So, who is in eastern Ohio/western PA? You guys good? You evacuated?

aircooled said:

mtn said:

 

....Remember those railroad workers wanting to strike, but they couldn't? They were concerned with running on unsafe skeleton crews who would not be able to properly maintain the lines, or prevent/respond to emergencies....

This could also very much be an "oh, so you don't think it's unsafe and you won't let us strike.... watch what happens now" kind of thing.

Could go either way, or niether.   No way to know at this point.

Maybe I have too rosy a view humanity, but... That is quite the allegation. 

iansane said:

Duke said:

iansane said:

I just have such a hard time imagining that a rational human being thinks 'fireball hundreds of feet in the air' is the solution to hazardous chemical spill.

Are you a chemist or an environmental scientist or a disaster response expert?

I sure as hell am not.

Just because it seems counterintuitive to a layperson does not mean it's irrational.

You're definitely not wrong there. I'm ignorant to the proper response in this situation. Maybe 'rational human' is the wrong verbage here. Layperson, like how you describe, is probably more apt.

Was the fireball the least worst option they had?

The giant fireball was by far the cheapest option for the parties financially responsible for this mess.

Remember the burn was initiated, something like 10 days after the crash.  You could have brought in multiple highway truck tankers and transferred the chemicals over instead of lighting the whole thing ablaze and poising the air and water.

Indy - Guy said:

 

 

The giant fireball was by far the cheapest option for the parties financially responsible for this mess.

 

Remember the burn was initiated, something like 10 days after the crash.  You could have brought in multiple highway truck tankers and transferred the chemicals over instead of lighting the whole thing ablaze and poising the air and water.

Sorry for quoting myself, but it would have taken someone high up to co-ordinate a quick enviromentally friendly and safe response to this accident.  Some one like the Transportation Secretary.  I wonder why the person in that position has been so silent on this event?

Rumor I heard is the crew was made aware something was wrong but was told by management to keep going.  No idea if that is accurate or not, but knowing NS, it would not surprise me.  

eastsideTim said:

Rumor I heard is the crew was made aware something was wrong but was told by management to keep going.  No idea if that is accurate or not, but knowing NS, it would not surprise me.  

Might have been the FLAMING WHEEL for roughly 20 miles:

eastsideTim said:

Rumor I heard is the crew was made aware something was wrong but was told by management to keep going.  No idea if that is accurate or not, but knowing NS, it would not surprise me.  

If they can prove that, that would be jail time for whoever made that call. 

volvoclearinghouse said:

eastsideTim said:

Rumor I heard is the crew was made aware something was wrong but was told by management to keep going.  No idea if that is accurate or not, but knowing NS, it would not surprise me.  

If they can prove that, that would be jail time for whoever made that call. 

Yup, jail time for that one person. But not the manager who pushed to keep the trains moving at any cost, or the director who cut the budgets, or the VP who put profits over safety, or the CEO who ultimate drove the entire company culture. But that one guy who made that call is screwed when they choose to scapegoat them.

Indy - Guy said:

Indy - Guy said:

 

The giant fireball was by far the cheapest option for the parties financially responsible for this mess.

 

Remember the burn was initiated, something like 10 days after the crash.  You could have brought in multiple highway truck tankers and transferred the chemicals over instead of lighting the whole thing ablaze and poising the air and water.

Sorry for quoting myself, but it would have taken someone high up to co-ordinate a quick enviromentally friendly and safe response to this accident.  Some one like the Transportation Secretary.  I wonder why the person in that position has been so silent on this event?

 I'm not an expert in this field, but my understanding is that railroads have been lobbying for many years (across multiple leadership regimes) to fight against increased safety regulations.. Previous political leaders have taken steps to loosen or completely eliminate regulations, and current leaders have done nothing to reverse that decision.

Not speculating that better brakes would've completely prevented this kind of derailment, but they would've likely limited the scope of the damage. Same is likely true for the bearing monitoring system that VCH mentioned.

The rail line that runs parallel to most of my commute recently underwent upgrades to allow for longer, heavier trains running at higher speeds. But the trains themselves did not undergo any upgrades as far as I know. Increasing safety measures as risk level increases seems prudent to me. If railroad companies are going to take steps that increase potential for bad things to occur in the name of making more money, then I think it's acceptable to consider requiring a higher level of safety measures as well.

