Train derailment and chemical spill in Ohio

I'm sure this isn't the end of it.

I figure he'll sue. Or NewsNation will. Or the ACLU or PEN or the CPJ or RSF, etc.

Here's the statement from the OHIO AG:

Charges Dismissed for NewsNation Reporter in East Palestine - Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

 

True, derailments have dropped, largely because the industry has transitioned to welded rail and cement ties on lines that see heavy traffic over the last 50 years. The days of 39-foot "stick rail" are in the past, for the most part, though for the amount of weight that they carry, railroad tracks are shockingly fragile.

Most derailments happen either in yards or industrial switching situations. It's when trains derail at speed that injuries happen, and when trains derail at speed carrying hazardous materials, catastrophes happen, which is why mainline tracks have to be inspected twice each week.

Edited to add: Also significant is the strengthening of rules against alcohol and drugs in the workplace in the wake of the Gunpowder Falls wreck, where a Conrail locomotive operated by a stoned engineer blocked the mainline and was hit by a packed Amtrak train. Ask anyone who worked on the railroad up until then - it used to be a rolling party. Not anymore, and we're all safer for it, though the railroads want to take away things like Operation RedBlock, which allows railroad employees to decline a call to work if they've been consuming alcohol, as labor contracts are renegotiated.

 

Safety Fourth

‘32 Nasty:’ Rail Workers Say They Knew the Train That Derailed in East Palestine Was Dangerous

On the evening of February 3, Norfolk Southern train 32N derailed just outside of East Palestine, Ohio, 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Thirty-eight of the train’s 150 cars plowed into each other and thundered to the ground. Some of the cars then burst into flames, and the flames damaged another 12 cars.

Of those dozens of derailed cars, five were tankers containing vinyl chloride, an industrial chemical used to make hard plastic. Breathing in vinyl chloride, which can happen if it gets into the air or water supply, is a known risk for various types of cancers.

Initially, the tankers containing the vinyl chloride did their jobs, protecting the dangerous chemical from leaking. But a rapid temperature change made Norfolk Southern worried the tankers wouldn’t hold, which would produce a massive explosion and release the known carcinogen into the air and ground just outside a town where thousands of people live. They chose to burn it instead, creating a giant smoke cloud that rose high into the air.

 

Now that’s not fair. Look at the bright side.

 

Trains are waaaaaaaaay longer now than they ever were when I grew up. The town I grew up in and the town I love in now have one zooming through every few minutes. You’ll sit there for a while as they go through.

 

Automated trackside detectors are supposed to detect and announce via radio to train crews overheating journals which, if left unchecked, can catch fire and cause a catastrophic wheel/axle failure. That video appears to show just that, as well as active fire along the bottom of the following covered hopper car. Problem or not, crews are supposed to acknowledge the detectors. Unless the detector issues an error message, which happens.

 

After Ohio train derailment, residents are living the plot of a movie they helped make

 

There were two employees and a trainee on that train. It was so long the guy in front could not see the end of the train.

 

Some hand-picked misinformation to watch out for as you do the rounds on social media. Doomer Twitter and tankies are licking all this up and dutifully spreading it in English.

 

Yep. They are called “hot box detectors”.

When one detects a problem, the dispatcher radios the train to stop.

1970s technology on these detectors would tell the dispatcher exactly how many axles went by before the alert, and from there, the dispatcher could tell the crew exactly which car had the overheating axle.

From there, after a crew walk down inspection and a bit of a cool down, the train would be directed to the nearest siding where that bad order car could be set off, and then the rest of the train resume.

I’m not sure what the hell happened here - failure in detectors or human failure or both, but this kind of thing has been preventable for over 50 years.

I’ll keep asking around. I know some NS people.

 

Regardless of train length, the only way you can get a good eyeball on the cars is when you go through a curve. This is one role of the Fireman.

And the ability to see any significant length of a train depends on the curve, the terrain (curve around a hillside or through a cut further restricts the view), and vegetation/trees.

The only real trains that you can eyeball all the way to the end are passenger trains.

Unless you are out in flyover country or Wile E. Coyote terrain. Out there you might be able to see the full length of a two mile long train.

 

Crew in cabooses used to be helpful in eyeing track and train from the hind end, but that's ancient history as the railroads and feds decades ago teamed up to eliminate cabooses and further reduce the number of Train & Engine (T&E) employees. A retired lawyer I know in the rulemaking called riding in the caboose "a known danger" as part of their horseshit campaign to weaken the unions.