8 ms·

The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of the environmental impact, it's because the people who work on these trains have been warning things

• kortilla 4y ago
  >If I can get pulled over for having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals should get stopped for being on fire. What makes you think this isn’t what normally happens? Trains aren’t just cruising around constantly on fire.
  • chaps 4y ago
    I think you deeply underestimate how many derailments happen each year in the US https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/how-often-do-trains-derail-more-than-you-think/ https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/how-often-do-trains-dera...
    • kortilla 4y ago
      If you think “derailment” means “on fire”, we have bigger issues.
      • chaps 4y ago
        You've missed the forest for the trees, friend.
        • kortilla 4y ago
          You think there is a forest because you don’t understand what a derailment is. The vast majority of them are benign. They rarely result in cars even tipping over, let alone spilling.
  • causi 4y ago
    Trains aren’t just cruising around constantly on fire. If they were, would you know? I wouldn't.
    • kortilla 4y ago
      Yes, there is quite an enthusiastic crowd of people making videos of trains. A video of a train on fire just cruising along is gold and there aren’t that many. Unless you are proposing a conspiracy where the train companies run them on fire only in areas with no people and then shut the fire off as they approach towns/cities/crossings.
  • toomuchtodo 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34784255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34784255
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• themitigating 4y ago
  "People are upset because it's another case of the government completely failing to do their jobs of keeping regular people safe, " Even though this is a private company you only blamed the government?
  • cshimmin 4y ago
    I think this comment is referring to the govt blocking the rail workers from taking collective action against the private companies.
    • themitigating 4y ago
      and what does that have to do with the crash?
      • delecti 4y ago
        Part of the rail workers' demands included safety concerns.
      • llbeansandrice 4y ago
        The demands of the union included a lot of increased safety precautions.
        • yunwal 4y ago
          Including the fact that trains are too long, which directly contributed to this incident. https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-union-says-100-plus-car-trains-too-11734589.php https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-union-sa...
          • themitigating 4y ago
            And was that part of the deal?
  • kevviiinn 4y ago
• Workaccount2 4y ago
  I'm not denying the accident was bad, I'm tempering an unwarranted level of hysteria for what is another small scale industrial accident. People are drumming up hysteria for political capital, but its not fair to people who live in Ohio or Pennsylvania and now think they can't use their water, they're doomed to cancer at 45, and their kids will be mutants. It's being blown way of of proportion to the reality of it. It also why expert testimony is so thin. You'd think by now all the experts would be pouring out to condemn the government. Meanwhile the best NPR could get was one sentence about potential indoor air quality issues going forward (which the EPA report addresses with "no concerning levels detected".
  • giantg2 4y ago
    Because people don't trust the government and the companies on stuff like this. "BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!", isn't exactly what people want to hear years after many of these sorts of accidents. Which has happened in the past. I mean, it took 2 weeks just to disclose additional chemicals in this incident.
  • colpabar 4y ago
    > People are drumming up hysteria for political capital, but its not fair to people who live in Ohio or Pennsylvania and now think they can't use their water, they're doomed to cancer at 45, and their kids will be mutants. Can you show me a single comment on this website and not on reddit that is saying those things? Also, did you know that the EPA also said that all the dust in the air on 9/11 was perfectly safe? I am not implying malice here, but sometimes the authorities are just wrong, so it seems naive to just believe them. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/epa-head-wrong-911-air-safe-new-york-christine-todd-whitman https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/epa-head-wro...
    • xadhominemx 4y ago
      How about this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34773513#34774984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34773513#34774984
    • voxl 4y ago
• pdabbadabba 4y ago
  > The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of the environmental impact, it's because the people who work on these trains have been warning things like this could happen for years, and when they tried to strike over it, the federal government stepped in and crushed them into submission. I've seen a few people say this. I'm sympathetic to the rail workers but, what's the evidence that this derailment had anything to do with the attempted rail workers strike? AFAIK, the primary issue there was sick leave--and, generally, a more humane work schedule. While I'm very much in favor of these things, I don't see what it has to do with this accident, other than that it presents a superficial opportunity to score some points. Perhaps some mistake was made that would have been more likely if the workers were better rested? But if that's the extent of the connection, without any evidence of a real causal relationship, the argument seems irresponsibly speculative.
  • Bonooru 4y ago
    If there is any chance that human error contributed to this disaster (either via the people there or maintenance deferred or done less than perfectly), then "a more humane work schedule" would have made that less likely due to everyone involved being well rested.
