Bob Guy, State Legislative Director for the SMART Transportation Division, Illinois Legislative Board of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transit Union, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss rail crossing safety, the East Palestine derailment and the ongoing fight for federal rail safety legislation.
A freight conductor since 1994, Guy came up through the United Transportation Union before it merged with the Sheet Metal Workers to form SMART. He has led the Illinois legislative effort since 2009, when his predecessor, Joe Szabo, was appointed by President Obama as administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. He discussed the statistics that open every Rail Safety Week conversation — a vehicle or person is hit by a train every three hours in the United States, more than 2,300 are injured or killed annually across North America and more than 60 percent of collisions occur at crossings already equipped with lights or gates. He also revisited the East Palestine derailment, which originated in Decatur, Ill. and involved a train that SMART-TD crews flagged as improperly built before it left.
Guy also addressed Precision Scheduled Railroading's 30 percent workforce reduction across Class 1 railroads, the CSX Barr Yard situation in Chicago and why technology cannot replace the two-person crew currently being debated in Congress.
- A vehicle or person is hit by a train every three hours in the United States. Across North America, more than 2,300 people are injured or killed annually on railroad crossing and trespass incidents. More than 60 percent of collisions occur at crossings already equipped with lights or gates. Illinois recorded 134 highway-rail crossing collisions in 2025, resulting in 34 deaths and 27 serious injuries. Rail Safety Week (Sept. 21-27) focuses on education as the primary tool, targeting new motorists, professional drivers, the trucking industry and communities around live railroad tracks.
- The train that eventually derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, originated in Decatur, Ill. SMART-TD crews flagged the train's construction before departure because heavy loads were placed at the rear rather than the front, making emergency braking more dangerous. The train broke down twice before reaching Ohio. Defect detectors along the route issued warnings that were not communicated to the train crew until the third alert, at which point the train entered emergency mode on its own. Guy said technology was not the problem at East Palestine. The problem was ignoring the technology already in place and overriding the concerns of trained crews.
- The freight rail operating strategy known as Precision Scheduled Railroading cut 30 percent of the Class 1 railroad workforce and idled significant equipment. This led to a two-day hearing before the U.S. Surface Transportation Board in 2022, where shippers and workers testified that the model had degraded service to crisis levels. CSX's decision to close Barr Yard in Chicago and shift that work to the Belt Railway of Chicago has reproduced the same congestion and delay pattern seen when the model was tried in 2017. The Belt now handles significantly more traffic with fewer workers than it had during the previous attempt. Class 1 railroads are effectively operated for Wall Street rather than for safety or service, Guy said.
A Railroader Since 1994 With a Grandfather Who Came Before
Bob Guy's connection to the railroad runs in the family. His grandfather worked for the Illinois Central in Clinton, Ill., as a tower operator and payroll clerk, and was a proud railroad retiree until his death in 2009. It was his grandfather who noticed in 1994 that the Southern Pacific was hiring brakemen and suggested Guy look into it. He did and was hired that year as a freight conductor. He spent 14 years in freight and watched the Southern Pacific become part of Union Pacific, where he still holds seniority.
He got involved with his Local Union as a legislative representative, working his way up through the ranks of what was then the United Transportation Union. He continued that work after the merger with the Sheet Metal Workers created SMART. In 2009, the union’s Illinois State Legislative Director, Joe Szabo, was appointed by President Obama to lead the Federal Railroad Administration. Guy stepped into the director role and has held it since, representing freight conductors, engineers, brakemen, yard workers and Amtrak and Metra workers before the Illinois General Assembly and the state's congressional delegation.
What Illinois Has Won and What Still Needs to Happen
Guy described several legislative achievements he considers particularly significant. Early in his tenure, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation requiring that injured railroad workers receive prompt medical attention — a provision that sounds like common sense but required a legislative fight because the industry opposed it. The railroads sued when Illinois passed the law. The fight helped push the issue to the federal level, where it ultimately became part of the Rail Safety Act, giving railroad workers federal whistleblower protections they previously lacked.
Illinois also doubled Amtrak state-supported service in the mid-2000s, pushing the number of daily round trips to places like Carbondale, St. Louis and Quincy from four to eight. Ridership on the Chicago to St. Louis corridor more than doubled in the first year, Guy said. The state is now working to extend service to Rockford and the Quad Cities, which he expects to be similarly successful given the demonstrated demand.
In 2019, Illinois passed two-person crew legislation for freight trains, mandating that an engineer and conductor both be present in the locomotive cab on every run. Guy said this standard has been in place in the industry for more than 40 years. The legislation simply codified what was already common practice. The fight to codify it at the federal level is ongoing, he said.
