By Richard N. Shapiro, Virginia Railroad Injury Attorney

Diesel locomotives for freight trains and passenger trains, like diesel engines for large commercial trucks, generate fumes that can cause cancer and respiratory illnesses such as asthma among railroad employees. Doctors, companies, workers and judges and juries have long recognized this. In fact, over my nearly 30 years as a Virginia-based personal injury attorney representing rail employees in FELA cases brought by victims of lung diseases caused by exposure to diesel fumes, has convinced me that breathing in locomotive and truck engine exhaust day after day can be a s dangerous to people’s health and lives can be as dangerous as working around radioactivity and asbestos.

This BNSF rail yard in San Barnardino, CA, has been identified as one of the most polluted and toxic train depots in the United States.

Similar conclusions now seem to be dawning on public health officials and researchers, along with the realization that living close to busy rail yards can be as potentially deadly as working on and around trains. Diesel fumes and other cancer-causing and toxic chemicals do not respect boundaries such as chain  link fences separating trunk lines and roundhouses from neighborhoods filled with houses and families with children.

What got me thinking along these lines was an announcement by researchers at Loma Linda University in California that they were launching a two-year investigation into the health of residents living within feet of one of the largest rail yard on the West Coast. Working in coordination with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the environmental and medical scientists will assess whether cancer, stroke, asthma and death rates that are as much as 250 times higher than in other areas of California can be linked to operations at the BNSF yard in a neighborhood in the northwest corner of San Bernardino, CA.

I’m no scientist, but I suspect the findings will show that living near a busy rail yard full of running diesel locomotives and served by a constant stream of tractor-trailers and semis with diesel engines causes avoidable illnesses and deaths. As a Business Week article on the planned study notes,

Diesel exhaust contains tiny particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs, carrying with it a variety of toxins that have been linked to acute bronchitis, lung disease, heart attacks and other ailments. Exposure to this smog is especially dangerous for children whose lungs are still developing and the elderly, whose immune systems may be compromised.

Those risks exists — and the findings from the San Bernardino study will be as applicable — for any rail yard operated by Amtrak, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and all other railroad companies. Any risk of occupational illness faced by a conductor, engineer, brakeman, switchman or trainman is faced equally by an adult or child who has a similar levels of exposure to diesel fumes and other toxic substances involved in railroad work.

Whatever rail operators can do to make working in rail yards safer, the companies also need to do to make living, playing and going to school near a yard safer.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.