Railroads transport huge quantities of toxic and hazardous products all over the country, all the time.
It's nothing new. Far from it.
And if you did discover some of those railcars contain hazardous materials, then what?
Do you want to ban them from being transported by rail?
What would happen then, other than clogging up highways with tanker trucks hauling this around? Where they can be involved in car wrecks. Which would happen on a daily basis, most likely?
Why is there the downvotes? Can we have a serious discussion sometime on this forum about there always, ALWAYS, being hazmat being transported? Why does no one here seem to know this. It’s how it’s worked, always. I’m glad people are paying attention to it I guess, but This picture means nothing. Trains get parked places.
Trains ABSOLUTELY are the safest way to transport hazardous materials over long distances - pipelines are impractical for many of them for various reasons.
Not only is railway safer but, they also have better placarding requirements so responders will know what they're actually dealing with if an incident does occur. A lot of hazardous material being transported over the road does not even require placarding because they are packaged below what is considered "reportable quantity" (RQ). The RQ varies based on the individual material beign transported which leads to situations where there are several hazardous materials all being loaded into the same cargo container that may have synergistic reactions if they should become mixed because of an accident.
Ahhh now we’re getting somewhere. Lobbyists and politicians decide railroad regulations. The easy answer is you want to transport hazmat far away from population centers(cities) in the case of a derailment, unfortunately sparsely populated usually means rural, and farmland.
I understand that point, but how is spilling hazmat from a train parked directly in front a culvert into a major river and and a water table that supports most of the midwest any better of an answer than spilling into a populated area.
I think cities would actually be a MUCH better place to accidentally spill as they have the infrastructure near by to handle it much better
🤷♀️
Sometimes people just want to be angry and outraged, and don't react well to plain old pragmatism.
And many people are absolutely oblivious to the everyday workings of the world.
They don't want to have to think about stuff. Just feel and express those feelings.
Because who wants to think about the logistics of hauling millions and millions of tons of hazardous materials around the country. To find solutions to problems. That's too much work.
And if I've learned anything from the Simpsons, it's that thinking causes wrinkles. And ain't nobody wanting any wrinkles.
It’s genuinely frustrating. I’m honestly confused by who is forging the narrative that trains I guess, don’t transport things? Or they shouldn’t be? Weird stuff going on with this narrative.
Unfortunately that’s probably not very true. For example The train derailment i mentioned in Quebec went as follows. The one single person operating a train with 5 engines and 70 rail cars full of crude oil parked on a slight decline with engine problems. He was instructed to leave the train running, Unlocked, and directly next to a public highway, while one of the Diesel engines was actively running away and spitting sparks out its smokestack and to wait at at a hotel until maintenance fixes it. Fire burns out the only running engine about 10 minutes after he leaves, air brakes lose pressure, off the train goes directly into a small town. While not in the US, I don’t see our train companies doing things too far off from this type of thing.
Sorry for the long anecdote, I happen to enjoy reading about hazmat/industrial disasters. Anywho, I’m not sure if there’s laws on parking hazmat cars in certain ecological zones, but even if there are, expect rail companies to violate them if the fines are reasonable in the slightest.
Exactly, I commute along the 5 freeway in OC, CA and for decades “they” park dozens upon dozens of those black tanker cars sometimes for weeks on end alongside the freeway. They do the same with fully loaded lumber cars and I’ve never had a concern for safety. The first time you see it it might seem strange, the second time the ah ha moment... you have to park the unused cars somewhere.
These chemicals should be transported via pipelines. Oddly enough the SEC and Fed reserve are the ones to fight against that. What part they have is odd. Also, railroad safety has fallen by the wayside. There used to be 4 railroad employees on every train. There was a conductor and a brakeman in the engine. There was a fireman and one more person in the caboose. Each had a very important job they took seriously. Now these trains are manned by only one person and they would like to do away with that. The trains were about 1 mile long. Now they are 2 miles long. The railroad yards were also manned by section crew, yard master and r.r. police. My family is 3 generation railroad (proud) workers. To see what has happened is sickening to us.
Correct, train is one of the best ways to ship some of these substances. It's benign to ship them, but what went wrong in Ohio in particular is how they handled it, from letting it burn to a short term evacuation to arresting people who investigated.
But that we have so many events happening so close to each other is concerning on its face.
Oh, I agree 100%. They fucked that up good and proper and then tried to suppress the hell out of it.
And I agree, on its face, it's concerning. But is there actually an increase of these events happening? Or are we just more aware of them because we have so many people actively looking for them?
