Better prepare for some more is the water safe to drink or air safe to breathe posts over the next few days /s

>Crazy these seem to happen more and more

Like so many other things, these have happened before and probably used to happen a lot more than they do now but they have become a big news story after East Liverpool

Exactly. Nothing new, people are just paying attention at the moment.

This 💯 https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1161921856/there-are-about-3-u-s-train-derailments-per-day-they-arent-usually-major-disaste#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20there%20were%20more,roughly%20three%20derailments%20per%20day.

Claiming train derailments are happening more and more is flat out not true.

[deleted]

[removed]

Problem is, that statement is true. Yes, the raw number of derailments is down. But that's not a very useful statistic. They're running more miles than ever as the economy continually grows. If you look at derailments per million train miles, which is a better metric to look at, Norfolk Southern and CSX (both the big operators in this region) have both had increases in derailments per million train miles over the past decade, especially within the last few years for NS. A very big spike in NS derailments per million train miles. Very worrying.

In fact, the national trend is trending upwards in derailments per million miles, though I don't care to look into every individual class I railroad's statistics for this comment.

Fortunately, it's just an iron ore shipment, but still not great.

Weren’t the rail road workers just striking for better working conditions and pay? What ever happened with that?

[deleted]

[deleted]

It’s always been happening. People are just starting to pay attention.

Congress broke their strike, albeit with some concessions to the workers

East Palestine

luckily they mostly just carry like coal or scrap metal. there was one by my house a few years ago, took them ages to clean up because there was limited access.

"No big deal, this happens all the time" I assure myself as vinyl chloride floods out of a derailed tanker and into my back yard.

Hey, remember when a bunch of people who worked on trains tried to strike to bring attention to this issue? If I remember correctly, The Most Progressive President Of My Lifetime told them to shut the fuck up and go back to work.

Oh geez, can't believe no one else caught that

Ya think I heard it was iron ore

It literally does, and they happen nowhere near as often as they did 50 years ago.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1161921856/there-are-about-3-u-s-train-derailments-per-day-they-arent-usually-major-disaste#:~:text=Since%20the%20late%201970s%2C%20derailments,U.S.%2C%20which%20killed%2041%20people.

Train derailments have dropped by 75% in the last 50 years.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't do whatever we can to keep them from occurring, we have way more derailments than comparable countries.

Helps that it’s a real place and honestly not all that far from East Palestine in the grand scheme of things haha

[removed]

Did you read literally anything I wrote? Yes, the raw number of derailments are down, but derailments per million miles is trending upwards nationally.

[deleted]

What you said doesn't make mathematical sense. Fractions can't increase if the numerator goes down and the denominator goes up.

> Yes, the raw number of derailments is down. But that's not a very useful statistic. They're running more miles than ever as the economy continually grows

If they're running more miles than ever, and the number of derailments is down, then the derailments per mile has to be down too.

> Yes, the raw number of derailments is down. But that's not a very useful statistic. They're running more miles than ever as the economy continually grows.

If total derailments are down and total miles are up then derailments / miles is going to be lower not higher.

Don’t derail the argument!

Yeah, I messed up, but derailments per million miles is actually up. Where I goofed is I got the numbers flipped in my head for some reason. They're actually running fewer miles because precision scheduled railroading is consolidating shorter trains into much longer trains. So they need to run fewer miles to run the same amount, if not more, freight.

I already responded down thread to you, but I'll put it here just for people to see. For some reason I flipped the concept in my head, you're right on the math part. They're actually running fewer millions of miles these days because precision scheduled railroading is consolidating shorter trains into much longer trains. So they travel fewer miles to move the same amount, if not more, freight.

The issue of freight rail being safer than ever? ;-)

The railroad strike had nothing to do with the equipment failure that caused the EP derailment. Getting more sick days wouldn't have fixed that. I support most of their demands but that is a separate topic than derailment.

> The issue of freight rail being safer than ever? ;-)

Except it isn't. and US freight rail is significantly less safe than European freight.
 
https://www.johnlocke.org/the-problem-with-americas-crumbling-railways/

Please reread, as you've misread the post you're replying to. It said nothing about relative rail safety. Instead, it was referring to how our freight rale is safer than ever. It has been getting dramatically safer for many decades.

Here's an article with some stats:
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1161921856/there-are-about-3-u-s-train-derailments-per-day-they-arent-usually-major-disaste

Even with more rail miles traveled, there were 44% fewer derailments last year than in 2000. There were 1164 last year as compared to 8763 in 1978. Certainly, 1978 was a bad year but it demonstrates the trend.

If you want to investigate further, raw data is available from the Federal Railroad Administratrion Office of Safety Analysis:
https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/Query/TenYearAccidentIncidentOverview.aspx

"Less shitty than we used to be" is a meaningless metric when our rail system is incredibly unsafe compared to those of peer nations.

Rail travel is still safer than flying and driving, per passenger mile traveled. The sky simply isn't falling. Europe having even safer trains does not make our trains unsafe.

"This happens all the time and is perfectly safe!" - Me as a fireball engulfs the derailed tanker cars next to my house