Fire Technology: Safety on the Railways

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) recently reported that the total combined traffic for 2014 on U.S. railroads was 28,673,776 carloads, containers and trailers—an increase of 1,233,184 units or 4.5 percent from 2013 and the highest annual total since 2007. Additionally, the AAR reports that U.S. crude oil production has risen sharply in recent years, with much of the increased output moving on rail.

In 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) first recommended that the Federal Railroad Administration work with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to require that railroads provide emergency responders accurate, real-time information regarding the identity and location of all hazardous materials on a train. And in 2014, Acting NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart reiterated this recommendation and stated, “Making this communication mandatory across the rail industry will enable first responders to have access to the information that they need.”

Last year, CSX Transportation took steps to develop a new program called Operation Respond, a mobile application that adds to CSX’s existing suite of tools to share rail information with first responders. This program, the first in the industry, delivers on and exceeds the NTSB recommendations by providing real-time rail information to emergency responders. The program will be available to emergency responders in 23 states and Washington D.C., covering 21,000 miles of track and involving 13,000 local jurisdictions where CSX operates, by the fourth quarter of 2015. Currently, the program is in use with more than 2,000 emergency responders in multiple states and has recently completed the testing phase.

About the tool

Program development involved an Advisory Council, which consisted of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), the Congressional Fire Services Institute (CFSI), the National Volunteer Fire Council and CHEMTREC. CSX Operation Respond enhances response to rail-related emergencies, particularly hazardous material incidents. The Web-based program is designed to work with any iOS (Apple), Android or Windows smartphone, tablet or PC. No download is required.

The program provides two levels of user interface (Advanced and Basic). Advanced access provides more in-depth information to chief/incident command-level roles with real-time information on rail car content and train list search results:

• Entire Train Consist
• Car Sequence Order
• Load/Empty Status
• Railcar ID Number
• Color-Coded HazMat ID
• Hazard Classification

Basic access provides information to single-rail car content but excludes the full train list. A basic single car search provides the following information:

• Placard recognition
• Hazard Class
• DOT Car Type
• Load Status
• Volume
• UN ID – PIH/TIH identifier
• Proper Shipping Name
• Packing Group

In addition to the rail car content, a suite of other useful information is provided in the program:

• Railroad emergency contact information
• Locomotive information
• Tank car diagrams
• Amtrak passenger car diagrams
• HazMat UN number search
• National Emergency Response Guidebook
• Chemical databases
• Water reactive chemicals list
• List of most common hazardous materials transported by CSX
• CSX unit train emergency response guide

Throughout the development, testing and training phase, CSX has been actively engaging responders as to new features desired. Further enhancements in 2015 already include:

• Map-based list of sensitive receptors
• Map-based tool identifying water intakes and watersheds
• Map-based live weather

Security matters

As to security, each responder must be identified and submitted by the authorizing emergency responder agency/organization. There are several other security access requirements inherent to the system:

• Each user is assigned a login and will have an assigned password.
• All users are vetted through face-to-face training or phone verification.
• Access request are verified semiannually through email.
• There is on-demand reporting with date-time stamp of system access and searches conducted by users.
• Controls are in place to automatically notify CSX of system abuse (e.g., a given number of searches within a specified period of time).
• System access and search reports are generated and monitored daily.
• Access is controlled by CSX Infrastructure Protection.
• Advanced-level access is granted only to chiefs/directors and above. Chiefs can make a written request for Advanced-level access for their team.

Getting access

For fire departments or other emergency organizations that wish to access the CSX Operation Respond Program, the following procedure is provided:

• Must be located or operate in the 23 states or D.C. (State lists: www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/company-overview/state-fact-sheets/)
• Must be an emergency response agency/organization
• Request must be made by the chief or chief’s official designee
• Request is made by emailing [email protected] or calling (904) 359-3983. This also serves as a vetting process and helps to develop an organization spreadsheet list of users.
• Unless otherwise stipulated by CSX, an in-person training session is required (at a minimum) to access the Operation Respond program.

In your hands

The CSX Operation Respond is a paradigm shift from the way that emergency responders previously received critical rail car information during emergencies. Operation Respond puts real-time information in the hands of firefighters and other emergency responders on devices that they already carry and at the time they need the information the most—now!