Every Three Hours
The statistics Guy shared to open the show set a tone. A vehicle or person is hit by a train every three hours in the United States. More than 2,300 people are injured or killed annually in railroad crossing and trespass incidents across North America. More than 60 percent of those collisions happen at crossings already equipped with lights or gates.
In Illinois specifically, 134 highway rail crossing collisions, 34 deaths, and 27 serious injuries occurred in 2025.
Rail Safety Week, which wrapped up in late September, addresses these numbers through education and outreach to new drivers, professional drivers, trucking companies, transit riders and communities living near active railroad tracks. The core message is that when you see railroad tracks, expect a train. Guy said education has to start as early as possible to build lasting habits. The unions representing rail workers see community education as part of their professional responsibility.
East Palestine Tragedy Started in Decatur
The February 2023 East Palestine, Ohio derailment is frequently discussed as an Ohio story. Guy said it is also an Illinois story. The train originated in Decatur, Ill. SMART-TD crews raised concerns about the train's construction before it left. Heavy loads were placed on the rear rather than the front, which creates a dangerous condition. Emergency braking on heavier cars takes longer to take full effect. If these cars are in the back, they will push forward into the lighter cars at the head end. The crews were required to take the train as it was built. It broke down twice before reaching Ohio, Guy said.
Along the route, defect detectors — trackside equipment designed to identify dragging equipment or overheating bearings and wheel journals — issued alerts. The train crew did not receive the first two alerts. By the time the third warning came through and they moved to stop the train themselves, it had already gone into emergency.
Guy's assessment of East Palestine is that technology was not the failure. The defect detectors were doing their job. The failure, he said, lay in how the alerts were communicated, how the train was organized and the pressure on crews to take trains as directed, regardless of their concerns. Technology needs to support human workers doing safety-critical jobs, he added, not replace them or dismiss their expertise.
Precision Scheduled Railroading and the Wall Street Problem
Over the past decade, Class 1 railroads have operated under a model called Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), which prioritizes cost-cutting through workforce reductions, equipment idling and service consolidation. The Class 1 workforce was cut by 30 percent through the PSR era. COVID accelerated the cuts further.
The consequences were significant enough that the U.S. Surface Transportation Board convened a two-day hearing in 2022 at which shippers and workers testified together that the model had broken the system. The findings determined that the equipment was unavailable, the headcount was insufficient, and service had deteriorated to crisis levels. Guy said the industry has somewhat recovered from that point, but not fully, as PSR remains the operating philosophy of Class 1 freight.
The current CSX situation in Chicago illustrates what PSR produces in practice, Guy said. CSX shuttered Barr Yard, one of its primary switching terminals in Chicago and the Midwest, and shifted that work to the Belt Railway of Chicago. The Belt is a smaller railroad that Guy said was not equipped to handle the volume. In 2017, when CSX tried a similar arrangement, the Illinois SMART-TD had approximately 170 members at the Belt. Today, there are approximately 110, handling significantly more traffic. The result is system-wide congestion and delays, with trains that would previously have run direct routes now taking longer detours through Ohio and Indiana before reaching Illinois. Shippers wait longer. The system slows. And CSX's own network absorbs the cascading effects.
Guy said Class 1 railroads are effectively managed for Wall Street rather than for operational performance or safety. When furloughing workers and idling equipment produces better quarterly numbers, that is what gets done. That those savings come at the cost of service, safety margins and community exposure to hazardous materials in transit is not reflected in the metrics Wall Street cares about, he added.
Technology as a Tool, Not a Replacement
Guy addressed the industry's argument that technology can substitute for two-person crews and human track inspection. When asked whether they want freight trains three miles long running through their communities with one person in the cab or running autonomously, public polling has indicated the answer is a resounding no, Guy said.
He believes that technology must work alongside trained crews rather than be used to justify eliminating them. At East Palestine, the technology was there. The defect detectors were functioning. The problem was how the information was communicated and acted upon, and the pressure placed on crews to disregard their own safety assessments.
The federal rail safety legislation that emerged in the wake of East Palestine, introduced with bipartisan support, is still working through the U.S. Congress. Guy was recently in Washington, meeting with members of the Illinois delegation, and found them supportive. The legislation would codify requirements that are largely already in practice — two-person crews, functional defect detector notification systems, limits on how trains can be built — at a cost to the railroads that Guy described as minimal. The railroads’ opposition to measures that would cost them almost nothing makes their intentions going forward worth scrutinizing, he added.
More information on SMART-TD Illinois is available at illini-smarttd.org.
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