HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- CSX Transportation Inc. employees in Huntington's Locomotive Shop say safety is a daily part of their routine, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

CSX, the third largest freight railroad in the United States, no longer uses the chlorinated solvents whose long-term application by workers across the country has been linked by some doctors to brain damage.

Solvent use of any sort has dwindled to almost nothing, while giant washing machines up to 50 feet long and 20 feet tall have taken over the greasy, dirty task of cleaning locomotive parts.

"We basically don't use solvents any more," Huntington shop manager Jerry McClellan told The Courier-Journal of Louisville in the paper's four-part series on solvent exposure in the railroad industry.

But things were different 30 years ago, when McClellan started out as a machinist apprentice at the South Louisville Shops.

"Safety was talked about, but it wasn't always enforced," McClellan said.

In solvent-related lawsuits filed against Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX, current and former employees relate how workers used 55-gallon drums of chlorinated solvents to clean locomotives, sometimes getting dizzy or passing out from the fumes.

Today, the only solvents present at CSX maintenance shops are small "spray sinks" with a recirculating 28-gallon supply of 140 solvent, a type of mineral spirit considered less toxic than chlorinated solvents.

"Currently the railroad has taken a very responsible position in limiting additional problems in railroad workers," said Dr. Douglas H. Linz, an occupational and environmental medicine specialist from Cincinnati.

CSX officials said the chlorinated solvents were phased out in the mid-1980s as chemical manufacturers introduced products that cost less, worked better or were safer.

"From our standpoint, it was a question of availability," said Edward H. Stopher, an attorney for CSX who handled many of the solvent lawsuits.

McClellan said since 1998 the company has focused on a collaborative approach it calls the "new social compact" that encourages employees to participate in workplace decisions. One result was the institution of employee safety committees to involve workers in safety improvements.