If only we could do something about this problem which got inexplicably worse when we worsened regulations and working conditions...
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Consumers will choose to buy products from companies who don't spill molten sulfur so the invisible hand of the market will fix this situation any moment now.
Aaaany moment now.
A few years ago, a CSX train carrying acrylonitrile had an axle snap and derailed in my town, igniting in the process, and creating a huge plume of cyanide gas. It was a damned miracle nobody was killed.
The response from CSX was impressive. I have no complaints about how they handled it AFTER it happened. However, and it only recently occurred to me, but that response that was so well oiled, rehearsed, and organized… they’ve CLEARLY had WAY too much experience doing this; way too many times they’ve had to sweep into a town and “handle” things after a derailment of a hazmat train.
Maybe… just maybe they should consider putting a little more emphasis on upgrading and maintaining their equipment. Maybe they wouldn’t have to have so many teams ready to sweep in and manage the medium-sized ecological catastrophes that happen so often.
Two different teams. Sounds like the response team has some real winners on it and the maintenance team doesn't, or, lacks budget
Cheaper to respond once in a while than to prevent fleet wide. Capitalism alone settles on cost efficacy.
Maintenance teams are discouraged from marking trains and rails for maintenance because delays impact profits.
https://www.propublica.org/article/railroad-safety-union-pacific-csx-bnsf-trains-freight
Bradley Haynes and his colleagues were the last chance Union Pacific had to stop an unsafe train from leaving one of its railyards. Skilled in spotting hidden dangers, the inspectors in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote up so-called “bad orders” to pull defective cars out of assembled trains and send them for repairs.
But on Sept. 18, 2019, the area’s director of maintenance, Andrew Letcher, scolded them for hampering the yard’s ability to move trains on time.
“We’re a transportation company, right? We get paid to move freight. We don’t get paid to work on cars,” he said. “The first thing that I’m getting questioned about right now, every day, is why we’re over 200 bad orders and what we’re doing to get them down. … If I was an inspector on a train,” he continued, “I would probably let some of that nitpicky shit go.”
“I would probably let some of that nitpicky shit go.”
I'm guessing 'nitpicky shit' is things like 'loose wheels.'
Perhaps we can pay large sums to the companies to fix the infrastructure, if they feel like it.
Here we go again...
When molten sulfur is on fire, it releases hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas. So that's fun!
Ahh yes, transporting hazardous chemicals on antiquated infrastructure. What a time to be alive.
The free market cannot provide safe railways, they must be nationalized!
mobile molten sulpher. wtaf
Yep. I live in a big train town. Molten sulfur trains pass through all the time. And don't I feel good about it!
My dad was working for a company that moved liquid molten steel by train every day.
That's actually safer. It will only do pretty localized damage. It won't spread a huge cloud of poisonous gases.
Not to mention, in theory, moving something on a fixed track seems safer than any other alternatives we have. WAY safer than by truck or by plane.
If only we didn't have such an outdated and monopolized rail in this country. THAT is what makes it unsafe. Capitalism.
I question how much work there has been in eliminating the need to transport these sort of chemicals long distances at all. I imagine it has a lot to do with cost, which, again, is a capitalism issue.
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OK, it will cool down eventually and leave a mess that would probably a nightmare to remove, but at least no poisonous fumes, that's right.
i know people have done the math... money talks... but that seems so inefficient!
Just imagine you have a tight spot on the map full of industry. You need to expand, but there simply is no space around the existing site. But you cannot move the original site, as it is vital to be next to the harbour. So you have to open a second site somewhere else and get the logistics right.
So just like wheat and flour moves from the farmer to the mill and on to the baker, they moved liquid steel from the blast furnaces to the foundry and rolling mill.
Why is molten steel transported? That sounds bonkers. I’ve never heard of it.
Is it like a cement truck situation?
The original plant with the blast furnaces is directly at the harbor. As this site is surrounded on all sides with other industrial zones and the cities themselves, they built new foundries and rolling mills on a second site. They get (or got, IDK) the liquid steel delivered in rail cars designed for this one purpose. Obviously they are heavily insulated, so they are "just warm" on the outside.
I have to admit that my knowledge of this is old, I don't even know if the blast furnaces are still running there...
I love that we’ve switched to reactionary response. US is slowly transitioning to reactionary air travel as well.
The more we can get people to react poorly to the thought of rail lines the more government money we can funnel into highways and kick backs for the auto industry!! Woooh!
Aviation has always been reactionary. Change comes from finding the cause of accidents, and unfortunately it’s somewhat difficult to do until after that type of accident happens. In the 60s and 70s it was common for passenger jets to just crash in to mountains when there was nothing wrong with them. We implemented better navigational technology, and warning systems that detect obstacles in the plane’s path to prevent this from happening.
Everyone who is harmed by this is a sacrifice the government was willing to make in order to maximize profits for their owners.
Thanks again, Trump!
Not entirely. Derailments like this were pretty much expected to increase at...right about this point after Reagan deregulated the entire rail industry. Take away any expectations of the railways to maintain their rails, cars, or engines, and couple that with an industry that believes in cutting everything to the bone in order to maximize profits in a way that's almost unrivaled, and you get this happening more and more. Already before this, railways in the US were averaging 1000+ freight derailments per year over the last decade - to put this in perspective, the entire EU averages half that in a year for their freight network.
There is an oil pipeline runs under the Mackinac Bridge in the great lakes. The pipeline is 70 years old, 20 years past its end-of-life. Majority of Michiganders are against replacing it and want it shut down before the inevitable happens. The oil company and the nation of Canada oppose this because $$$. Now that it looks like it will be shut down the oil company is finally suggesting replacing it (they could have 20 years ago and probably got a 50yr extension too). The fact that it wasn't automatically shut down 20 years ago and the previous governments decided to roll the dice is unbelievable. We can live without the oil but if it ruptures then it will devastate our environment. I wish the US govt took this and these train derailments with the seriousness they deserve.
Seems all the problems in this country can be traced back to that fuck.
Regan probably had a hand in 9/11 at this point, it's the only thing that makes sense, lol.
Is that not expected when you have 224k miles of rail vs 94k? Doesn’t the US also move vastly more in their network?
The only way to legitimately compare them would be for incidence per travelled mile. Saying they have double the incidences with over twice the rail is almost bordering on propaganda without the right metrics.
This is not a safe standard, because it allows more total incidents if there is more mileage. The goal should be as few incidents as possible regardless of the amount of rail. You are doing what your insurance company does to you and your family.
If a place has 10x the population and only 5x the rate, it’s half the incident rate. That is safer no how you try and twist it.
500 incidences with 1 million people is far safer than 500 incidences with 500k.
You say I’m doing what the insurance companies are doing, yet you’re the one actually perpetuating biased information. I’m pointing out that people are being lied to, and you claiming I’m wrong is what’s wrong with the world. You believe this propaganda lmfao.
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Can also confirm that a pretty big one happened before Trump: the one that happened in Brooks, KY in 2007.
The whole area smelled funky for a couple years after the derailment... And was also CSX.
right about this point
40 years later?
He should declare a state of emergency regarding the general safety of the trains instead.