Key employment trends presented during day 2 of NTSB's investigative hearing on the East Palestine train derailment disaster reveal decreases in employment in many departments throughout Norfolk Southern.
 
These charts show between 2012 and 2023, maintenance of equipment and stores employment went down from 30,388 to 19,794, maintenance of way and structures employment decreased 6,238 to 2,459, train and engine transportation employment went down from 11,898 to 8,698, transportation other than train and engine is down from 1,417 to 792 and professional and administrative employment went down from 2,655 to 1,858 and executives went down from 1,943 to 1,715.
 
Brotherhood of Railway Carmen representative, Jason Cox says this staffing decrease could be a contributing factor in the increase in defects.
 
Cox says because of this along with reduction of safety inspectors at checkpoints, railroads are bypassing the more thorough mechanical inspection that qualified mechanics are trained for.
 
In other words, Cox says the company is "laying off the third guy" and having the other two pick up the time required to do inspections, which in turn increases stress and fatigue, causing more errors and defects like what was seen on the night of the derailment.