Railcar That Overheated in Ohio Train Derailment Changed Hands Several Times

Most railcars in operation today aren’t owned by freight railroads themselves, and instead are owned by leasing companies, big shippers and others.

The hopper car was owned by

GATX Corp.

GATX -3.40%

, a publicly traded railcar owner and lessor, and built by June 1997, according to an industry database reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Trinity Industries Inc.,

TRN 0.70%

another publicly traded company, built the hopper car, and the car was certified for 50 years of service, the database shows.

Many railcars and equipment used by America’s freight railroad companies are decades old and operate safely. Some railcars can be retrofitted and upgraded to extend their useful lives, while others are scrapped. 

GATX is one of the biggest owners of freight railcars that are leased to factories, farms, mines and other shippers to be pulled by railroads. It couldn’t be determined who had leased the hopper car, which was filled with plastic pellets, at the time of the accident. 

Hopper cars are used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal and grain. They can be open or covered, as the GATX car was.

The GATX hopper car’s recent journey started when a small rail carrier in Houston, the Port Terminal Railroad Association, brought it to a

Union Pacific Corp.

rail yard, said Union Pacific spokeswoman Kristen South. Union Pacific inspected it on Jan. 29. at its Settegast Yard in Houston and then it traveled north, arriving in St. Louis on Jan 30. During its journey to St. Louis, the car passed around 60 hotbox detectors, which use sensors to record temperatures of wheels on railcars, and no abnormalities were found, said Ms. South. 

In St. Louis, the hopper car was taken by a short-line railroad, the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, to another rail yard owned by

Norfolk Southern Corp.

, said a person familiar with the car’s journey. Norfolk Southern said in a statement it picked up the car in St. Louis.

The hopper car was among 149 railcars that Norfolk Southern was moving to Conway, Penn., home to a major rail yard northwest of Pittsburgh, federal authorities have said. A wheel bearing overheated on the hopper and failed before the derailment in East Palestine, according to a preliminary report last week from the National Transportation Safety Board. 

Defect detectors along Norfolk Southern’s tracks signaled that temperatures from the GATX hopper’s wheelset were rising as the train moved eastbound. In all, 38 cars derailed, including 11 tankers carrying hazardous materials. Fires damaged an additional 12 cars. 

Accident cleanup efforts are continuing, and local, state and federal authorities are cooperating on monitoring the quality of the air, water and soil in the community. Concerns about potential contamination of water have spread beyond East Palestine as well. 

The NTSB has said its continuing investigation includes studying the accident response, railcar maintenance and inspection procedures. 

It is also investigating the performance of aluminum protective covers on three tank cars carrying vinyl chloride that derailed, the NTSB said Thursday. The covers failed and potentially damaged devices that regulate pressure within the tank cars, raising the risk of a breach, the agency said. It couldn’t be determined who owned the three tank cars. 

Norfolk Southern has said that it and the rail industry would learn as much as they can from the accident and work with owners of railcars on the integrity and safety of equipment. GATX said it is cooperating with the NTSB’s investigation and that it takes all safety-related events seriously. Trinity said railcars it built as well as those it owned and leased were in the derailment. 

A representative for the short-line railroad in Houston didn’t respond to a request for comment. A representative from the short-line railroad in St. Louis said the train and railcar are the subject of an NTSB investigation and declined to comment further.

Railcars have to go through periodic inspections, said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers — Transportation Division. Federal regulations mandate a pre-departure inspection of railcars at each location where a railcar is placed in a train before the train departs. The inspection may be made before or after the car is attached to the train, Mr. Ferguson said.

The Norfolk Southern train was designated as carrying mixed freight, meaning that it could haul a variety of products for shippers. Railcars damaged following the derailment were carrying cargo such as frozen vegetables, petroleum products and semolina, and each of those cars were registered to different owners, according to documents from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Federal legislation in 1980 that helped deregulate the railroad industry fueled growth in the railcar leasing business, which includes players such as GATX, Trinity, Berkshire Hathaway’s Union Tank Car Co. and Wells Fargo Rail, a unit of

Wells Fargo

& Co.

Chicago-based GATX owned nearly 110,000 railcars in North America as of Dec. 31. Its annual report says its railcars have an average age of 18 years and estimated economic useful lives of 27 to 45 years.

