I don’t do trains. Not my thing. But from what I can tell, including surveillance footage showing the train going along with at least one car throwing–sparks or chunks of molten metal–all along its length, not sure what a braking system would do. About as relevant as the horn. A deflection.

As I mentioned in my amateur math, keeping an eye on the hot-box detectors doesn’t seem to be a major stressor on operations.

Presuming NS survives this, it will be interesting to see what kind of eye-wash they intro to make it look as if they are doing something.

kate.

Apparently the electronic braking system whose repeal Buttigieg tried to use to blame Trump would not have applied to this train anyhow. It was for trains carrying all dangerous chemicals. This train had only a few cars. Reports are also that NS has increased train lengths by 20% and cut staff by 40%. I’m guessing we’ll find there are maintenance problems.

Using the aforementioned convertible pickup trucks going at–arbitrarily–25mph for eight hours, that’s 200 miles out and four hours back on the highway. And that’s 100 trips.

Call it two trips a week, you cover the entire trackage once a year. Presuming some high school STEM class can rig up an infrared source the crew can shoot at the sensors as they pass and listen for the automatic alarm,

So, presume for administrative convenience, you have twenty sectors of a thousand miles each. Each sector needs….four trips. Is that satisfactory for a year’s safety standards?

I keep going over this. It’s so de minimis I feel I’m missing something. If I’ve dropped a zero someplace, each sector needs one trip a week…. Is that such a big deal?

Or, maybe a trip a month for each 250 mile stretch. That’s about one a week per sector, fifty a year. Fifty days not doing something else out of a year. What would that cost?

I don’t know if N/S has the kind of money such presumed negligence deserves.

Is it true FEMA told the town to forget it?

Maybe so, but it’s certainly Norfolk Southern’s Bhopal. A textbook example of bad public relations. The gold standard was McNeil Pharmaceuticals’ handling of the Tylenol tampering. They responded immediately, owned it, told the truth, had a plan and laid it out in public.

The fact that the residents even need a Townhall is a disgrace. The fact that the Townhall revealed nothing is a disaster.

I get that.
I guess my point is…they weren’t saving big bucks, if in fact they were dissing maintenance. They were saving coffee money.

The union has an interest in safety, in union headcount, and in protecting union members. What are the facts, that’s what the NTSB will have to determine.

Additional background on the train disaster in Ohio:
“Norfolk Southern Eliminated Key Maintenance Role In Derailment Region, Union Says”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/norfolk-southern-eliminated-key-maintenance-role-derailment-region-union-says
Apparently, the railroad company wanted to save a few bucks…
Key grafs:
“[A] union of rail workers has questioned declining maintenance standards following the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which forced the evacuation of the 5,000-person town earlier this month.
“A device that can play a role in preventing derailments is the wayside hot-box detector. It uses infrared sensors to detect bearings, axles or other components of a rail car that are overheating, then uses radio signals to flag rail crews of any overheated components…
“…Wayside hot-box detectors — also called “hot boxes” — are typically placed every 25 miles along a railroad…. Their use has contributed to a 59% decrease in train accidents caused by axle- and bearing-related factors since 1990….
“Declining head counts have led to these mechanisms receiving less preventative maintenance, according to an official from the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen union.
“The [Federal Railroad Adminstration (FRA)] has no regulations requiring the use or maintenance of hot boxes….”

…all of which, according to Sec. Pete, pins the blame squarely on Donald Trump….
Figures…

Trains carry enormous kinetic energy, cargo aside. Keeping them on the rails should be a priority whose failure is hugely, monstrously expensive, and will happen. How about switches and wayside detectors be looked at and if not recently, right the freak now?

This is not some kind of genius-level figuring, but simple enough to think of, to order, and to insist on its completion. And the institution has people skilled enough in diagnosing whatever they’re looking at.

You’ve probably seen railroad companies’ pickup trucks which can change from road wheels to track wheels. Pretty neat. No reason any of them should be sitting still in daylight hours.

Even if Pete inherited a slack outfit, did he make any efforts to tighten it up? He’s had time to, at least, initiate measures.