For starters, with the FRA involved (which I have to believe they would be) this would not end with jailing one guy and calling it good. This could likely get into some very serious penalties and infractions, particularly if blatant CFR statutes have been violated.  The railroad is extremely heavily regulated. 

Locomotives and railcars are pretty old technology, but there are still safety advancements being made. PTC (positive train control) is one that happened relatively recently.  But as with all technology, there are limits. The bearing monitoring system I mentioned sounds simple, but now imagine implementing it across 1.6 million rail cars and 28,000 locomotives in this country, all of which are constantly being shuffled around, maintained at different shops, and subject to all sorts of weather and abuse.  Think of the false positives and the operational impact. Conversely, think about if it fails, and railroads have become reliant on it to tell them if there's anything wrong...

Finally, there's the sheer physics involved in moving that quantity of goods at those speeds. Some famous celebrity had a pretty well known quote about that...

volvoclearinghouse said:

For starters, with the FRA involved (which I have to believe they would be) this would not end with jailing one guy and calling it good. This could likely get into some very serious penalties and infractions, particularly if blatant CFR statutes have been violated.  The railroad is extremely heavily regulated. 

Locomotives and railcars are pretty old technology, but there are still safety advancements being made. PTC (positive train control) is one that happened relatively recently.  But as with all technology, there are limits. The bearing monitoring system I mentioned sounds simple, but now imagine implementing it across 1.6 million rail cars and 28,000 locomotives in this country, all of which are constantly being shuffled around, maintained at different shops, and subject to all sorts of weather and abuse.  Think of the false positives and the operational impact. Conversely, think about if it fails, and railroads have become reliant on it to tell them if there's anything wrong...

Finally, there's the sheer physics involved in moving that quantity of goods at those speeds. Some famous celebrity had a pretty well known quote about that...

Not sure those are good arguments against implementing any of these safety measures.

Yeah, it'll cost to implement everything.  The alternative is what is already being called the single worst man-made ecological disaster in US history (personally I think its early to label it the worst, but its probably in the top 10.)  Personally I'd rather a corporation pay for these changes than US citizens be forced to live in a zone of death, but let's be real they railroads wouldn't pay for it.  Govt would step in and subsidize most of it, and the railroads would still jack their prices up using the safety measures as an excuse.

False positives will quickly get weeded out as the system improves and bugs are worked out.  As happens with every system. 

If it fails, then we are at the exact same place in time as we are at right now without them.  They aren't using these safety measures and are already exceeding proper safe operational boundaries.  So whats the difference?

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I'm not arguing against implementing them.  The opposite, actually.  As I said, I'm involved with them.  And I said nothing about the cost.  My concerns, as stated above, are from an engineering aspect.  

And again, as I've said before, operational safety on the RR is _everyone's_ job.  If you see a train going by, if you're out on the tracks, your priority as a railway worker is to watch that train for defects as it passes by.  How this train got 20+ miles down the track with flaming wheels absolutely boggles my mind.  

In reply to slefain :

Imagine the wildfires if that had happened out west...

In reply to Indy - Guy :

The burn was initiated 3 days after the crash on 2/6 per NPR.  

What do the railroads do with all that profit besides paying lobbyists, shareholders and upper management?

What benefit serves the public by railroads and tracks being operated by profit-motivated companies? The profit being generated doesn't seem to making the railroads any better. It's not like those billions of dollars is creating a new lines or reestablishing old ones.

Seems to me that excess profits should be taxed, with railroads expected to either hire more people, spend more money on maintenance, or buy new equipment, ie capital investment. 

In reply to pheller :

Buying new isn't always the answer.  At any given time the Class 1 RR's park and report the numbers. How many locomotives are parked?

When I was selling to a locomotive manufacturer the high number was bad news to me.  This information is over 14 years old but gives you an idea about a down time.  If we park a lot of units we aren't buying new ones. 

Then 8 years ago the EPA changed to Tier 4 emissions and they changed the engines from 2-cycle to 4-cycle and they ran like crap and cost more money. 

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), or whatever different railroads want to call it, has probably also reduced demand, since smaller shippers are getting pushed to truck-based shipping.  Which is a bummer, I'd rather as much as possible be transported by rail as far as possible.

John Welsh said:

In reply to Indy - Guy :

I too learned about on GRM. I knew Raianna was pregnant (via the algorithm) before I knew about this...in my own state. 