And as time goes by, and the world becomes more and more populated, and more products that use/produce hazardous material are manufactured, and are then transported, the possibility of these types of events increase.
This is a huge factor that doesn't seem to occur to many people. Just because we are more aware of events doesn't mean there is an increase of those events. Does this make sense? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snarky. I just have problems expressing my thoughts clearly.
I do wonder about the wisdom of hauling a string of railroad cars all filled with toxic chemicals, though. It seems there would be less risk in transporting those chemicals one truckload at a time, especially if they crash and rupture. I'd rather have one truck on a highway crash than 10 rail cars on a railroad.
This is a false dichotomy "one truck on the highway vs 10 rail cars on a railroad".
Those 10 rail cars would not be replaced by 1 truck on the highway. Probably more along the lines of 30 or more. And the more trucks on the road, the increased likelihood of a wreck.
And then there's the increased likelihood that the wreck would be in a more populated place.
You might want to go look at how many millions of tons of hazardous material is transported by rails each year and how often there are serious incidents.
And then look at how many tons of hazardous material are transported by truck and how often there are serious incidents there.
And of course, you need to factor in the monetary costs as well.
It's much cheaper to transport by rail in many of these situations. The companies who use/produce these materials have to pay for transport. Are you prepared to pay more for their products to offset their expenses?
Not saying that I agree with companies valuing profits over people. Just that it's a factor that needs to be addressed if you're interested in finding alternative ways to do things.
Railroads transport huge quantities of toxic and hazardous products all over the country, all the time.
It's nothing new. Far from it.
And if you did discover some of those railcars contain hazardous materials, then what?
Do you want to ban them from being transported by rail?
What would happen then, other than clogging up highways with tanker trucks hauling this around? Where they can be involved in car wrecks. Which would happen on a daily basis, most likely?
Why is there the downvotes? Can we have a serious discussion sometime on this forum about there always, ALWAYS, being hazmat being transported? Why does no one here seem to know this. It’s how it’s worked, always. I’m glad people are paying attention to it I guess, but This picture means nothing. Trains get parked places.
Trains ABSOLUTELY are the safest way to transport hazardous materials over long distances - pipelines are impractical for many of them for various reasons.
Not only is railway safer but, they also have better placarding requirements so responders will know what they're actually dealing with if an incident does occur. A lot of hazardous material being transported over the road does not even require placarding because they are packaged below what is considered "reportable quantity" (RQ). The RQ varies based on the individual material beign transported which leads to situations where there are several hazardous materials all being loaded into the same cargo container that may have synergistic reactions if they should become mixed because of an accident.
Sure, but gas pipelines are absolutely superior. That being said, carry on.
Carry on, indeed.
why can liberal major cities prohibit hazardous cargo but not rural farms?
seems like everyone should have a say in whether HC can come through or no one should.
Ahhh now we’re getting somewhere. Lobbyists and politicians decide railroad regulations. The easy answer is you want to transport hazmat far away from population centers(cities) in the case of a derailment, unfortunately sparsely populated usually means rural, and farmland.
I understand that point, but how is spilling hazmat from a train parked directly in front a culvert into a major river and and a water table that supports most of the midwest any better of an answer than spilling into a populated area.
I think cities would actually be a MUCH better place to accidentally spill as they have the infrastructure near by to handle it much better
Seems like an obvious answer.
🤷♀️ Sometimes people just want to be angry and outraged, and don't react well to plain old pragmatism.
And many people are absolutely oblivious to the everyday workings of the world.
They don't want to have to think about stuff. Just feel and express those feelings.
Because who wants to think about the logistics of hauling millions and millions of tons of hazardous materials around the country. To find solutions to problems. That's too much work.
And if I've learned anything from the Simpsons, it's that thinking causes wrinkles. And ain't nobody wanting any wrinkles.
Not to mention raw nerves. People are hyper focused on this stuff, because of the Ohio disaster
Yup
It’s genuinely frustrating. I’m honestly confused by who is forging the narrative that trains I guess, don’t transport things? Or they shouldn’t be? Weird stuff going on with this narrative.
People don't like those who don't just fall into step with whatever the narrative here is currently.
We're supposed to "question everything". Except here.
For God's sake. Do NOT question anything here. Because, shill.
🙄
There's always hazmat being transported.
There's not always hazmat being left to sit in the middle of ecologically sensitive zones without reason or explanation.
