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# Norfolk Southern Blew Open Five Tank Cars of Vinyl Chloride in East Palestine to Stop Them Exploding. The Company That Made the Vinyl Chloride Had Said They Were Not Going to Explode.
- URL: https://whywecanthavenicethings.info/east-palestine-vent-and-burn-was-not-necessary/
- Published: 2026-10-07T10:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-07T10:00:00.000Z
- Author: The Complaints Department
- Tags: Investigations

At about 8:54 p.m. on 3 February 2023, Norfolk Southern train 32N, 149 railcars long, derailed 38 of them in the centre of East Palestine, Ohio. It was travelling at about 47 mph, under the 50 mph limit, with positive train control switched on and working. Eleven of the derailed cars were tank cars carrying hazardous materials. They caught fire, and the fire spread to twelve cars that had stayed on the rails. Responders set up a one-mile evacuation zone affecting about 2,000 residents. Nobody was killed or injured.

The first car off the track was the 23rd, a hopper car. A home surveillance camera along the line had filmed what the National Transportation Safety Board later described as a wheel bearing "in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment." The railroad had equipment for detecting exactly this. The equipment detected it, too, at a pace that was no use to anyone.

## Three Detectors

Train 32N passed three trackside hot bearing detectors on the way in. According to the NTSB's preliminary report, the first, at milepost 79.9, recorded the bearing at 38°F above ambient. The second, at milepost 69.01 near Salem, recorded 103°F above ambient. Norfolk Southern's own thresholds asked crews to stop and inspect a bearing at between 170°F and 200°F above ambient, and to set the car out above 200°F. The third detector, at milepost 49.81 on the east side of East Palestine, read 253°F and sounded a critical alarm. The engineer braked. During the stop, the emergency brakes went on by themselves. When the crew got down to look, they saw fire and smoke.

The Salem detector had sent railroad personnel a low-priority, non-critical alert. The NTSB's final findings explained why it read low: "Because of design constraints, hot bearing detectors are likely to indicate misleadingly low bearing temperatures." The last two detectors were also 19 miles apart. In the board's view, the detector's limits, Norfolk Southern's operating procedures and the gap between detectors together meant the crew "did not have adequate warning to stop the train before the derailment." After East Palestine, the AP reported, the six biggest railroads promised to install hot box detectors an average of 15 miles apart.

## The Five Cars

Five of the derailed cars were DOT-105 tank cars holding 115,580 gallons of vinyl chloride, the raw material for PVC. Under heat, vinyl chloride can polymerise, and that reaction can rupture a tank. By 5 February the fire was under control, but, in the preliminary report's words, the five cars "continued to concern authorities because the temperature inside one tank car was still rising." Norfolk Southern and its contractors told the incident commander that a dangerous reaction was under way. Governor Mike DeWine later said the risk of the car exploding "was described to me as high," with the prospect of "shrapnel going out up to close to a mile."

The evacuation zone was widened to one mile by two. At 4:37 p.m. on 6 February, a contractor hired by Norfolk Southern blew holes in all five cars with explosives, and the vinyl chloride was released and set alight. This procedure is called a vent and burn. As the AP pointed out the following year, it was also the quickest way to get a main line full of waiting trains moving again. The alternative, waiting for the fire to go out and emptying the damaged tank cars into trucks, "might have taken weeks."

## The Shipper

The vinyl chloride belonged to Oxy Vinyls, which had its own experts on site. On 6 March 2024, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy described what they had concluded to the Senate Commerce Committee. The temperature in the car of concern had reached 135 degrees, dropped, and held at 126\. "It was stabilized well, well before the vent and burn. Many hours before," she said. Oxy Vinyls' people "had testified that polymerization was not occurring." The people making the decision never heard this: "When advice was given to the governor of Ohio, to the incident commander, they were not given full information because no one was told OxyVinyls was on scene."

At its board meeting on 25 June 2024, the NTSB put that in writing. The vinyl chloride "remained in a stabilized environment until the vent and burn and did not undergo polymerization." The downward temperature trend showed that polymerization was not occurring, "contrary to the representation by Norfolk Southern Railway and its contractors." One guidance document the railroad had relied on, The Chlorine Institute's Pamphlet 171, was found to contain misleading information about signs of polymerization. Among the factors the board listed in its probable cause was the railroad's inaccurate claim of imminent catastrophic failure, "which created unwarranted urgency and led to the unnecessary decision to vent and burn." The board also found that "the absence of Oxy Vinyls' expertise from the formal incident command denied the incident commander relevant information."

