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DM&E's Worst in Class Safety Record 

Disaster:  Scenario of a derailment/chemical spill

What is the Southern Rail Corridor, and Why Is It Important?

FAQs about the SRC

Safety — Why It's Paramount for Rochester and Mayo Clinic

The first rule of safety is to minimize exposure to risk. The Southern Rail Corridor does just that  — reduces risk to Mayo Clinic patients and area citizens. At the same time, it offers an expedited freight rail corridor to accommodate expected growth in demand for freight service.

While every trackside community or hospital is at some risk, Mayo Clinic and Rochester pose unique public safety vulnerabilities.

• Mayo Clinic is largely in downtown Rochester. There are 2,000 hospital beds in proximity to the tracks. On a typical day, there are 5,764 outpatient visits, 241 hospital admissions and 205 surgical procedures. 
• Daily, upwards of 40,000 people are in downtown Rochester, within several hundred feet of the DM&E main line. In addition to Mayo Clinic patients and staff, downtown is home to elderly residents and people with disabilities — all especially vulnerable if a hazardous-material spill were to require an evacuation.
• If a train accident in downtown Rochester caused a release of hazardous materials, Mayo Clinic's medical staff — the people needed to respond to an emergency — would be among the first victims.
• Headquarters for Gold Cross, Mayo Clinic's medical transportation provider, is among the closest Mayo buildings to the railroad track. 
• There isn't a nearby medical center to triage patients in the event of a disaster. The next nearest trauma centers are in Minneapolis and St. Paul, 75 miles away.

Risk now and in the future

In past years, the risk of a freight train accident in Rochester was minimal with three trains a day traveling at 10 miles per hour and carrying about six carloads of hazardous materials per year. After installing new rail through Rochester in 2009, DM&E can increase train speeds to 40 mph and possibly 60 mph. Higher speed produces bigger accidents with greater consequences. 

Accidents can and do happen. DM&E has the highest train-accident rate of the nation's 31 largest railroads. The DM&E line through Rochester remains in so-called “dark territory,” meaning it doesn't have a signal system that tells train engineers how to move safely or a centralized control system to align switches and track the location of all trains in the area. That means that Rochester is vulnerable to the kind of human errors that have caused many train accidents in other communities.

DM&E has considered plans to significantly increase coal train traffic. A line expansion from Wyoming's Powder River Basin could increase traffic to up to 34 trains per day — exponentially increasing risk. But even if expanded coal business doesn't occur, freight rail traffic is a growing business. The Southern Rail Corridor is a way to assure that growth occurs in a way that benefits the railroad and reduces risk to the community.