Shop

A Courier-Journal investigative series reveals "how, despite medical warnings, the railroad industry in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s allowed the heavy and largely unprotected use of chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents in their locomotive maintenance shops; how railroads resisted government inspections for almost a decade when solvent use was perhaps its highest and that more than 600 railroaders across the country have since then been diagnosed with permanent brain damage that their doctors blame on the chemicals." The reporters have found evidence that the railroad industry was aware of the danger of toxic chemicals as far back as the 1960s but some companies continued to use them until mid-1990s. CSX Transportation, the largest railroad in the eastern part of the country has so far paid up to $35 in legal settlements, the Courier-Journal reports.