Write to Esther Fung at [email protected]

Most railcars in operation today aren’t owned by freight railroads themselves, and instead are owned by leasing companies, big shippers and others.

The hopper car was owned by

GATX Corp.

GATX -3.40%

, a publicly traded railcar owner and lessor, and built by June 1997, according to an industry database reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Trinity Industries Inc.,

TRN 0.70%

another publicly traded company, built the hopper car, and the car was certified for 50 years of service, the database shows.

Many railcars and equipment used by America’s freight railroad companies are decades old and operate safely. Some railcars can be retrofitted and upgraded to extend their useful lives, while others are scrapped. 

GATX is one of the biggest owners of freight railcars that are leased to factories, farms, mines and other shippers to be pulled by railroads. It couldn’t be determined who had leased the hopper car, which was filled with plastic pellets, at the time of the accident. 

Hopper cars are used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal and grain. They can be open or covered, as the GATX car was.

The GATX hopper car’s recent journey started when a small rail carrier in Houston, the Port Terminal Railroad Association, brought it to a

Union Pacific Corp.

rail yard, said Union Pacific spokeswoman Kristen South. Union Pacific inspected it on Jan. 29. at its Settegast Yard in Houston and then it traveled north, arriving in St. Louis on Jan 30. During its journey to St. Louis, the car passed around 60 hotbox detectors, which use sensors to record temperatures of wheels on railcars, and no abnormalities were found, said Ms. South. 

In St. Louis, the hopper car was taken by a short-line railroad, the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, to another rail yard owned by

Norfolk Southern Corp.

, said a person familiar with the car’s journey. Norfolk Southern said in a statement it picked up the car in St. Louis.

The hopper car was among 149 railcars that Norfolk Southern was moving to Conway, Penn., home to a major rail yard northwest of Pittsburgh, federal authorities have said. A wheel bearing overheated on the hopper and failed before the derailment in East Palestine, according to a preliminary report last week from the National Transportation Safety Board. 

Defect detectors along Norfolk Southern’s tracks signaled that temperatures from the GATX hopper’s wheelset were rising as the train moved eastbound. In all, 38 cars derailed, including 11 tankers carrying hazardous materials. Fires damaged an additional 12 cars. 

Accident cleanup efforts are continuing, and local, state and federal authorities are cooperating on monitoring the quality of the air, water and soil in the community. Concerns about potential contamination of water have spread beyond East Palestine as well. 

The NTSB has said its continuing investigation includes studying the accident response, railcar maintenance and inspection procedures. 

It is also investigating the performance of aluminum protective covers on three tank cars carrying vinyl chloride that derailed, the NTSB said Thursday. The covers failed and potentially damaged devices that regulate pressure within the tank cars, raising the risk of a breach, the agency said. It couldn’t be determined who owned the three tank cars. 

Norfolk Southern has said that it and the rail industry would learn as much as they can from the accident and work with owners of railcars on the integrity and safety of equipment. GATX said it is cooperating with the NTSB’s investigation and that it takes all safety-related events seriously. Trinity said railcars it built as well as those it owned and leased were in the derailment. 

A representative for the short-line railroad in Houston didn’t respond to a request for comment. A representative from the short-line railroad in St. Louis said the train and railcar are the subject of an NTSB investigation and declined to comment further.

Railcars have to go through periodic inspections, said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers — Transportation Division. Federal regulations mandate a pre-departure inspection of railcars at each location where a railcar is placed in a train before the train departs. The inspection may be made before or after the car is attached to the train, Mr. Ferguson said.

The Norfolk Southern train was designated as carrying mixed freight, meaning that it could haul a variety of products for shippers. Railcars damaged following the derailment were carrying cargo such as frozen vegetables, petroleum products and semolina, and each of those cars were registered to different owners, according to documents from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Federal legislation in 1980 that helped deregulate the railroad industry fueled growth in the railcar leasing business, which includes players such as GATX, Trinity, Berkshire Hathaway’s Union Tank Car Co. and Wells Fargo Rail, a unit of

Wells Fargo

& Co.

Chicago-based GATX owned nearly 110,000 railcars in North America as of Dec. 31. Its annual report says its railcars have an average age of 18 years and estimated economic useful lives of 27 to 45 years.

Write to Esther Fung at [email protected]