“It’s the same old story – companies are buying back stock, taking dividends and laying off workers,” Brown said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. According to him, at the same time, the management of the railways “does not invest properly in the safety of the trains and the railway lines themselves”.Residents of East Palestine, a rural town of less than five thousand people, are still complaining about the aftermath of a Norfolk Southern company train that derailed, causing an accident on February 3. Following the derailment of a 150-car train, chemicals, including vinyl chloride, spread over a wide area.Crews are cleaning up the crash site and the railroad has a water, air and soil testing program in place, according to Alan Shaw, the company’s chief executive. The company has set up a $1 million “down payment” fund to help rebuild a community of about 4,800 people, Shaw said.Senator Brown said it would take “hundreds of millions” of dollars to help local families test the water and air, pay their bills and rebuild on the ground.
