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Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

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Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#321

Post by jessaustin »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #196
jessaustin wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't always "Chernobyl in Ohio", as locals are calling it. Although, that is becoming more common. If only the rail industry were regulated... maybe we need to dig up Teddy Roosevelt?

The rail industry is regulated. In certain ways over and in certain ways under. Eg, there's very little sense to the requirements a passenger train needs to reach to run on the same rails as freight, and Europe does it safely all the time.

It isn't regulated in ways that matter. We're down to five Class I American freight railroads. (So we're not quite to Klobuchar's monopoly board... just wait!) Their networks overlap even less than one might think, so there is effectively no competition. Asshole billionaires like Warren Buffett aren't even trying to provide good service, because they figure they make more money burying the organizations under mountains of debt, which is why they have paid the Biden administration to crush their union employees. Over the last several decades, rail freight charges and derailments have exploded while the amount of freight shipped has actually dropped. That's one of the main reasons we have to contend with so many semi trucks on our highways.

In many industries, commercial competitors discover when regulators have shirked their duties. In the rail industry, with no effective competition, many theoretical regulations are not actually enforced. This problem has gotten worse over time.

Your concerns about Amtrak may be valid, but they are orthogonal to the topic at hand.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#322

Post by WalterBright »

duckmysick wrote: post #281
WalterBright wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WA state passed a law that says a cop cannot chase a suspect unless they committed a violent crime. This resulted in a surge of crimes where the suspect driver just flips off the police and drive off. Common crimes resulting from this: 1. catalytic converter thefts 2. thieves steal a car, ram it into a store, loot the store, drive off in another stolen car

Catalytic converter thefts are up across the country. Does it mean all other states passed similar laws too? Or maybe there are other reasons, like their high value and relative ease to steal.

Those thefts surged after the "no chase" law went into effect.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#323

Post by Izkata »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #318
Izkata wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is now trying to hide The story seems to be blowing up now, after people were saying last week it wasn't getting much attention.

I'm hearing contradictory theories in this thread. Either that the media initially reported on the train derailment and then was forced to stop following up. Or that the media initially tried to cover up the derailment and then gave up and started reporting on it. Do both of these competing theories have traction? If so, why?

> and then was forced to

There is no contradiction in your two understandings, but a possible small misunderstanding in your second one.

What seems to have happened was, media was slow on the uptake (there were some stories last week, but nothing like there is now), and also it is/was getting suppressed or the severity downplayed due to external factors (for example that reporter who was arrested).

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#324

Post by seattle_spring »

DangitBobby wrote: post #229
seattle_spring wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget the dozens of Reddit posts that have made it to the front page of /r/all

This might be hard to believe, some people don't use reddit or twitter! You bet your ass I still heard about balloons, though.

This might be hard to believe, but if events are at the top of the most used social media sites, it’d be pretty ignorant to think awareness is isolated in any way to social media. You’d have to have been living under a rock to not have heard of these derailments last week.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#325

Post by duckmysick »

WalterBright wrote: post #322
duckmysick wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catalytic converter thefts are up across the country. Does it mean all other states passed similar laws too? Or maybe there are other reasons, like their high value and relative ease to steal.

Those thefts surged after the "no chase" law went into effect.

Catalytic converter thefts surged in recent years elsewhere in the United States and also in the United Kingdom and France. Those places didn't get a new "no chase" law. Either the state of Washington has an unusual reach or there's a different explanation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64057742

https://www.tf1info.fr/justice-faits-divers/video-vols-votre...

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#326

Post by IIAOPSW »

wkat4242 wrote: post #314
IIAOPSW wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a different, orthogonal issue. Look it up there's a bunch of tedious FRA rules about crash-worthiness which Europe doesn't have. It makes the trains which can legally run needlessly expensive and they wear out the tracks faster. The rules don't apply to metros and subways, but if the tracks have any switch anywhere connecting to the national network then FRA rules apply to the whole system. The result is that…

Do metros in the US even use the same gauge as trains? Here in Europe they're almost always smaller gauge so sharing isn't an option. The exception here in Barcelona is Line 1 which is a wider gauge than all the other lines, for historical reasons though it doesn't share any tracks (but lays right beside the train ones at some stations)

For the most part yes. Post below me named some exceptions, but in general the US has done a better job than Europe at standardizing rail gauges everywhere. New York runs at standard gauge, and that alone accounts for about 1/3 of all the metro rail on the continent.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#327

Post by wkat4242 »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #326
wkat4242 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do metros in the US even use the same gauge as trains? Here in Europe they're almost always smaller gauge so sharing isn't an option. The exception here in Barcelona is Line 1 which is a wider gauge than all the other lines, for historical reasons though it doesn't share any tracks (but lays right beside the train ones at some stations)

For the most part yes. Post below me named some exceptions, but in general the US has done a better job than Europe at standardizing rail gauges everywhere. New York runs at standard gauge, and that alone accounts for about 1/3 of all the metro rail on the continent.

Yeah Europe is a total mess. Signalling systems, rail gauges. True.

PS I didn't know the NYC metro was so big compared to the rest. Wow.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#328

Post by Schroedingersat »

Georgelemental wrote: post #312
Schroedingersat wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe neither are fine and we should stop making unnecessary shit?

Do you think reducing our reliance on burning fossil fuels is "unnecessary"? Because that can't be done without nuclear power

It's neither necessary nor sufficient. Nor is it even a good strategy.

Re: Ohio train derailment: environmental disaster quietly unfolding

#330

Post by trashtester »

wnevets wrote: post #310
trashtester wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would much rather live next door to a nuclear plant than almost any other type of large scale power plant, including wind and hydro (assuming I was downstream to the hydro). Being afraid of a nuclear plant is like being afraid of flying. In fact, flying is way, way more dangerous. Even if you ONLY consider radiation exposure, a few hours in a plane per year will eclipse the increase in exposure the average person l…

And what makes it so safe the tech or the government regulations?

The government regulations that were in place in 1970, combined with the tech from that time, makes most western style reactors, even from back then, incredibly safe.

More recent tech makes it even easier to achieve safety, which would have made it even cheaper, had it not been for the excessive regulations (and other forms of red tape) that have been added since then.

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