Not to worry - CSX has your back. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/w...s-fiery-diesel-fuel-and-oil-spill/ar-AA18nPbc
For everbody complaining about "corporate greed" in modern railroads. Y'all need to read some history books on just about every railroad built up through the 1920's. Today's managements are choir boys compared to the guys running the railroads back in the "glory days" of the 1800's. Pretty much every railroad at some point had the board of directors fleeing the county or state before the sheriff's could arrive to arrest them. The classic railroad scheme was for the railroad to get a to get a land grant, then the railroad would sell stock to fund the construction. The board of directors would establish a construction company and then hire their company to build the railroad, the construction company would be paid in land and capital money. Of course the construction expense would exceed the capital and all the land would have been "sold' off. The stock holders would be left with a bankrupt shell corporation with an incomplete railroad, and no land assets. They weren't called "Robber Barons" for nothing.
Not choir boys, exactly, but certainly no worse. Yes, a hundred years ago was another cycle where you couldn't separate corporations and government without a crowbar. They say history doesn't repeat, exactly, but it sure does rhyme.
In the Robber Baron era, rail employee fatalities numbered in the thousands, yearly. There was no such thing as Safety Culture.
I have been watching a Senate hearing about this derailment. They keep asking the NS CEO pointed questions. He should be a politician. His responses are well groomed. Either a bunch of interesting sounding words which are not any answer, or simply a completely specious answer. His wagons are nicely, neatly circled. Some of the Senators are getting a bit testy, here and there even giving him a mild tongue lashing. He remains un-moved by them. I continue to hope they really crank up the heat.
I feel just the opposite. With congress involved, it is becoming a witch hunt and the true victims of an unfortunate accident will be forgotten. NS is a good company and I will remain a fan.
I feel we should leave these investigations to the investigators, and not try to perpetuate or start rumors regarding why each of these derailments may have happened. We all--myself included--have opinions and theories behind why these derailments keep occurring, and we may even be on the right track, but we should leave it to the professionals. It's very easy to get sidetracked and lead a thread to place it needn't go.
The NTSB is alledging loose wheels on a series of NEW Coil Gons are believed to be the cause of the Springfield, OH derailment https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...p-warns-that-car-flaw-could-cause-derailments
Thats amazing. That such a rudimentary systemic failure, as simple as the wheels not being sized right, so as to not come loose in regular service. Can you imagine how quickly they would come loose in heavy braking as in mountain grade type braking, yikes. A SP derailment on Cajon pass years ago, had car wheels get so hot on a runaway they came loose from the axles but they were red hot. These are coming loose just going down the track. Thats gonna cost whoever machined and assembled those axles some $$. That is if it determined to have caused that un-railment.
It's interesting how the NTSB can trace an axle batch to its manufacturer and know what railcars it is installed under. After years in the military and the exhaustive records we kept during aerospace maintenance, it's no wonder they know who made the part, when, what factory and where it is. Those records folks keep in industrial settings really have an impact.
If you look at rail, every rail is stamped with a pedigree of how big it is, when it was rolled where it was rolled, and what heat it was rolled from.
A not so modeled aspect of MRRing is the fact that the car #'s are stenciled on to the major truck components of each car in service. Much of RR maintenance, whether locomotives or revenue equipment, all maintenance is initialed or signed by the individual doing the job. So such records can be traced.
Main track rail right to the North of my house, is rolled and marked as 1941 CF&I (Colorado Fuel & Iron), I'd say its done a good job. I ran a lot of trains over it too.
