A FIERY freight train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, involving hazardous materials in tank cars, was a direct result of Norfolk Southern Railway’s cost-cutting which led to little maintenance and an undiscovered safety problem, the top organisation for rank-and-file railroaders says. And corporate greed to satisfy Wall Street led to the cuts, it adds.

The wreck could have been worse, Railroad Workers United (RWU) added, had the 9,300-foot-long train not had a three-worker crew, rather than the single worker  —  the engineer  —  the nation’s big Class One freight railroads, including Norfolk Southern, have advocated for years.

The three crew members decoupled the locomotives and moved them to safety, preventing an even bigger disaster if the fire reached them. One crew member could not have done so.