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Comment by rapnie | Hacker News Reader

In the Netherlands there is an ongoing debate on the use of ballast stones giving off quartz dust that can cause lung disease and cancer.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2021/04/prorail-is-jeopardising-wor...

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Maybe you should mention that these concerns are about the workers who "work with the stones on a daily basis, often standing in great clouds of dust without wearing masks" (maybe they should simply wear masks then?), not the general public.

Whenever there is a lot of dust, you should wear a mask. One good thing the pandemic taught us: how to use masks. And now the n95/ffp2 are cheap again.

I never figured out how to get an FFP2 mask to be tight. Air always passed on the sides somewhere.

The only mask that I've tried that is actually air-tight is a 3M silicone mask with replaceable filters. It works even with a short beard. I think only proper masks like that actually prevent the bad stuff from getting into your lungs (assuming you buy the correct filters).

That’s tricky for some people, especially for skinny people in combination with big cheekbones. Did you try the 3M masks too, in tests they seem to perform in average much better than the Asian style masks just out of two pieces laminated together. They seem to work best on round faces, which are very common in Asia.

A half-face P100 respirator is a much better choice for any serious dust. Also, surprisingly, P100 respirators are effortless to breathe in while offering superior protection.

..while simultaneously 100x your chances of being mistook for a Subzero or Scorpion cosplay. YMMV on whether that is preferred

Living in europe where ~once a year storms bring massive amounts of super fine quartz sand from the sahara desert, you'd imagine the amount from railway ballast wouldn't be a concern...

Is this from the stones, or because the stones are polluted? There has been a lot of talk about where to put the old stones here in Denmark (another densely populated region), because if you “put” it too close to sources of drinking water all that pollution they’ve soaked up over the years will eventually get into the ground water.

If it’s that dust, and not “just” quarts dust from the stones themselves, then I wonder if switching will help. I mean, the trains are still going to drop whatever it is they drop as they ride along.

It's from the rock dust itself. Quartz is silica, and silica dust causes silicosis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

I wonder why railway ballast is polluted...? Has someone been running trains for years which leak loads of oil or something?

it's not; it's the dust from the actual stones themselves not a contamination.

In Denmark it’s because we still have diesel trains from the 80-90ies because their replacements didn’t work. (Don’t ask).

I’m not sure the electrics they plan on implementing will have the same issue.

Other than suburban and light rail lines, it's only the lines from Germany to Sweden that are electrified: https://openrailwaymap.org/?style=electrified&lat=56.2860592...

Also, steel wheels rolling on steel rails results in lots of fine metal powder everywhere. Also, particularly in cities, everything gets covered in small particles from a lot of sources.

This concerns quartz dust that comes with the stones from the groove, as well as new dust from putting the stones into place.

People campaign about these weird issues and then ignore the plastic in the drinking water and the hormones in the food…

Well literally everything causes cancer to some degree and any particles one breathes in that aren't air can cause lung problems.

The real question is probably "do enough people get sick from it that it's more expensive for the rail company to pay out lawsuits than the track to be replaced".

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