Although railroad officials are hesitant to say what railcars are carrying and when they will pass through an area because of security reasons, they said that often cars coming through the Temple area tend to contain chlorine, which is used for purifying water, and anhydrous ammonia, which is used by farmers for fertilizer. Both are considered poison inhalation hazards.

According to railroad officials, rail cars are numbered and fitted with warning placards identifying a car’s contents, but those symbols are generally meant to be deciphered by emergency personnel (using a 250-page U.S. Department of Transportation manual) in the event of an accident.

Raquel Espinoza, corporate relations and media director for Union Pacific Railroad, said the safety record of rail handling is a good one.

She said Union Pacific hauled more than 533,000 shipments of hazardous materials in 2007, which is less than a third of the same materials transported by rail overall.

She said the toxic inhalant materials make up three-tenths of a percent of the Union Pacific total.

“We take this very seriously,” she said. “We monitor shipments closely from the point of origin to the point of destination to make sure the shipment is delivered safely and securely.”

She said the rail company runs hazardous materials on the safest and most secure routes, saying that rerouting, as the federal rule recommends if needed, is “ . . . almost impossible.”

“It just takes the risk from one area and puts it into other communities where emergency responders may not be trained to deal with these types of chemicals,” she said. “Hazmat (hazardous materials) materials are traveling on railroad tracks that are constantly being inspected and upgraded.”

Ms. Espinoza said the railroads work with local hazmat teams in communities the trains pass through.

“We’re constantly looking into safety issues and investing in prevention,” she said, adding all railroad companies spend money on measures such as improved railroad crossings, training hazmat teams and establishing new standards that improve the safety of tank cars.

Ultimately, the best way to avoid the risks is to work with the chemical companies that make the products being transported. “Public safety will be most advanced when we don’t have those hazardous chemicals and don’t have to transport them,” she said.

Scott Tippen, a hazmat specialist with Temple Fire and Rescue, confirmed the railroads assist with training and what most residents already know - plenty of trains carrying hazardous materials pass through town all day long.

“Hazardous materials come through on rail every day and night,” he said. He echoed the railroad point of view about safety.

“Rail, in my view, is the safest method out there,” he said.

He said that although each tanker can hold anything from 20,000 to 80,000 gallons of materials, tanker cars have undergone improvements in the past 10 years.

One of 29 members on Temple’s hazmat team, Tippen said the department is responsible for handling accidental releases of any chemical, including those hauled by the railroads.

“We work with Santa Fe Burlington Northern and Union Pacific . . . mainly with identifying chemicals, safety, how cars operate and what happens in case of a derailment,” he said.

He said the crew practices weekly on all types of spills, not just those associated with rail traffic.

Safety in hauling hazardous materials was the subject of an announcement in April by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters, who said a new federal rule would require railroads to run every train carrying the most toxic and dangerous hazardous materials on the safest and most secure route.

The rule requires railroads to conduct a comprehensive safety and security risk analysis of its primary route and any practicable alternative routes. Railroads must implement their routing decisions based on the analyses by September 2009.

“This strong measure better ensures that rail shipments of hazardous materials will reach their final destinations safely and without incident,” she said in the statement. She said the rule applies to trains hauling poison inhalation hazard commodities.

Although an accidental release of chemicals could be disastrous, rail officials say trains are the safest way to move such cargo across the country.

“We’re not only doing what we have to do, we’re going above and beyond,” Ms. Espinoza said. “We don’t want any incidents just like the government doesn’t want that and the people in the community don’t want that.”

A spokesman for BNSF Railroad did not comment on the federal rule and deferred to the Association of American Railroads Web site. On its site the association urged shippers of highly hazardous materials or toxic inhalation hazards (TIH) to become “full partners with the railroads in safely transporting those dangerous commodities.”

The site said shippers should share risks with the railroads and share the effort to find ways to eliminate risks.

With Temple the home of both rail company’s tracks, the city has had its share of rail accidents.

In 1999, Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad workers reported that acrylamide, a carcinogen, was leaking from the pressure relief valve on top of a rail car.

An article in the Telegram said about 1,000 Temple residents had to leave their houses and Temple High School closed classes for the day while the area was secured. There were no injuries from that incident and the evacuation lasted about 2½ hours.

Tippen said the tank had been overfilled and began to build up pressure as it heated up during the day. He said the fire department used water to cool the tank down and the valve eventually closed.