Some confounding factors on derailment statistics: * Individual trains are longer than ever, which means that they carry more than ever. That means bigger dera

Some confounding factors on derailment statistics: * Individual trains are longer than ever, which means that they carry more than ever. That means bigger derailments in absolute terms with a larger potential variety of components, even if the overall magnitude of derailments has decreased. * Deferred line maintenance and other cost-cutting measures (like running longer trains with just one or two engineers) means more severe derailments (more cars off the rails, more extensive damage, fewer people available to detect or remediate problems).