    • colpabar 4y ago
      It's funny yet sad at how differently HN reacts to a company making its employees go into the office than this. Maybe that's how we should frame it - "railroads force employees back into office, even when sick" might garner some more sympathy.
  • slantedview 4y ago
    > what's the evidence that this derailment had anything to do with the attempted rail workers strike? AFAIK, the primary issue there was sick leave--and, generally, a more humane work schedule. The workers had many other complaints, including companies forcing workers to drive dangerously long trains with a single person staffing it. That seems absolutely relevant when you have a train car burning and nobody notices.
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  The reason people are so upset is because they watched a smoke plume reach all the way to the cloud layer. That's it. That's the whole story. The average citizen's grasp of the medical risks of chemicals is basically negligible. But a smoke plume that reaches all the way to the cloud layer makes everyone ask questions about things they didn't care about 3 weeks ago.
  • steviedotboston 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • colpabar 4y ago
      Can you please please please take a moment and really be honest with yourself and think about how you and the rest of the mainstream media would be responding to this if pete was a republican appointed by a republican president
    • weakfish 4y ago
      Can you source this claim or is it just your projection of the situation? This doesn’t read as empirical.
    • yunwal 4y ago
      Huh, because from my view, rail workers expressed concern over unsafe working conditions, complained about cost-cutting measures, negotiations were shut down without giving into demands by Biden and Buttegeig. Then, a safety issue that was mentioned by union leaders[0] contributes to a train derailment days later. These seem very related to me, can you enlighten me as to why they're not? [0] - https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-union-says-100-plus-car-trains-too-11734589.php https://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Railroad-union-sa...
  • yunwal 4y ago
    This has echos of the Flint water crisis all over it. The "trust authorities" crowd would have happily let Flint residents drink yellow water until lead poisoned an entire generation. Turns out, people are right to question things that don't pass their smell test. Sometimes, there's a reasonable explanation, other times there's not
• gruez 4y ago
  >The reason people are so upset isn't necessarily because of the environmental impact, it's because the people who work on these trains have been warning things like this could happen for years, and when they tried to strike over it, the federal government stepped in and crushed them into submission. There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20 miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals should get stopped for being on fire. This feels like a motte and bailey. A quick skim of the comments in this thread that people are equally worried about the health impacts from the accident specifically, as about the general plight of railway workers and/or the state of safety on railways. The NPR article also largely talks about health impacts from the specific accident rather than systemic safety issues. I'm not saying that people aren't outraged about the systemic safety issues on railways, but it's pretty clear that the main thing on people's mind is the immediate environmental impacts.
  • Spooky23 4y ago
    The problem is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I have friends in this industry so I have more context than most. Railroads were a sleepy corner of the world for a long time, until business types realized that trucking had peaked out from a capacity perspective. These companies are all chasing higher return on assets at all costs. Motor carriers are much better regulated than rails because the railroads are all consolidated and they can hook themselves to politically powerful industries like coal and oil. As the parent stated, roads are regulated more effectively and strictly. If you are a CDL driver with a carrier with lots of violations, you can lose your license for a minor brake violation or even a torn seat. That creates a market dynamic where drivers refuse to drive for shitty carriers.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• joseph_grobbles 4y ago
  [dead]
• xhrpost 4y ago
  > There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20 miles before the derailment Do you have a link talking about this? Any timeline I read online just mentions the derailment around 9p, nothing about a car fire prior to derailment. Thanks.
  • robotbikes 4y ago
    This article has information and various photos from security cameras showing the sparks coming off of the car prior to the derailment - https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/like-the-doors-of-hell-were-open-east-palestine-train-disaster-casts-toxic-cloud-over-future-of-oh-pa-region/ https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/like-the-doors-of-hell-were-o... Also DemocracyNow! has been covering the disaster the last two days featuring interviews with both local residents and railway workers.
• ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20 miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals should get stopped for being on fire Ifwe did the same shit they get away with, we'd be in jail real fast
• sithadmin 4y ago
  >There was a car on that train that was on fire for at least 20 miles before the derailment. If I can get pulled over for having a busted tail light, a train full of toxic chemicals should get stopped for being on fire. Unfortunately, a wheel/bearing running hot for ~20 miles could be well inside the usual spacing for defect detector stations[1] in the US. Can't speak for this specific rail line but they're often as far as 30 miles apart, and not every detector will have the sensor package to identify wheel/bearing issues (though most will). If you ever ride Amtrak, you'll occasionally hear trackside detector units radio in a diagnostic report over the conductors' radios. They have automated voice systems that announce their position, sensor reading states, etc. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defect_detector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defect_detector