That's a good idea, I'll take a look this weekend.

That makes sense. I did not have the data for total miles driven by only trains with hazmat. I used the assumption that the proportion of trains carrying hazmat stayed constant from year to year (maybe the not the best idea looking back). The trend for total derailments is very similar to the adjusted.

This does not account for impact, only total derailments. The accident in Ohio may have been the worse effects on the environment.

This is for hazmat train derailments up to 2022 (does not include 2023 data). The FRA also provides data for all derailments which follows a similar trend. The data does not account how much chemicals, oils, etc. was on each train, only # of derailments.

All trains in the United States including ones without hazmat cargo. There's also total derailment data.

Source: Federal Rail Association (https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/officeofsafety/publicsite/query/TenYearAccidentIncidentOverview.aspx) DM me for the .csv file. Data is available from 1975 to 2022.

Tool: Basic Plot in R

The plot shows total hazmat train derailment from 1997 to 2022 in the United States. The total derailment is divided by the total number of miles driven by trains for that year.

The lowest hazmat derailment per total train miles was in 1986 at 79.6 hazmat derailments/10 million miles (450 total that year). Notably , the total employee hours worked has been steadily decreasing since 1975. I am unable to tell whether there has been an increase or decrease in derailments due to changes in regulation.