Unfortunately that’s probably not very true. For example The train derailment i mentioned in Quebec went as follows. The one single person operating a train with 5 engines and 70 rail cars full of crude oil parked on a slight decline with engine problems. He was instructed to leave the train running, Unlocked, and directly next to a public highway, while one of the Diesel engines was actively running away and spitting sparks out its smokestack and to wait at at a hotel until maintenance fixes it. Fire burns out the only running engine about 10 minutes after he leaves, air brakes lose pressure, off the train goes directly into a small town. While not in the US, I don’t see our train companies doing things too far off from this type of thing.
Sorry for the long anecdote, I happen to enjoy reading about hazmat/industrial disasters. Anywho, I’m not sure if there’s laws on parking hazmat cars in certain ecological zones, but even if there are, expect rail companies to violate them if the fines are reasonable in the slightest.
Exactly, I commute along the 5 freeway in OC, CA and for decades “they” park dozens upon dozens of those black tanker cars sometimes for weeks on end alongside the freeway. They do the same with fully loaded lumber cars and I’ve never had a concern for safety. The first time you see it it might seem strange, the second time the ah ha moment... you have to park the unused cars somewhere.
Yeah she mentions the location in another tweet: https://twitter.com/DollArntzen/status/1627705703229177858
Checked on Google Earth and looked on historical imagery and there are several years recently that tanker cars have been parked in that area.
The ranchers are spooked. They’re obviously saying that this is unusual.
That’s what she said on the clips - it was being discussed by locals (she’s visiting the area) at a gathering as it’s unusual for that area
Every time you post you out yourself as a shill.
What exactly have I said that you think is untrue?
Or do only shills acknowledge things like hazardous materials have long been transported by rail?
What does "shill" even mean here anymore? Other than "someone who says something I don't like"?
These chemicals should be transported via pipelines. Oddly enough the SEC and Fed reserve are the ones to fight against that. What part they have is odd. Also, railroad safety has fallen by the wayside. There used to be 4 railroad employees on every train. There was a conductor and a brakeman in the engine. There was a fireman and one more person in the caboose. Each had a very important job they took seriously. Now these trains are manned by only one person and they would like to do away with that. The trains were about 1 mile long. Now they are 2 miles long. The railroad yards were also manned by section crew, yard master and r.r. police. My family is 3 generation railroad (proud) workers. To see what has happened is sickening to us.
This situation is turning out to be people chasing their tails. Or chasing the rails.
Correct, train is one of the best ways to ship some of these substances. It's benign to ship them, but what went wrong in Ohio in particular is how they handled it, from letting it burn to a short term evacuation to arresting people who investigated.
But that we have so many events happening so close to each other is concerning on its face.
Oh, I agree 100%. They fucked that up good and proper and then tried to suppress the hell out of it.
And I agree, on its face, it's concerning. But is there actually an increase of these events happening? Or are we just more aware of them because we have so many people actively looking for them?
And as time goes by, and the world becomes more and more populated, and more products that use/produce hazardous material are manufactured, and are then transported, the possibility of these types of events increase.
This is a huge factor that doesn't seem to occur to many people. Just because we are more aware of events doesn't mean there is an increase of those events. Does this make sense? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snarky. I just have problems expressing my thoughts clearly.
I do wonder about the wisdom of hauling a string of railroad cars all filled with toxic chemicals, though. It seems there would be less risk in transporting those chemicals one truckload at a time, especially if they crash and rupture. I'd rather have one truck on a highway crash than 10 rail cars on a railroad.
This is a false dichotomy "one truck on the highway vs 10 rail cars on a railroad".
Those 10 rail cars would not be replaced by 1 truck on the highway. Probably more along the lines of 30 or more. And the more trucks on the road, the increased likelihood of a wreck.
And then there's the increased likelihood that the wreck would be in a more populated place.
You might want to go look at how many millions of tons of hazardous material is transported by rails each year and how often there are serious incidents.
And then look at how many tons of hazardous material are transported by truck and how often there are serious incidents there.
And of course, you need to factor in the monetary costs as well.
It's much cheaper to transport by rail in many of these situations. The companies who use/produce these materials have to pay for transport. Are you prepared to pay more for their products to offset their expenses?
Not saying that I agree with companies valuing profits over people. Just that it's a factor that needs to be addressed if you're interested in finding alternative ways to do things.
Ghod the downvotes are out of control, almost as many as upvotes
Weird
And I didn't think that comment that got so many downvotes would be so controversial.
It's basically just all facts. Not much opinion in there to take issue with