Norfolk Southern rule that railcars be inspected in less than a minute sparks safety concerns

abcnews.go.com:

Norfolk Southern sparked renewed concerns about flaws being missed during railcar inspections when it told employees this week they should spend no more than a minute looking at each car

Norfolk Southern sparked renewed concerns about flaws being missed during railcar inspections when it told employees this week they should spend no more than a minute looking at each car. But the railroad said the rule simply reflects the current industry standard, and there are no plans for disciplining employees for missing that one-minute target.

Rail unions have been raising the alarm for several years now about inspections being rushed across the industry in the wake of the railroads eliminating one-third of all the jobs as they adopted the current lean operating model that has become the standard.

The Federal Railroad Administration's Chief Safety Officer Karl Alexy said the agency was already tracking inspection times closely across the industry before the new announcement from Norfolk Southern, and the agency will be watching how the railroad implements it.

“If they really are going to be held to that, I'm very concerned about defects not being found, I think that is pretty quick,” Alexy said.

Railroad safety concerns became widespread last year after a Norfolk Southern train derailed, spilled hazardous chemicals and caught fire in East Palestine, Ohio, in February.

The railroad — and the entire industry — promised reforms after that disastrous wreck. But Alexy said there hasn't been much significant improvement in railroads' overall safety record in recent years.

The concerns about rushed railcar inspections are part of rail labor’s broader concerns about whether the lean Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) model railroads