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Ohio residents ordered to stay inside as another train derails     March 4, 2023

Ohio residents were ordered to shelter in place Saturday after another Norfolk Southern train ran off the tracks.

The 212-car train derailed at Ohio 41 near the Prime Ohio Business Park in Springfield around 5 p.m., the Clark County Emergency Management said.

About 20 of the train’s box cars toppled off the tracks while it was traveling through the city.

A spokesperson confirmed with The Post that Norfolk Southern — the same railway company involved in the tragic East Palestine derailment that contaminated 1.1 million gallons of water and 15,000 pounds of soil — was operating the derailed train.

“No hazardous materials are involved and there have been no reported injuries,” the company said.

Derailed train lies next to water.
A Northern Suffolk train derailed in Springfield, Ohio Saturday.
WHIO TV 7

However, hazmat crews were spotted at the scene, WHIO reported.

First responders and emergency officials said they are working to confirm Norfolk Southern’s report.

Clark County lifted the shelter-in-place order early Sunday.

The Saturday crash took place roughly 300 miles southeast of East Palestine, where residents are growing sick from toxins spilled last month.

Residents within 1,000 feet of the derailment have been asked to remain indoors “out of an abundance of caution.”

Derailed train lies next to water.
Hazmat crews reportedly arrived at the scene as no injuries were reported in the crash.
WHIO TV 7

Officials reported multiple downed power lines, leaving as many as 1,500 Springfield customers without power.

Multiple roadways near the accident were shut down.

Shawn Heaton told the Springfield News-Sun that he was in his car waiting for the train to pass when he watched one of the box cars slip off the track, leading the following cars to plunge into one another in a massive pile-up — a moment he caught on camera.

“I was right there and I was playing on my phone and then I heard a loud bang. And when I heard the loud bang, I started recording,” Heaton said.

“When I heard the bang, there was all kinds of debris and metal shoot out from under the cars and that’s when I started recording and you could see them start jumping off the tracks.”

The derailment is Norfolk Southern’s fourth within Ohio over the last five months, Sen. Sherrod Brown pointed out.

Another of the company’s trains carrying hazardous materials derailed in Detroit, Migican just days after the East Palestine crash.

“This is unacceptable,” he said.

Clark County did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

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@Ukaflyer posted:

Being self insured, who settles any compensation claims? I would have thought it would have to be an external assessor who isn’t biased towards NS to give a low monetary level.

All this means is that NS pays damages out of their own treasury, not via an insurer’s treasury.

The compensation claims themselves likely are adjudicated by an uninvolved third party.

Self insured as Rich said means the company handles its own insurance. For example, many companies do that with health insurance. What they often do is pay an outside firm to administer the insurance but the funds are from the host company (in a sense they set aside funds for it, same way self insured companies in health insurance set aside funds from each paycheck).

Compensation depends on the method of paying it out. If there are class action lawsuits against the company, it will be determined in court if those offered compensation feel like what is being offered is too little (not a legal eagle, there also could be elements of negligence here that can increase payouts in a lawsuit). My guess is NS will try and get this into arbitration, but in the end I would guess this is going to end up in court, especially if there is potential negligence involved (and note, I am not saying there is...the NTSB investigation will determine cause, and from there it will be handled in court if there is negligence).

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