The derailment of a CSX freight train carrying hazardous materials through Baltimore has again pushed to the forefront concerns about whether city officials know what dangerous cargo is passing through each day.
Though last weekend's accident, in which 12 train cars fell off the tracks near M&T Bank Stadium, left no injuries or leaks, city officials say they intend to press CSX Transportation Inc. for real-time information on what chemicals are coming in and out of Baltimore - information to which the city does not now have regular access.
Mayor Sheila Dixon held a security Cabinet meeting yesterday with police, fire, health and transportation representatives to discuss requesting such information immediately.
Baltimore Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said a call was made to CSX yesterday and that he hopes to have access to such information within a week. "This could really be a simple thing that CSX could do in 72 hours and look heroic," Goodwin said.
"You have 70,000 in the stadium at the Army-Navy game this weekend. ... You're looking at a large potential there for something to go wrong," Goodwin said.
Baltimore is the only location in the country, Goodwin noted, where hazardous materials run just 35 feet from a large-volume football stadium and near a baseball stadium. "This is an area that serves the whole Northeast corridor, and we just want some real-time operational assets," he said.
The issue of rail safety and hazardous materials first drew public scrutiny in Baltimore after a weeklong fire beneath the city's downtown in July 2001. Fire erupted on a CSX train carrying hazardous materials through the Howard Street Tunnel, forcing evacuations in the city and paralyzing freight traffic along the East Coast.
More than six years later, CSX officials say Baltimore is slated to participate in a one-year pilot program that would give city officials access to up-to-date information, likely sometime next summer.
But city officials want it sooner.
Andrew Lauland, who was homeland security adviser to former Mayor Martin O'Malley, said the administration worked from July 2001 until O'Malley left office this year to gain access to real-time information but it never came.
"If UPS knows where a package of cookies you shipped to your grandmother is, clearly a major rail carrier should know where a 1-ton cylinder of chlorine is," said Lauland, who is now Governor O'Malley's homeland security adviser.
