initiative emphasises on semi-mechanical handling of the parcels.
To comprehensively utilise this timetabled parcel service, other parcel consignments were also transported by this Rail Post Gati Shakti Express Cargo Service. A total of 15 tonnes of chocolates of Cadbury loaded from Renigunta were also attached by this train. In total, six parcel vans/ coaches and six milk tankers were also attached by this train, SCR officials said.
The Rail Post Gati Shakti Express Cargo Service will regularly operate from Renigunta to Hazrat Nizamuddin four times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) and passes via Kacheguda, Nagpur, Bhopal and Tughlakabad.
Station on the route also have loading/ unloading facility, they said.
SCR General Manager Arun Kumar Jain said that this service can be a game-changer in transportation of parcels by providing door-to-door parcel service to the customers.