I'm not sure what that says about media and I'm not sure what it says about me. 

I am as anti-celebrity as they come, and I saw that lady was pregnant three or four times, and I don't have a clue who she is.

This is a disaster, and environmental issues are not traditionally dealt with. I grew up a few miles from Onondaga lake, which had 165,000 lb of mercury poured into it among other things.

I am so sorry for all of you who live nearby.

In reply to tuna55 :

That's scary all that Mercury.

Datsun310Guy said:

In reply to pheller :

Buying new isn't always the answer.  At any given time the Class 1 RR's park and report the numbers. How many locomotives are parked?

When I was selling to a locomotive manufacturer the high number was bad news to me.  This information is over 14 years old but gives you an idea about a down time.  If we park a lot of units we aren't buying new ones. 

Then 8 years ago the EPA changed to Tier 4 emissions and they changed the engines from 2-cycle to 4-cycle and they ran like crap and cost more money. 

Neither of the major American manufacturers have built and sold a new locomotive for domestic use since 2014, as far as I know. Amtrak just bought those new passenger locomotives from Siemens that have the new crazy emissions and they're a disaster. They're having all sorts of reduced power issues from the selective catalyst system in cold conditions.

In reply to eastsideTim :

Hunter Harrison - he's the guy!  

I was asked to re-quote my hose prices to CSX when he took over.  We were asked to quote a 3-year fixed price.  We had just held our prices to them for six years so I gave them the same pricing - no change in pricing will amount to 9 years.  Who does that?

They pulled my contract and I lost $250,000/year worth of hose business which is a lot of air and welding hoses.  The reason I was told was that I didn't decrease my prices so HH directed the buyers to pull the business.  

So I'm not a fan. 

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Things went to hell when Hunter Harrison started going to different railroads and leaving his PSR proteges everywhere.

NickD said:

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Things went to hell when Hunter Harrison started going to different railroads and leaving his PSR proteges everywhere.

Yes, it all went to hell except for his checkbook, well, now his wife's checkbook.  

Datsun310Guy said:

NickD said:

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Things went to hell when Hunter Harrison started going to different railroads and leaving his PSR proteges everywhere.

Yes, it all went to hell except for his checkbook, well, now his wife's checkbook.  

On paper and in moderation, some aspects of PSR aren't a terrible idea. It's doing more with what you have and being more efficient. The problem is that it was taken to extremes. Now, they've made themselves so efficient (sarcasm) that any time they have any sort of fluctuation in traffic, they don't have enough locomotives, they don't have enough crews, they don't have enough trackage. They're penny wise and pound foolish, and they're entirely beholden to the shareholders and not the customers. Hunter Harrison strongarmed customers at Canadian National to make them ship on his schedule (everyone wanted to ship on Friday, so he cranked rates up on Fridays to try and balance shipments through the week) and instead ran most of them off. CN spent years trying to repair relations after he left. When the STB held hearings this summer to try and sort things out with traffic disruptions, CSX was the only one that bothered to even send someone (CEO Jim Foote) and when asked things like "Well how many employees do you plan to hire?" he just shrugged and said no clue. And then after the hearings were done, Foote fell on his sword and resigned.

Indy - Guy said:

trigun7469 said:

.....I wish the passion from Hollywood would attack diaster such as this rather then ......

The silence (and/or very low volume) from the media is shocking.

There are a number of questions that need to be answered, some of which are:

• What's the root cause of the accident?
• Is the cause coincidental with the timing of the recent rail workers strike and government intervention to get them back to work?
• The wreck happened over 10 days ago, why is it that I only first heard of it here on GRM? (lack of media coverage?)
• Why wasn't there a hazardous spill response plan in place for this?  and why did it fail so miserably?
• Why the "controlled" burn instead of a proper "dig and clean up"
• So much hype about carbon foot print reduction, but this exponentially worse disaster barely gets a peep?

Somebody's head should roll for this.  I'm not sure who, and how many heads yet, but this is a colossal failure that will have lasting generational ramifications.

We heard about it 10 days later from FOX news, by then the contaminants were already being found in the Ohio River.  

Yes, heads should roll but which ones?  The problem is that this administration is inept from the very top.

In reply to NickD :

I believe EMD was still selling 710's in Tier 3 guise using credits for a few years after that. But yeah, Tier 4 is where it's at now and they have been a clusterberkeley.