The rail company behind the toxic train disaster in Ohio was lambasted for safety failures last year after the company authorised $10bn stock buybacks for shareholders rather than maintenance, The Independent can reveal.

On the evening of 3 February, Norfolk Southern freight train 32N derailed in the small town of East Palestine. Of the 50 rail cars involved, around 11 were carrying toxic chemicals.

To prevent an explosion from the hazardous materials, clean-up crews carried out a controlled burn which sent noxious black clouds billowing across the region. More than 2,000 people were evacuated but have since been told it’s safe to return home. Yet 12 days after the incident, reports of illness, dead animals, and concerns about the region’s water supply continue to emerge.

The disaster was years in the making, according to a coalition of rail worker unions, driven by slashing the workforce, deregulation, corporate lobbying and shareholder payouts.

The big rail operators eliminated at least one-fifth of jobs in just a couple of years, The Associated Press reported.

“The wreck of Train 32N has been years in the making. What other such train wrecks await us remains to be seen,” Railroad Workers United (RWU) said in a press release.

In April 2022 federal regulators were so concerned over the “deterioration of the freight rail industry” that they hauled executives from the four largest US rail companies, including Norfolk Southern, to Washington DC for urgent public hearings.

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