Norfolk Southern said that "the NTSB mischaracterized the basis of the recommendation," and that "several key factors indicated the strong possibility of a catastrophic, uncontrolled explosion." Homendy called the railroad's conduct during the investigation "unprecedented and reprehensible," and added, according to CNN: "It is not our role to defend Norfolk Southern." The board issued 34 new recommendations. One asked Norfolk Southern to establish a policy of communicating all expert opinions to the full incident command. Another asked Oxy Vinyls to develop a policy to make sure its expertise reached the full incident command too.

## The Invoices

Norfolk Southern agreed to pay $600 million to settle a class action brought by people harmed by the derailment. A federal court approved the settlement in September 2024\. Five class members appealed, and a judge ordered them to post an $850,000 appeal bond. The Sixth Circuit rejected the challenge in November 2025, and in March 2026 the Supreme Court declined to hear it.

On 23 May 2024, the EPA and the Justice Department announced a separate settlement worth more than $310 million. It covered $235 million for past and future cleanup, a $15 million Clean Water Act penalty, $25 million for a 20-year community health programme, and money for water monitoring. The railroad also had to install additional hot bearing detectors. The EPA put the response costs Norfolk Southern had already incurred at about $780 million.

Norfolk Southern then tried to share the $600 million. It sued GATX, which owned the hopper car, and Oxy Vinyls. In April 2025, the AP reported, Oxy Vinyls settled after the railroad's lawyers "raised questions about the inconsistent information the chemical company provided about whether it was necessary to perform the vent-and-burn operation." The terms were not released. A week later a federal jury in Youngstown found GATX not responsible for any of it, which left Norfolk Southern paying the whole $600 million.

## The Bill

Ohio's two senators at the time, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican JD Vance, introduced the Railway Safety Act in 2023\. By June 2024 the AP was reporting that "opposition from Republicans and the railroads" had stopped it moving. In May 2026, after President Trump posted that Congress should pass its provisions, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted to fold a Railway Safety Act of 2026 into the five-year surface transportation bill. It includes higher standards for wayside detectors. At the time of that vote, three years and three months after the derailment, the bill still had to pass the full House and the Senate.

So the railroad's detector reported a burning bearing as not yet worth stopping for, and the railroad reported a cooling tank car as about to explode. The shipper's experts, who said the cars were fine, were absent from the incident command that made the decision. Afterwards, in federal court, the railroad's lawyers raised questions about how consistent the shipper's information had been, and the shipper settled.

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*Filed from public reporting:*

- [National Transportation Safety Board — "Preliminary Report RRD23MR005: Norfolk Southern Railway Train Derailment with Subsequent Hazardous Material Release and Fires, East Palestine, Ohio"](https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/RRD23MR005%20East%20Palestine%20OH%20Prelim.pdf)
- [National Transportation Safety Board — "East Palestine, Ohio, Board Meeting Summary with Amendments"](https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/East%20Palestine%20Ohio%20Board%20Meeting%20Summary%20with%20Amendments.pdf)
- [Ohio Capital Journal / CityBeat — "NTSB Chair Casts Doubt on Vent and Burn Strategy Following East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment"](https://www.citybeat.com/news/ntsb-chair-casts-doubt-on-vent-and-burn-strategy-following-east-palestine-train-derailment-17017692)
- [CNN — "NTSB slams Norfolk Southern for controlled burn of toxic chemicals after Ohio derailment"](https://abc17news.com/money/cnn-business-consumer/2024/06/25/ntsb-slams-norfolk-southern-for-controlled-burn-of-toxic-chemicals-after-ohio-derailment/)
- [Associated Press — "NTSB derailment investigation renews concerns about detectors, tank cars and Norfolk Southern"](https://www.news4jax.com/news/politics/2024/06/26/ntsb-derailment-investigation-renews-concerns-about-detectors-tank-cars-and-norfolk-southern/)
- [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — "United States Reaches Over $310 Million Settlement with Norfolk Southern to Address Harms Caused by East Palestine Train Derailment"](https://19january2025snapshot.epa.gov/newsreleases/united-states-reaches-over-310-million-settlement-norfolk-southern-address-harms/index.html)
- [Associated Press — "Jury decides Norfolk Southern should pay for the $600 million settlement in 2023 Ohio derailment"](https://www.news4jax.com/business/2025/04/23/jury-decides-norfolk-southern-should-pay-for-the-600-million-settlement-in-2023-ohio-derailment/)
- [The Center Square / Williamsport Sun-Gazette — "Supreme Court rejects suit challenging East Palestine settlement"](https://www.sungazette.com/news/business/2026/03/supreme-court-rejects-suit-challenging-east-palestine-settlement/)
- [Spectrum News 1 — "Three years after East Palestine, rail safety legislation advances in House"](https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2026/05/21/east-palestine-rail-safety)