East Palestine train derailment

[al_infierno]

Adding to the insanity, a security camera spotted the train with flames/sparks flying a good 20 miles before the derailment site.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/video-shows-sparks-or-flames-20-miles-before-train-derailment-in-east-palestine/

[Sir Slash]

My understanding is that Gov. Dewine was acting off the info given him by the EPA like everybody else since they were the agency in charge of the accident. The same group that told local residents it was safe to return home and drink the water. Also, I don't believe the Emergency Brakes that were supposed to be installed on the trains ever were. You would think that a Trillion dollars for Infrastructure that the Administration said it had to have might have been used for that first.

[GDS_Starfury]

1. you would think that the prior administration wouldnt have repealed the rule to begin with.
2. with the state of our infrastructure as it is, its going to take years to get to and complete all the projects.
funny that you're complaining about the brevity of asset allocation when one side of the hill fought tooth and nail to kill the legislation that would provide the very fixes you demand now.

[Jarhead0331]

1. you would think that the prior administration wouldnt have repealed the rule to begin with.
2. with the state of our infrastructure as it is, its going to take years to get to and complete all the projects.
funny that you're complaining about the brevity of asset allocation when one side of the hill fought tooth and nail to kill the legislation that would provide the very fixes you demand now.

You're doing exactly what you said you wouldn't do. Making it political. You are the one that mentioned Trump and the prior administration as if the accident is his fault too. Ridiculous. Do not make this political. I specifically said to keep politics out of this. If you can't help yourself, leave.

[Groggy]

I also think its rather silly that the Ohio governor would state that hes got it covered.
https://newrepublic.com/post/170591/train-derailment-ohio-governor-mike-dewine-im-not-seeing-problems

I guess the governor doesn't see any problems with the Ohio department of natural resources stating that the chemicals have killed 3,500 fish across 7.5 miles of streams in the area.

[GDS_Starfury]

You're doing exactly what you said you wouldn't do. Making it political. You are the one that mentioned Trump and the prior administration as if the accident is his fault too. Ridiculous. Do not make this political. I specifically said to keep politics out of this. If you can't help yourself, leave.

there is a chain of events that led to this happening.  I also mentioned that the current administration had two years to reverse the rules change.  I'm blaming both administrations and cant be more even handed about it.

[Jarhead0331]

You're doing exactly what you said you wouldn't do. Making it political. You are the one that mentioned Trump and the prior administration as if the accident is his fault too. Ridiculous. Do not make this political. I specifically said to keep politics out of this. If you can't help yourself, leave.

there is a chain of events that led to this happening.  I also mentioned that the current administration had two years to reverse the rules change.  I'm blaming both administrations and cant be more even handed about it.

Let's not blame any administration, because, as you said, and then went on to so aptly demonstrate, it quickly gets political. There are plenty of worthwhile issues to discuss that have nothing to do with which president or executive officer is responsible for the tragedy.

[W8taminute]

So there has been other derailments as well.  One in Texas and yesterday one in Tennessee. 

[JasonPratt]

Hm, haven't heard about the one in TN yet. Will check around.

I saw something yesterday suggesting that the EPA set fire to the chemicals intentionally as the fastest and relatively safest way to get rid of them. Seemed like speculation to me, but I'll keep an eye out for anything further along that line.

As for legislation, I'm somewhat doubtful any administration killed legislation that would ONLY have provided safety brakes on chemical trains. Pork in the legislation was more likely the target, which would also explain why the next administration didn't get it passed again (or maybe even try). But I'm only guessing, because I don't know the details yet. I have heard that the infrastructure bill last year (which I don't even recall whether it passed!) only had about 20% of its cash allocated to actual infrastructure. Which might be an exaggeration against the bill, admittedly. Whatever the case in this instance, it's common knowledge that useful things get held hostage by pork interests in legislative bills on a routine basis, leading to propaganda complaints that attempts to stop or reverse such bills are aimed against the useful things. My a priori inductive expectation (which is admittedly not deductive, and also subject to specific evidence), is that the brakes were victims of that kind of political infighting, not targets.

We'll probably hear more about it from our political overlords on all sides, if so. 

[JasonPratt]

Now I'm hearing there have been three chemical train derailments since Ohio: Texas, Arizona, and South Carolina. Arizona had a shelter-in-place order for a while. Will see if I can find more specific details. Haven't found TN yet.

Did see something about 2.75 average US derailments per day; but I know from personal experience those can be very, very minor: the tracks I cross every day multiple times have a few "derails" per year near a particular crossing, but those have so far only ever been technical detection of rail problems.

[JasonPratt]

Currently, I don't think there have been any TN derailments since OH, and none involving chemicals for the past couple of years. There was some concern over the Ohio spill-and-fire causing environmental problems in Middle TN, but that's different. (And apparently won't be a problem.)

[Windigo]

Pipelines are safer than rail.... just saying that

[steve58]

With the recent derailments in the news, it got me wondering about any RR tracks near me. This map seemed to show the most info:  National Rail Network.

p.s.  changing the base map to Navigation or Street really helps show how close any tracks are to your location.

[Sir Slash]

I would agree that pipelines are much safer than RR's especially in their current state. I don't believe all the chemicals in the tank cars could've been moved by pipeline, however I'm sure the tech exists to increase the ability to use them for many of the chemicals now moved by rail. That would have also been a good use of Federal dollars for Infrastructure.

I have heard the railroad, Norfolk Southern I believe, gave a lot of political donations to both parties over the years. Clearly they thought having friends in high places was necessary.

My little town has almost no trains run through it anymore. While I miss them, I'm kind of glad about that right now.

[JasonPratt]

Pipelines are safer than rail.... just saying that

A perverse side of my mind now wants to search for articles of truck drivers colliding with pipelines...! 

It does bring up the topic of what would be involved for a pipeline distribution system of all the hazardous chemicals we use in the US. Seems nightmarish to me, on first consideration: most pipelines wouldn't be able to handle different chemicals for example.

Meanwhile, with Steve's link, I was surprised to see how few rail-lines TN actually has. I feel like I see them everywhere all the time, but that might only be due to mostly going to areas along the few rail lines.