AIKEN--Letters show officials have long been concerned about train speeds through Graniteville with one even warning of a potential derailment and chemical spill unless speeds were reduced.

The letters were discovered after a Norfolk Southern train carrying a chlorine tanker hit another parked train last month, putting a fist-sized hole in a tanker and released a toxic vapor cloud killing nine people and injuring 250 more.

The exact cause of the crash has not been determined, but investigators say a three-man crew that parked a two-car train on a spur rail failed to switch the tracks back to the main rail.

The letters from 1998 and 2001 were obtained by the Aiken Standard newspaper. They show the rail company has been asked to slow speeds through at least two different South Carolina towns.

A letter from Rep. Roland Smith dated Sept. 9, 1998, asked the state Transportation Department for assistance in slowing the trains and improving safety at four Graniteville intersections, including the crossing where five people died just months before the Jan. 6 chemical spill.

Smith, R-Langley, wrote the letter after then-Aiken County Council member Joel Randall expressed concern that trains moved too fast "through a community with the traffic, a middle school, and big textile plants."

Randall wanted the trains to be slowed or other safety measures employed "to avoid disasters such as a chemical spill, if there were to be an accident involving a derailment," Smith wrote in his letter.

Randall told the newspaper Wednesday that he sent a letter to Norfolk Southern about the same time as Smith's letter, asking the railroad voluntarily slow the trains through Graniteville. He said he received a response, but "the issue was not addressed."

State Transportation Department documents show the speed through Graniteville was set at 49 mph in 1988.

Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Susan Terpay said Thursday that she hadn't seen the letters but that the company had planned to meet with Graniteville officials after the November accident.

After that incident, Smith wrote the state agency urging the addition of crossing arms. That letter came a day after the Aiken County Council passed a resolution asking the agency to install gates at 10 intersections and reduce train speed limits.

Terpay said train speeds are determined by geographical features and track shape.