"Challenges and Controversies in U.S. Freight Train Safety Regulation"

A year after a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in Ohio, causing a massive chemical fire, ProPublica reporter Topher Sanders highlights the underregulation of America's aging freight systems. The Federal Railroad Administration monitors less than 1% of rail activity, and the industry does not report the length of freight trains, impacting communities disproportionately. Safety concerns, including the lack of federal inventory of freight trains and the stalled Railway Safety Act in the Senate, remain unresolved.