"Trains smack of progress, freedom and adventure. It’s said that railroads revolutionized America. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) touts the safety record of the rails: 'In 2012, North American railroads safely delivered more than 2.47 million carloads of hazardous materials.' But sometimes trains leak, derail or just plain explode."
"Micah Griffin hopped freights for years. He knows the railyard in Eugene and the trains around Oregon like the back of his tattooed hand. But in all the times he was leaping aboard rail cars and riding across the Northwest and beyond, he hadn’t really known just what was in those big tank cars rolling through towns and past lakes and rivers.
It turns out that the state of Oregon doesn’t want Griffin, or anyone else, to know what’s in those cars. Officials say if they tell you what’s in the cars, where they are going and how much hazardous material they carry, it could lead to a terrorist threat."
Camilla Mortensen reports for the Eugene Weekly August 15, 2013.
