Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 607 posts

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#521

Post by TylerE »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #513
TylerE wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you e got it backwards. The train contains the bogey which contains the bearing which contains the axle.

Err yes you're right on that. My point though is the "bearing failing" is too generic to determine what on it failed. Sometimes the brakes are fixed to the axle, are they not? In that case it couldn't be the brake.

I’m not waiting y the brake failed. It can take minutes for air brakes to respond on a long train. Once they become aware of the hot axle, if they could stop quicker, then the bearing doesn’t fail, which causes the axle to drop out, and thus the train to derail.

Think about pulling over as soon as you know you’ve taken a hit to a tire instead of continuing to drive until you’re on nothing but a rim and sparks.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#522

Post by [deleted] »

btilly wrote: post #520
e40 wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying the situation Biden has been in since he took office is very tenuous. There was a virtual tie on paper, with the VP breaking the tie, but 2 of the people on the Dem side were not at all cooperative with the agenda that Biden wanted. To say "the Dems could have done it if they wanted it" is not at all true.

Normally I'd agree with you, but not on this. The Democrats had the option of doing nothing. The railroad workers would have had a strike for a variety of their issues (safety being high on the list), and the workers would have gotten a better deal than the one they got. Unfortunately the strike would have to have lasted long enough and been painful enough for the train companies to accept that they had to negotiate…

[deleted]

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#523

Post by onetimeusename »

georgeg23 wrote: post #510
MrOwnPut wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it would not have, as another posted, the NTSB has reported this was a bearing failure[1]. Bearing failures account for 5.9% of all train derailments[2]. It's possible to help prevent this (not fully as many things derail trains) with more sensors[3] and tighter maintenance checks. This was most likely due to a lack of maintenance. [1] https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20230214.as... [2] https://www…

In another universe, ECP brakes would have saved the day. It sounds like the Trump administration still deserves criticism for decaying train safety.

Read the link I posted above. It estimates braking distance with EPC vs pneumatic along with reductions in cars that derail. It DOES reduce breaking time in emergency stops which has fewer cars derail but I don't know if it is enough of a reduction to be worthwhile. I don't think it would have dramatically reduced the number of cars that derailed in this accident. I am willing to be proven wrong.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#524

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

olivermarks wrote: post #369
gnulinux wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything involving government really. This is the decades old "starve the beast" [1] mindset. Let's make sure government is absolutely ineffective at every step of the way, and then later point out how ineffective the government is and propose an even more ineffective, under-resourced government. It's a vicious cycle, and a self-fulfilled prophecy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

The argument against hyper capitalism causing more and more derailments is credible if you look into 'precision scheduled railroading' practices, aka shaving expense by eliminating unnecessary costs and 'optimizing Assets'. Sadly this has little to do with 'conservatives' or 'the left' and a lot more to do with our apolitical global oligarchy who own the politicians in power and many lobbying groups including 'climat…

The fact of the matter is that we had a rule to prevent this that was rescinded by conservatives. Further implementation of safety rules will always and forever be hamstrung by conservatives due to their ideology concerning deregulation. There is no need to cast blame onto shadowy oligarchs to avoid attributing the disaster to conservative ideology for the past 60 years.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#525

Post by myko »

yieldcrv wrote: post #43
Kyragem wrote: post #12

[flagged]

Aside from the irony, the democrat party will make way more friends if they or their campaign strategy acknowledged that people vote on way more causes than whatever the party is saying makes you a better person. The senate is 50-50, there's never a wave. Time to try something else.

*Democratic party

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#526

Post by s1artibartfast »

r00fus wrote: post #460
pathartl wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I live in a completely different state and I'm pretty unaffected by this whole tragedy/negligence. I could sit and speculate about what actually happened, but what does that do other than spend energy on something that I'm not actually involved with?

