Legislation passed under President Obama required trains carrying hazardous flammable materials to have ECP brakes.
The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.
The law was rescinded in 2017 by the Trump administration.
[1]: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017_casselton_BM...
Bearing failures account for 5.9% of all train derailments[2].
It's possible to help prevent this (not fully as many things derail trains) with more sensors[3] and tighter maintenance checks.
This was most likely due to a lack of maintenance.
[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20230214.as...
[2] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2016/september/the-most-comm...
[3] https://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/research/projects/...
Citation needed.
It sounds like all administrations (especially those currently in charge) deserve criticism for not focusing on the correct regulations for train safety.
Requiring something that isn't needed doesn't help... It can hurt as it takes resources away from actual necessities, like sensors, and tighter maintenance inspections.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that a train derailment near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May 2015 was prevented from being a disaster thanks to the train’s Emergency Control Power (ECP) brakes. According to the NTSB report, the ECP brakes, which are activated when the engineer loses control of the train, stopped the train within 1.25 seconds of the engineer’s attempts to stop it, preventing it from derailing. The ECP brakes are the most efficient braking system available, allowing trains to stop within a very short amount of time. Without them, the tragic derailment of Amtrak Train No. 188 may have been much worse.
"U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "Investigation Report: Derailment of Amtrak Train No. 188 Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 12, 2015." May 2016. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/....
Not absurd at all to bring up another universe...
I ignored that silly part of their statement as you should have.
First I've heard of this.
*Update - NTSB is saying it was bearing failure - https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20230214.as...
ctrl+f for 'axle' or 'brake' from the NTSB statement - zero results
Not enough information to determine what caused the bearing to fail, bearing failures account for 5.9% of all train derailments[1].
Though we can look at common train bearing failures to get a likelihood...
Most likely it was a simple lack of maintenance. It's possible to prevent this with more sensors[2] and tighter maintenance checks.
[1] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2016/september/the-most-comm...
[2] https://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/research/projects/...
My point though is the "bearing failing" is too generic to determine what on it failed.
Sometimes the brakes are fixed to the axle, are they not? In that case it couldn't be the brake.
Think about pulling over as soon as you know you’ve taken a hit to a tire instead of continuing to drive until you’re on nothing but a rim and sparks.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s department has no plans to reinstate an Obama-era rail safety rule aimed at expanding the use of better braking technology, even though a former federal safety official recently warned Congress that without the better brakes.
The Biden administration has had every opportunity to reinstate the safety rule in the past two years.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2018/12/20/trump-ad...
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/department-of-transportation-tra...
1. Let's not pretend that this was a "crazy" Trump move. Any Republican would have done this.
2. Let's stop pretending both parties are the same. Yes, there are places where they overlap, but there are important places where there is NO overlap. Environmental action is the big area where there is little to no overlap.
So maybe, just maybe, the 2 sides are willing to shout about different things but at the end of the day are in fact the same.
Just a thought.
if i where to point at who has the most fault it here would be the Republicans.
To say "the Dems could have done it if they wanted it" is not at all true.
The Democrats had the option of doing nothing. The railroad workers would have had a strike for a variety of their issues (safety being high on the list), and the workers would have gotten a better deal than the one they got.
Unfortunately the strike would have to have lasted long enough and been painful enough for the train companies to accept that they had to negotiate with workers rather than trying to bargain with Congress. That's fundamentally why Congress caved - because THEY would be blamed for the economic disruption. But that doesn't change the fact that simply doing nothing would have been a better outcome for workers.