It Is Happening Again: Industrial toxicity without industrial employment

Perhaps a small point, but the incident at Three Mile Island did not lead contaminate surroundings for years. Or at least, the extent is somewhat disputed.

From wiki:

According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radioactivity emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was eight millirem (0.08 mSv), and no more than 100 millirem (1 mSv) to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

Although some epidemiological studies cast some doubt on that:

A peer-reviewed research article by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers between 1979 and 1985 among people who lived within ten miles of TMI.[113] In 2009 Dr. Wing stated that radiation releases during the accident were probably "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates. A retrospective study of Pennsylvania Cancer Registry found an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in some counties south of TMI (although, notably, not in Dauphin County itself) and in high-risk age groups but did not draw a causal link between these incidences and the accident.[13][14] The Talbott lab at the University of Pittsburgh reported finding a few, small increased cancer risks within the TMI population.[15] A more recent study reached "findings consistent with observations from other radiation-exposed populations," raising "the possibility that radiation released from [Three Mile Island] may have altered the molecular profile of [thyroid cancer] in the population surrounding TMI", establishing a potential causal mechanism, although not definitively proving causation.[114]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

If I want to read a policy paper on rail safety regulation, I want it dry. Give me events, causes, remedies, suggestions, costs. I don't want to read a stump speech.

And in point of fact there aren't any remedies or reasoned argument here, it's all yelling and finger pointing. How might this have been prevented? Why did it happen in the first place (FWIW: we don't actually know yet, AFAIK). How else might we ship these compounds? Do we need to? What industries are they serving? That's the stuff I want to hear.

it lasts about a paragraph. there's more effort in this thread already

Or CSB videos on YT

Or some TV shows like Seconds from Disaster or that Air crash one.

or listen to industrial engineers when they do their simulations and Fault trees and HAZOP shenanigans

there are a lot of publications and books and even university courses about how to study the functional safety of systems.

However, all of these dry "remedies, suggestions, costs" only make sense when you can have the "stump speech" about what you want. You need to discuss what industries you want, and what risks do you accept. When you study a risk, you can avoid it (no go), transfer it (mostly to insurance companies), mitigate it (with these new practices and technical solutions you called for, to reduce frequency and/or impact) or accept it (all green).

The articles underlines how the current risk of derailment was known and accepted by the Department of Transportation. There was nothing more to do technologically, if the risk was accepted as it was.

If you want a remedy or suggestions, go see the government and the companies to tell them chemicals plumes aren't acceptable when they happen every few years. Technical solutions will come, if they want to continue to operate trains but more safely.