Lung cancer in railroad workers

Researchers tracked close to 55,000 US railroad workers over 38 years, finding 4,351 lung cancer deaths out of 43,593 deaths overall. Engineers, firemen, conductors, and brakemen were the jobs treated as diesel-exposed. The authors said diesel exhaust helped cause lung cancer deaths in these workers.

The study also found more deaths from chronic lung diseases among workers exposed to diesel exhaust.

US railroads switched quickly from coal to diesel: diesel locomotives made up 10% of the fleet in 1946 and 95% by 1959. Here, added years in train-operating jobs did not push the danger higher, so even a shorter career on the trains may matter.

The World Health Organization's cancer agency, IARC, found after a week-long expert meeting that diesel engine exhaust causes lung cancer in people. The vote was unanimous. In 1988 the agency had labeled diesel exhaust as likely to cause cancer. The agency listed diesel trains as one exposure source and pointed to a possible bladder cancer link.

Tiny diesel particles can reach deep lung areas and carry cancer-causing compounds. In more than 35 studies of workers exposed to diesel, lung cancer risk was 20% to 50% higher.

Asbestos is a known danger too. People who work around it face several times the chance of dying from lung cancer, and heavy exposure also raises mesothelioma risk, a cancer that forms in the tissue surrounding the lungs. How much brief or low exposure matters is still unclear.

Other job substances connected to lung cancer are:

• silica dust
• arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, nickel, and chromium compounds
• products made from coal
• vinyl chloride

Yes. Smoking is behind about 80% of lung cancer deaths, but many cases have other causes, and diesel exhaust is a proven one. Diesel exhaust, asbestos, and the other job substances add risk for workers exposed to them.

Radon is another lung cancer risk: it is a naturally occurring radioactive gas released as uranium breaks down. Radon is found in some homes, so a claim review asks about it alongside the exposures at work.

State workers' compensation does not cover railroad workers. They instead seek payment for what they lost from the railroad through FELA, the Federal Employers' Liability Act.

FELA makes the railroad responsible if negligence contributes even partly to an injury or death. Negligence means the railroad or the people managing it failed to act with reasonable care. According to the Supreme Court, the railroad's negligence has to play some part, even a very small one.

This law reaches illness that builds over time, not just accidents. The Supreme Court said so in Urie v. Thompson in 1949. And when railroad negligence played a part, the law does not say the worker simply took on the dangers that came with the job.

Smoking does not rule out a claim: under FELA, a worker who shares some of the fault can still recover money. The jury reduces the award to match the worker's share. Smoking and asbestos together raise lung cancer risk far more, so a reviewer will need an honest picture of both to judge the claim fairly.

You have three years to file a FELA case, in either federal or state court. For a slow-developing illness, the three years begin when the exposure's effects appear.

What a doctor says can start that clock. In an unpublished January 2026 ruling, a New Jersey appeals court considered a car inspector whose doctor told him in May 2014 that the bladder cancer was tied to fumes he had breathed on the job. He brought the case in April 2019, nearly five years later, and the court ruled that the 2014 cancer claim had passed the three-year limit. That is why it matters to note when a doctor first linked your illness to work.

If the worker has died, the FELA claim belongs to their personal representative, the person handling the estate, and it is brought on behalf of the husband or wife and children left behind.