Well, first off, trains run everywhere. So if it happens in Ohio, it can happen near where you live too. Workers have been pushing to get a single day of paid leave per month and threatening a strike - but rail bosses have greedily ignored them to give more money to their stockholders (ie, themselves too). Then Congress voted to force a bad deal. What you could do is to get informed and see the results of this blatan…

You didn't actually explain why they should care if you aren't worried about train derailment near you.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#527

Post by swearwolf »

e40 wrote: post #379
kneebonian wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet despite having a majority of the house and senate under Biden they've been unable to deliver almost anything except an unfair railroad contract. So maybe, just maybe, the 2 sides are willing to shout about different things but at the end of the day are in fact the same.

Razor thin margin in the Senate and at least 2 of the "Democrats" are not really going to vote on anything controversial. They have been shills, so far, for business interests.

Have you ever considered that maybe the reason there’s always a Democrat or two willing to block progressive legislation is that the Democratic Party wants it that way? That way they can have their cake, by promising progressive reform, and eat it, by not delivering that reform and thus, not pissing off their donors. I’ve been hearing about these one or two non-compliant Democrats my whole voting life (remember Joe Lieberman?), and yet the party never invests resources in primarying them.

Just a thought.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#528

Post by dls2016 »

pessimizer wrote: post #177
dls2016 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The rise of precision scheduled railroading has resulted in resource and staffing cuts; to compensate railroad companies have enacted strict attendance policies for employees. These policies eliminate any free time which workers have, requiring them to be effectively on-call for weeks at a time. Workers have complained of increased levels of stress and fatigue." My brother went to a recruiting drive last year for…

Working on the railroads is one of those professions in the US traditionally done by slaves or near-slaves. Just like agricultural work, food service, cleaning, and household help.

I don't know, I've worked countless 60-70 hour weeks at a restaurant... some days both opening and closing the place... and food service just doesn't seem comparable.

Perhaps fishing or working on a boat is similar, but many of those jobs allow for weeks or even months off at a time.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#529

Post by danaris »

throwaway-blaze wrote: post #518
danaris wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't see there being a very distinct difference between the beliefs of the left and right wings of American politics on this? You think "global oligarchy" is "apolitical", at a time when the right wing is pushing harder and harder for the very wealthy to, essentially, be able to do anything they want, while the left wing (such as it is in this country) is pushing to restrict their power and tax their weal…

By and large the wealthy in this country vote D and donate to left-wing causes and foundations and colleges. The working class (including union members, not necessarily union leaders) vote R.

The middle class and upper middle class vote D.

The wealthy—y'know, people like Elon Musk?—vote R.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#530

Post by thephyber »

seafoam wrote: post #201
mbostleman wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm finding it extremely hard to separate signal from noise in the social and legacy media spheres right now. I'm waiting for things to settle.

Yeah, I used to do that. Then I realized that it is always a conspiracy theory until it is too late. If you are potentially impacted, you have to do your own homework, and learn from your mistakes.

> Then I realized that it is always a conspiracy theory until it is too late.

In one lens, what you say is true. But that is because {true, confirmed, and supported} information comes slow from breaking events. And especially when money / harm is at stake, someone is usually willing to lie or hide the truth.

But viewing what you said through another lens, it can be easy to see this as confirmation bias (or other similar cognitive biases) that underweights all of the times you suspected a conspiracy, but where no causality was proven. As the joke goes, economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions.

Be careful to remain at least as skeptical of social media posts as you are of companies, governments, the wealthy, and those in power.

Belief in multiple conspiracy theories can erode a person’s ability to remain rational. It seems to me that lots of Flat Earthers, for example, base their belief system more around who they chose to reject, than necessarily being accurate about what specific ideas they choose to believe.

I agree with your last paragraph in the sense that we should all be forever curious and we should spend a lot of trouble to reevaluate our errors in belief. That said, “do your own homework” seems to be misinterpreted by many as “reject all information from official sources”, which is a terrible idea.

Post reply on HN