By Randy E. Appleton, Attorney

When a railroad injury/accident involves release of toxic or hazardous fumes/smoke, a permanent lung/breathing disease or chemical inhalation injury may result. The cause may be a crash, derailment or even a defect or malfunction on an engine, affecting the engineer or conductor, or even a by-stander.  The Locomotive Inspection Act requires that railroads keep engines in good working order and most defects are violations of the federal regulations.  My colleague Richard N. Shapiro wrote an interesting article fully discussing engine explosions and the release of toxic fumes and smoke, as well as the locomotive inspection act requirements that apply to railroad activities.

CSX is spending millions of dollars on televsion commercials with the goal of improving their image on “feel good” propaganda. The ads show different people breathing like swimmers and little kids blowing bubbles and then talks about how environmentally friendly the company is because with fewer trucks on the road, a railroad is helping the environment.

The problem, however, is the dirty little secret that at the same time railroad companies like CSX and Norfolk Southern are bragging about helping the public breathe they are continuing to expose their own workers’ lungs to dangerous mixtures of chemicals and pollutants. For example, train crews including conductors and engineers regularly breathe in diesel fumes which contain horrible elements which cause lung cancer.

To learn more, read this article written by my colleague John Cooper:

CSX Railroad’s Cute Breathing Commercial Hides Sad Truth about Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma Among Railroad Workers

By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Accident/FELA Lawyer

Our firm recently wrote an article about the terrible diseases associated with prolonged exposure to asbestos. One of the worst diseases is mesothelioma cancer. Sadly, railroad workers who have spent their entire careers with Norfolk Southern (NS), CSX, Conrail, etc. are now struggling with mesothelioma and other terrible diseases. Many of these rail employees were never warned about the risks associated with asbestos and the railroads knew about the dangers of asbestos exposure for decades, but opted for profits over the safety of their workers.

If you’d like to learn more about asbestos-induced cancers and mesothelioma, please check out the article here.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm with a long history of representing hundreds of railroad workers in FELA/ railroad injury cases. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA) and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers hold licenses in VA, NC, SC, WV, KY and DC and have handled railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern U.S.  We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, including Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad – The Railroad Worker’s FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We are ready to talk to you by phone right now—we provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at 1-800-752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube . Furthermore, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Accident/FELA Lawyer

Why did railroad companies fail to remove asbestos insulation from diesel locomotive engines? It’s a question with no definitive answer, but I believe it’s simply because removing all of the toxic material cost a lot of money. Many of the railroads knowingly chose to remove asbestos only when other major repairs were being done on the engines. Other railroads delayed removal of asbestos from diesel engines.  These actions fail to seriously follow the advice of the railroad’s prominent medical doctors  who argued that all asbestos should be removed from engines and other places by the late 1970s. By this time, railroads – including the Chessie System (later became CSX) had employees struggling with mesothelioma. Shockingly, these workers did not even have extensive asbestos exposure.

In delaying any action to remove asbestos from diesel locomotive engines, the railroads played russian roulette with its own employees knowing full well that even a microscopic amount of tiny asbestos fibers can cause lung cancer or mesothelioma, even decades after the minimal exposure. In addition, the railroads were knowledgeable by the 1960s and 1970s that railroad workers who smoke cigarettes were facing especially high risks of cancers.

Medical researchers learned, for reasons that are not completely understood, that workers exposed to asbestos who also smoked cigarettes, had about 83 fold relative risk increase whereas there was only a 10 percent relative risk increase in workers who were not smokers!

In other words, the relative risk for smokers of over a pack a day compared to non-smoking asbestos workers was a difference of about 73 fold relative risk increase. This is called the synergistic effect of combining asbestos fiber exposure and cigarette smoking and sadly the railroads never notified railroad workers who smoke about this increased relative risk, but let’s remember the railroads never told workers about the asbestos being in the engines either.

All of this points to a complete disregard by the railroad companies for the health and safety of their employees. It’s outrageous and railroad workers who contract mesothelioma and suspect it was due to asbestos exposure should contact an attorney immediately to discuss filing a claim against the company.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsRBNLE-z2M&rel=0]

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm with a long history of representing hundreds of railroad workers in FELA/ railroad injury cases. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA) and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers hold licenses in VA, NC, SC, WV, KY and DC and have handled railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern U.S.  We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, including Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad – The Railroad Worker’s FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We are ready to talk to you by phone right now—we provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at 1-800-752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube . Furthermore, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.