A practice loaded with hazardous chemical substances derailed in East Palestine, Ohio almost seven months in the past. The crash poisoned the small city and sparked outrage throughout the nation, however right here we’re in August and derailments proceed seemingly unabated.
The six months following East Palestine noticed a median of almost ten derailments every, in line with an investigation by Jalop alum Aaron Gordon over at Vice:
On March 4, a Union Pacific practice in Ogden, Utah launched magnesium chloride. On March 8, a CSX practice spilled diesel gas right into a West Virginia river. On March 30, a BNSF practice crashed and burst into flames, igniting ethanol and forcing midnight evacuations in Minnesota. On June 26, molten asphalt spilled into the Yellowstone River in Montana after a bridge collapsed. And in a four-day span in July, freight trains in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin, all with hazardous supplies on board, derailed.
Worse nonetheless, Vice solely checked out derailments unhealthy sufficient to generate native information consideration, which lower the derailment charge from the 106 reported to regulatory our bodies all the way down to 59 derailments coated within the press. Vice’s Motherboard additionally tracked freight derailments particularly, that means passenger practice crashes weren’t included within the knowledge. The staff additionally didn’t depend derailments on account of excessive climate or different, non-train automobiles crossing the tracks.
The report, price studying in full, is a damning have a look at the security of American railways — security that railway unions fought to enhance earlier than the “pro-labor” Biden administration lower strike plans off on the knees. Biden saved Christmas, by forcing railway staff to maintain transport merchandise from coast to coast below harmful circumstances with skeleton crews, and all it price was the well being and security of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who dwell close to railroads.
Source: jalopnik.com