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Here is the USDOT press release from 2017 on this: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/news/usdot-announces-intent-repeal... Can anyone speak to whether these electronically controlled pneumatic brakes would have prevented or lessened the severity of this derailment in Ohio?
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The username actually refers to an old They Might Be Giants song. They lyrics of the song tell the tale of a man who goes through life being paranoid about a massive, organized government operation spying on him personally. In the end, he's murdered and disappeared by his town's local mayor because he's inconvenient, the mayor's just a thug, and there is no shadowy overarching organization watching over him. People b…
It's certainty a fitting username for somebody who thinks the government should keep people in the dark. > "In general, there's no particular need to make the list of chemicals public."
We could certainly make it a rule that chemical manifests be lodged with such-and-such organization (the FRA, I'd assume), but we don't because that's not the history of how rail happened in this country. And in general, the US government tends to operate under a rule of "Ain't no problem, ain't no problem" regarding data collection, with rare exception (Americans get very jumpy about over-collection of data by the government, after all; "Why do you need to know how many firearms I own? It's my right to own them", etc.).
... I could certainly see an argument for changing this rule, but I can also see an argument for not; much as Americans are, broadly speaking, comfortable living in homes where lines of toxic volatile chemicals are plumbed directly into those homes (50,000 hospitalizations and 430 deaths due to CO poisoning annually; in 2020, 10 natural gas explosions and 0 train chemical spills) and comfortable operating private individual vehicles on roadways (38,000+ deaths in crashes in 2020) and comfortable with non-licensed ownership of firearms (carrying requires a license, ownership does not; 24,000+ suicides by gun in 2020), most people are most of the time comfortable with train loads of God-knows-what rattling down the old main street. And they're comfortable with it because accidents like this, while not nearly as rare as they should be, are far rarer than other risks Americans tolerate every single day. Risk-tolerance for convenience is just kind of an American tradition.
... like I said else-thread, I'm likelier to suffer from the lead in my pipes living in this part of the country than the train fire.
I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag. In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and en…
> In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and environmental effects of these sorts of things play out when it's too late for the folks that have been impacted. This isn't really the same, but I've been thinking in simil…
- "On Sunday, the EPA released a list, written by Norfolk Southern, of the toxic chemicals that were in the derailed cars. In addition to vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate, it mentions ethylhexyl acrylate, which can cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems in people exposed to it; as well as isobutylene, which can make people dizzy and drowsy." This is anodyne phrasing that omits the lede, which is that this…
> which can cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems.... can make people dizzy and drowsy I also love this phrasing that talks about the immediate uncomfortable reactions, but makes no mention on the extremely serious long-term implications of exposure. These chemicals won't just make you feel unpleasant in the moment, they'll kill you in the long run.
Once you've got a medical record of exposure that also makes it possible to go after these companies for the long term effects, which should be communicated to you by medical professionals based on your exposure time and estimated dosage. I don't like that that's the requirement for our legal system, but it's the reality.
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The make up of the federal government changes greatly every two years. Our states probably have a similar turnover. This is why it's important to vote, not only in general elections, but also primary elections. Seats shouldn't be safe for incumbents who let this happen or anyone who takes huge donations from the billionaires or hedge funds you're talking about. Edit: I mean: the makeup of our government may change gr…
If the makeup of the federal government changes every two years, and yet nothing ever meaningfully changes, what does that say about the importance of voting?
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Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes. The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.
To be fair, besides the primary initiative of keeping all the wealth in the hands of a few, the secondary purpose of a Republican administration is to undo anything done by a Democratic administration. There was no way for Trump to know whether the legislation was good or bad. It could have gone either way, really.
What is being underplayed: -Same chemical by products as the chemicals stored at the Bhopal disaster -Railroad unions have been warning of this outcome for more than 10 years They will end up suing NS as the town will have to be evacuated again and demolished as they will find that the water-table has been polluted beyond repair.
Not sure why this is being downvoted.
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The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of the environmental impact, it's because the people who work on these trains have been warning things like this could happen for years, and when they tried to strike over it, the federal government stepped in and crushed them into submission. There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20 miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over fo…
The reason people are so upset is because they watched a smoke plume reach all the way to the cloud layer. That's it. That's the whole story. The average citizen's grasp of the medical risks of chemicals is basically negligible. But a smoke plume that reaches all the way to the cloud layer makes everyone ask questions about things they didn't care about 3 weeks ago.
Turns out, people are right to question things that don't pass their smell test. Sometimes, there's a reasonable explanation, other times there's not
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Ayn Rand wrote a sci-fi/political philosophy book about this exact subject, named Atlas Shrugged. The main character in the book is a railroad executive struggling to keep her company afloat in the face of ruinous regulations that were designed to drive the rail systems towards nationalization. The flip side of course, that she fails to address completely in that book, is unethical behavior by private industry, such…
The market tried to solve this problem with workers going on strike a few months ago. Government regulations are what stopped it.
It also doesn't have corporations.
(though I agree that smacking down these workers was some real bullshit)
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and what does that have to do with the crash?
The demands of the union included a lot of increased safety precautions.
https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-union-sa...