The Maryland-National Capital Region Emergency Response System (MDERS) hosted a tabletop exercise (TTX) to evaluate the response efforts to a Maryland Area Rail Commuter (MARC) passenger train derailment in Montgomery County. The exercise included participation from personnel representing Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS), Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD), City of Gaithersburg Police Department, Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (MC OEMHS), City of Gaithersburg, Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), and CSX Transportation (CSXT). Participants navigated the complex exercise scenario to cohesively manage and oversee response operations while maintaining situational awareness during a high-impact event. The discussion yielded valuable insights for each agency and will help them better prepare for these complex, low-frequency events if they occur in the future.

Mass transit systems move thousands of people per day across the country and while derailments are exceedingly rare, these incidents can have significant impacts on communities as well as national commerce. This threat is heightened because both freight and passenger rail serve as critical infrastructure. The impact that rail incidents have had on local and national scales has been seen in examples such as the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio freight train derailment and more locally, the 2002 derailment of an Amtrak train in Kensington, and the 1996 fatal head-on collision of a MARC and Amtrak train in Silver Spring. With these incidents in mind, MDERS partnered with regional partners to systematically discuss the response operations to a passenger train derailment in Montgomery County.

This exercise was the culmination of a multi-month planning effort with key first responder agencies and transit partners. The exercise workgroup, comprising subject matter experts (SMEs) from all participating agencies, continuously collaborated to plan the exercise. For this TTX, the workgroup identified the following goals:

• Evaluate the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) Incident Response Policy (IRP) and procedures as they relate to a heavy rail emergency.
• Evaluate the response and coordination of first responders, CSX, and MTA in response to a heavy rail emergency.
• Evaluate the response of MCFRS to a passenger rail incident requiring the evacuation of a passenger train.

These goals provided a framework for developing the exercise and served as the foundation for the subsequent evaluation.

The scenario for this exercise involved an occupied, rush hour MARC train on the Brunswick Line, which is owned and operated by CSX Transportation. Additionally, the scenario posed additional challenges taking place in a remote location and light snowfall. The workgroup created a master scenario events list (MSEL) to set a realistic progression and cadence for how such an event may unfold.

During the exercise, the 13 exercise participants cohesively managed each aspect of the scenario, leveraging their expertise to minimize the theoretical harm in the scenario while maintaining situational awareness in a fast-moving environment. The exercise concluded with a discussion portion and a hotwash that identified the strengths and areas for improvement during the exercise. All this information will be shared in an after-action report (AAR) with exercise participants.

These exercises and discussions are paramount for all agencies to revise existing plans and expose personnel to high-impact, low-frequency events that may be otherwise difficult to replicate in a classroom or controlled environment. This TTX provided agencies with invaluable information, and MDERS will continue to partner with them to enhance response efforts in the Maryland-National Capital Region.

Written by Matt Panagos