Train derailment and chemical spill in Ohio

Drove through that town this summer because I'm a cheap motherfucker who didn't want to pay tolls on the Pennsy/Ohio Turnpikes going from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. That's all I got on East Palestine.

Trains are kind of my jam, though. If you think there's issues with stockholder influence in journalism? Try the rail industry on for size.

Not to go too far down the rathole, but the popular wave among the major railroads is PSR, Precision Scheduled Railroading. Norfolk Southern is among the railroads that have gone to PSR.

In a nutshell, it calls for much longer trains than was traditionally accepted (or allowed) as recently as a decade ago. It also calls for cutting down crew sizes as well as support staff. One of the big things at issue in the near-rail strike was the long hours railroad workers are forced to work.

Whether any of this had to do with the derailment? Who knows? If the issue was within one of the "trucks" (wheels) than it's entirely possible something was missed in an inspection. Either due to negligence, an inexperienced worker (like every other industry, the pandemic caused a mass exodus of workers who were tired of long, often dangerous, hours), a tired worker or all of the above. It could also just be a bad luck mechanical failure.

The train came from the St. Louis area and there is not a direct NS line from St. Louis to Pittsburgh, so it likely passed through at least a yard or two before it got to Ohio, but that doesn't mean the car would have been looked at.

Certainly a but-the-Grace-of-God-go-I moment. The place I'm living in probably has 30-50 trains a day with two mainlines converging. Rail is vital, and in almost all cases west of the Appalachians, was there before the towns/cities developed, so they have rights above that of the towns/cities they are mostly ignored in as background noise, but this could happen anywhere.

 

Front page of the Post (website):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/14/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-chemicals/

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Eleven days after a train derailed, spilling toxic chemicals and causing a massive fire here, officials told residents Tuesday to use bottled water until testing could confirm whether the local water supply was safe to drink — heightening concern among some locals who were already wary of returning to their homes.

 

But think of all the jobs created by this!

 

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tr...ule-requiring-new-oil-train-brakes/660446204/

https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2021/0...nically-controlled-pneumatic-braking-systems/

APNewsBreak: US miscalculated benefit of better train brakes

President Donald Trump’s administration miscalculated the potential benefits of putting better brakes on trains that haul explosive fuels when it scrapped an Obama-era rule over cost concerns, The Associated Press has found.

A government analysis used to justify the cancellation omitted up to $117 million in estimated future damages from train derailments that could be avoided by using electronic brakes. Revelation of the error stoked renewed criticism Thursday from the rule’s supporters, who called the analysis biased.

Department of Transportation officials acknowledged the mistake after it was discovered by the AP during a review of federal documents. They said a correction will be published to the federal register.

 

Mayor Pete and DeWine, who said Biden is doing all he can
Meanwhile Fox is downplaying the MSU shooting except for the “soft on crime” prosecutor who dropped Anthony McRae’s gun conviction to a misdemeanor from a felony

 

What We Know About the Train Derailment in Ohio

Yes, the MSM is completely ignoring this story.

 

We're nearly two weeks out from the crash itself. Now it's a different story - about a slower moving longterm environmental disaster.

After the Ohio Train Derailment: Evacuations, Toxic Chemicals and Water Worries

 

Previously posted:

Dead fish found in Leslie Run near East Palestine train derailment

Rail union calling for tighter safety guidelines

 

My father was a railroad analyst for years, and aside from sports, I covered transit and transportation for a while.

You're absolutely right about stockholder influence and PSR, but some of the problems go back a lot further, specifically to the Staggers Act of 1980 that deregulated railroads in the wake of the collapse of the Penn Central. A lot of that deregulation produced good results - lower freight costs, specifically, that brought a lot of traffic back to the railroads, as well as producing innovation, not the least of which was double-stacking containers. All of that started the Class I's back towards profitability, and then PSR really helped them squeeze the proverbial lemon and make a lot more money.

Over the past 20 years, PSR and crew reductions have enabled most of the Class I railroads to make handsome profits. But don't be fooled - longer trains carrying wildly varied mixtures of cars and freight with fewer crew members and fewer lineside employees observing trains is a recipe for something like this to happen.

For the most part, deregulation has been great for the rail industry. That said, the railroads, perhaps more than any other industry, have benefitted from the largesse of the government, first with land grants, then creation of Amtrak to take money-losing passenger service off their books (while the government heavily subsided airline competition, but I digress), then the creation of Conrail out of the ashes of PC, then deregulation and more recently, the mergers of Class I's into behemoths that essentially control rail shipping in the U.S.

The more you let an industry push the envelope of what's allowed and what's safe, the more likely something like this (or Lac Megantic) will happen.

 

Stories like the oil train brakes policy reversal always make me wonder . . .

Conventional wisdom says Trump seemed to pay little or no attention to matters his daily briefers handed him each morning. Just sat around watching Fox News and railing at whatever irked him on any particular day.

How does he even KNOW about a previous policy to require better brakes on oil trains? Who would have briefed him on such minutiae? How many people on this board had never heard of it before this derailment (raises hand)? UNLESS he literally hired someone to build a list of every Obama policy . . . with plans to just reverse as many as he could. Because he could.

 

Lobbyists. Contributors. Appointees.

Trump and the Rail Industry Had a Great First Year Together

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-e...admin-rolls-back-obama-oil-train-safety-rule/

Trump rail safety oversight in focus after Amtrak crash

Trump names asphalt lobbyist to lead transportation team transition

 

I didn't hear about this for the first week. If a freight train carrying oil crashes and catches fire, that should be a national story because of the environmental effects.

Same for Quebec. No news about it, even regionally, until days afterward.