Eastern Railroad Discussion > PGH Post-Gaz: Sperry found bad rail weeks before NS derailment

Excerpt: "A broken rail that caused a Norfolk Southern Railway train to derail last year at Pittsburgh’s Station Square was identified weeks before seven cars jumped the tracks, a Federal Railroad Administration report released Thursday concluded.The 11-page report said Sperry Rail Service committed “serious oversights” when it failed to follow up on an ultrasound inspection July 16, 2018, that indicated a defect in the track above Station Square. A visual inspection by the railroad Aug. 3 found no defects, but part of the train derailed two days later, splitting open cars and dumping freight onto the Port Authority’s light-rail tracks below..."
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2019/09/06/Norfolk-Southern-derailment-report-Station-Square-Federal-Railroad-Administration/stories/201909050195

I think some bad journalism is involved.   It is hard to follow exactly what Sperry failed to do and what NS failed to do.  At first I thought this was referring to the NS derailment, but a second reading makes me think this paragraph refers to a 2015 CSX derailment.

A Sperry operator had inspected the flawed portion of the track twice in the months leading up to the failure. Both times, the images indicated a flaw, the second time bigger than the first. But the operator did not get out of the car to inspect the area closer because, he told the FRA, he assumed the test image was a result of the rough track rather than a defect. Both CSX and Sperry were fined $25,000 for the event.

 

What's the usual protocol when Sperry spots an issue?

I know they splash paint on the suspicious area, but who does what, next?

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Tominde Wrote:
> but a
> second reading makes me think this paragraph
> refers to a 2015 CSX derailment.

The main topic is the NS derailment in Pittsburgh...  Later in the article it does also mention a similar incident (involving Sperry operator) on CSX back in 2015.

NS had a couple more derailments than CSX in 2018, and for the first 7 months of 2019 NS had 30% more derailments than CSX.