The Federal Railroad Administration has completed its on-site
probe of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in Gardeau on June
30, but it may be weeks before the final report is released.

Steven W. Kulm, director of public affairs for the FRA, said
Friday the agency sent four investigators, who are specialists in
tracks, operating practices, motive power and equipment, and
hazardous materials, to the site in Norwich Township in southern
McKean County.

“During that time, the FRA officials interviewed the train crew,
took information from the train’s event recorder, inspected track
conditions, and reviewed hazardous materials paperwork in order to
determine what led to the accident and spilling of the product,”
Kulm said. “It will take a while to sift through the information
and arrive at a determination. We don’t speculate on the aspects of
the causes of an accident. There is no determination yet on this
one.”

Those investigators, who can be assigned to any of the FRA’s
eight regional offices, will prepare a written accident report that
will then be sent to the agency’s headquarters in Washington for
review before it is OK’d as a final document.

Since each investigation is different, and the FRA investigators
are working on other cases simultaneously, it could be several
months as opposed to a few weeks before the agency’s final report
is made public, Kulm said.

In cases like this one, Kulm said, where hazardous materials are
spilled or leaked, the carrier must immediately notify the National
Resource Center, the federal government’s only center for reporting
oil and chemical spills. The Center, staffed by Coast Guard
officers and experts in marine science, in turn, then contacts the
FRA and National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB, with
jurisdiction over accidents involving railroads, aviation,
shipping, and trucking, chose not to investigate the Gardeau
derailment.

When both groups conduct a probe of an incident, then the NTSB
is the lead agency.

Kulm said that when an incident is considered minor, such as a
wheel breaking but there is no derailment, the FRA may decide not
to enter the investigation. This would not be a productive use of
the investigators’ time,” he said.

The FRA is now part of the Department of Transportation. Before
Congress established the DOT in 1966, the Interstate Commerce
Commission had the jurisdiction over railroad and crossing
accidents, but these duties have been reassigned to the FRA.