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Death Rides The Rails

WUNC | By Laura Lee,
Frank Stasio
Published March 18, 2015 at 12:15 PM EDT
A train carrying crude oil derailed causing a massive explosion in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic in July 2013.
A train carrying crude oil derailed causing a massive explosion in the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic in July 2013.

Today's segment is a rebroadcast of Death Rides The Rails.

Reporter Marcus Stern examines regulatory responses to oil train explosions and the nation's aging railroad infrastructure

  

Railroads across America carry hundreds of billions of dollars of toxic materials every year. 

The body charged with regulating the industry, the Federal Railroad Administration, admits it inspects less than one percent of railroad activity. What risks does shipping hazardous materials on the railroads create? 

Host Frank Stasio talks with reporter Marcus Stern. His work, Boom: North America’s Explosive Oil-By-Rail Problem, examines regulatory responses to oil train explosions and the nation's aging railroad infrastructure. The work is a collaborative effort of Inside Climate News, The Weather Channel and The Investigative Fund.

The video below is a mini-documentary about the oil-by-train explosions in Canada. Stern's full report can be found here. 

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Laura Lee
Laura Lee began her journalism career as a producer and booker at NPR. She returned to her native North Carolina to manage The State of Things, a live daily statewide show on WUNC. After working as a managing editor of an education journalism start-up, she became a writer and editor at a national education publication, Edutopia. She then served as the news editor at Carolina Public Press, a statewide investigative newsroom. In 2022, she worked to build collaborative coverage of elections administration and democracy in North Carolina.

Laura received her master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland and her bachelor’s degree in political science and J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
See stories by Laura Lee
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio