A factor that may or may not have had some influence on this incident based on my experience from a number of years ago.
The bad bearing was 23 cars deep in a long train. After the HBD detected the hot bearing it waited until the rest of the train had passed over it before transmitting it's report of the defect over the radio. On CSX the detectors transmitted a short tone immediately after a defect is detected. That tone is easy to miss if other transmissions are on the radio. It doesn't give any hint of what the defect might be and thus the engineer doesn't know what the best response might be. I don't remember if the NS detectors use that warning tone.
Waiting for the entire train to pass over the detector before giving the verbal warning delays the warning for what may be a critical amount of time.
PsychotAlso, I'm dead impressed that the taggers can cover the entire side of an auto rack with their tag.
They've come a long way from Bozo Texino.
One wonders how they manage to get to the top of an autorack. Is their access so unfettered that they can bring ladders?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I'm not sure East Palestine will go away any time soon, since the Republicans clearly think it's a useful tool to bludgeon the current administration.
Regarding graffiti, one consolation is that U.S. taggers are truly artists. By contrast, European graffiti is downright ugly for the most part. Also, I'm dead impressed that the taggers can cover the entire side of an auto rack with their tag. That can't be easy. Not condoning tagging, mind you.
tree68 Euclid For all practical purposes, yes. It is a general statement, and likewise with "...trains are not able to handle the cargo safely." How safe is safely? It is a public opinion that will not be defined by statistics. It will be defined by news of the derailments and especaially the videos such as the one from the latest derailment showing a close up of a high speed derailment over the grade crossing. Rarely has the public seen anything with that much clarity. Rarely has the news media found a reason to promote such a video. It is a public relations problem for the railroads. Is this the same public that says "you mean they still use trains?" Within a month, no one outside the industry will remember East Palestine. They'll still complain about getting stuck at crossings. Vandalism is a much larger problem than image for the railroads. It's a social problem, and I think people know that. Tagging goes on everywhere - some places worse than others. Walls, buildings, bridges, you name it. It's just become part of the landscape. One fellow is even celebrated for it to the point that people get upset when his work gets covered/removed. The railroads do try to deal with it - but, as has been noted, the vast majority of railroad cars in service today are privately owned. Thus it's up to the car owners to deal with it, not the railroads. The "artists" have, in many cases, gotten smart. They've learned that if they leave the reporting marks, etc, intact, their creation is less likely to be "defaced" or completely removed. I don't know what it costs to paint a car (I sure someone will chime in), but it ain't cheap.
Euclid For all practical purposes, yes. It is a general statement, and likewise with "...trains are not able to handle the cargo safely." How safe is safely? It is a public opinion that will not be defined by statistics. It will be defined by news of the derailments and especaially the videos such as the one from the latest derailment showing a close up of a high speed derailment over the grade crossing. Rarely has the public seen anything with that much clarity. Rarely has the news media found a reason to promote such a video. It is a public relations problem for the railroads.
Is this the same public that says "you mean they still use trains?"
Within a month, no one outside the industry will remember East Palestine. They'll still complain about getting stuck at crossings.
Vandalism is a much larger problem than image for the railroads. It's a social problem, and I think people know that. Tagging goes on everywhere - some places worse than others. Walls, buildings, bridges, you name it. It's just become part of the landscape. One fellow is even celebrated for it to the point that people get upset when his work gets covered/removed.
The railroads do try to deal with it - but, as has been noted, the vast majority of railroad cars in service today are privately owned. Thus it's up to the car owners to deal with it, not the railroads.
The "artists" have, in many cases, gotten smart. They've learned that if they leave the reporting marks, etc, intact, their creation is less likely to be "defaced" or completely removed.
I don't know what it costs to paint a car (I sure someone will chime in), but it ain't cheap.
EuclidFor all practical purposes, yes. It is a general statement, and likewise with "...trains are not able to handle the cargo safely." How safe is safely? It is a public opinion that will not be defined by statistics. It will be defined by news of the derailments and especaially the videos such as the one from the latest derailment showing a close up of a high speed derailment over the grade crossing. Rarely has the public seen anything with that much clarity. Rarely has the news media found a reason to promote such a video. It is a public relations problem for the railroads.
n012944 Euclid Everybody is already convinced that trains are not able to handle the cargo safely. Everybody?
Euclid Everybody is already convinced that trains are not able to handle the cargo safely.
Everybody is already convinced that trains are not able to handle the cargo safely.
Everybody?
For all practical purposes, yes. It is a general statement, and likewise with "...trains are not able to handle the cargo safely." How safe is safely? It is a public opinion that will not be defined by statistics. It will be defined by news of the derailments and especaially the videos such as the one from the latest derailment showing a close up of a high speed derailment over the grade crossing. Rarely has the public seen anything with that much clarity. Rarely has the news media found a reason to promote such a video. It is a public relations problem for the railroads.
An "expensive model collector"
( The other shoe has still yet to drop from 5 years ago.)
Falcon48 Let me try to put the East Palestine rail accident into a little perspective. According to the National Safety Council, in 2020 (the most recent year available on the NSC website) 4,965 people were killed in large truck accidents in the U.S. That's more than the entire population of East Palestine (4,718 in 2021). In contrast, there were 744 U.S. railroad fatalities in 2020. In other words, large truck fatalities were over 6 times the number of rail fatalities. Guess truck accidents don't matter as much to the current Transportation Secretary as a good photo op.
Let me try to put the East Palestine rail accident into a little perspective. According to the National Safety Council, in 2020 (the most recent year available on the NSC website) 4,965 people were killed in large truck accidents in the U.S. That's more than the entire population of East Palestine (4,718 in 2021). In contrast, there were 744 U.S. railroad fatalities in 2020. In other words, large truck fatalities were over 6 times the number of rail fatalities. Guess truck accidents don't matter as much to the current Transportation Secretary as a good photo op.
I caught a news snippet where the head of the NTSB said rail was still safer then trucks to transport hazmat.
A news item I came across on the news feed on my internet home page had statistics for the number of derailments for a period of years, ending with I think 2021. I don't remember the exact length of time. It gave the number of people killed by derailing trains. It averaged to be about 4 per year.
Jeff
nevermind.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
7j43kIf the factories that use these materials were adjacent to the factories that made them, then the hazardous chemicals would have an extremely short haul. Maybe a mile. Or two.
Steel: Coal from WV (and other) mines, iron ore from UP, etc, limestone from several sources. Steel isn't hazmat, but it regularly travels the rails between producer and manufacturers.
Gasoline: Crude from various sources, ethanol from the Midwest. All hauled to where the refining takes place, which is near the markets.
Houston Ed made his living moving "stuff" around - incoming and outgoing - from Houston's chemical alley. Because not all components of a given product come from the same place.
7j43kIf the factories that use these materials were adjacent to the factories that made them, then the hazardous chemicals would have an extremely short haul. Maybe a mile. Or two. As the costs rise for transporting hazardous chemicals, the above will be more enticing. Ed
As the costs rise for transporting hazardous chemicals, the above will be more enticing.
Ed
Shippers and Consignees are where they are because that is where their PRIMARY resources are located - plus thousands of other considerations concerning work force, housing, qualities of life and on and on.
To implement your 'idea' would require scraping the Constitution and having a centrally managed directed economy.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
If the factories that use these materials were adjacent to the factories that made them, then the hazardous chemicals would have an extremely short haul. Maybe a mile. Or two.
Nobody is suggesting hauling it on the highways. The point is that if the hazmat traffic is not profitable, and everybody is criticizing the railroads for not safely hauling it; the railroads ought to just join all their critics in saying they want out because it is too dangerous to haul. Maybe the government can haul it by rail and spend enough money to make it safe.
EuclidI think that is an excellent idea. The railroads can just tell the Government that the HAZMAT is too dangerous for them to haul.
Yeah - Check out the truck fire in Maryland.
Consider that a unit train of ethanol, going from the Plains (where the corn is) to the east coast (where the stuff is mixed) will require ~300 semis to get the product where it needs to be. Pretty much every day. See that line of trucks on the Interstate as you drive to your own destination?
And there are hardly enough truck drivers available now to move what is going over the road. You'd be talking thousands more trucks.
Right now I'm watching a unit tank train (can't tell what - not enough resolution in the video to read the placards - generally either crude or ethanol) rolling through Deshler, and not a single car has crashed and burned.
Falcon48Falcon48 wrote the following post an hour ago: If I were the CEO of Norfolk Southern right now (I'm not), I would be instructing my minions to come up with a strategy for exiting transportation of "high hazard" HMT (like the stuff involved in the East Palestine derailment) My reasons for this would be: ...
Everybody is already convinced that trains are not able to handle the cargo safely. Now is the time because exhibit “A” is right before our eyes with the East Palestine wreck. So, the railroads would not have to work hard to make their case. I think that is a perfect idea.
I give up. <Waving White flag>
ns145 Euclid FRA makes safety recommendations for hotbox detector warnings https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/fra-makes-safety-recommendations-for-hotbox-detector-warnings/ “Specifically, the FRA safety advisory recommends that railroads: Evaluate the temperature thresholds for inspections based on hot bearing detector data.” I have concluded that the problem of hotbox detection has two options for a solution: OPTION ONE: Lower the threshold heat upper limit for warning. OPTION TWO: Reduce the distance between hotbox detectors by increasing their number. Both options will reduce the chance of derailment. The first option will increase the chance of unnecessarily delaying trains. The second option will add the cost of added detectors. Assuming there is a wide variety of bearing failure development trends, it may be that option one is not practical. The reason may be that if the settings for the heat action threshold are low enough to make the system able to deal with the wide variety of bearing failure progressions that are possible, that may cause excessive delay to trains due to false alarm situations. In the case of the first two detectors involved with the East Palestine bearing failure, temperatures were reported to the evaluation people who decided to let the train proceed past the reporting detectors. I guess this is what is meant by the widely circulated claim that the detectors did not find a temperature high enough to trigger action to stop and inspect. But I wonder if this is accurate. It implies that the detectors have a set heat level, above which automatically calls for stopping the train. But if that is the case, why have this human element that is evaluating the temperature reading? If the detector has a specific heat level trigger, why not just leave decision to stop and inspect to the detector? Why have humans deliberate on how serious the problem is? How can they deliberate and come up with a decision that is nothing more than a guess? Also, what railroad employee wants to risk stopping and delaying a train with a false alarm? How are they going to balance taking a chance on stopping a train versus causing a derailment? Obviously, causing a derailment is far worse than delaying a train. But still I wonder. Delays happen every day, the cause is scrutinized. Derailments seem like a distant event. Just in the sense of railroad culture, I think there would be a strong bias favoring letting a warm bearing continue rather than stopping the train. Euclid, this is the key concept to wrap your mind around: NS was trying to be proactive. They were watching for potential problems as they were developing in real time, rather than using their HBD network as a simple pass/fail system. Yes, some human judgement got inserted into the mix here, which doesn't look too good in 20/20 hindsight. But the nature of roller bearings is that they're good until they go bad. And, as Jeff mentioned, there's other things than can being going on such as use of the train's air brakes that can generate significant amounts of heat that is below the critical alarm threshold.
Euclid FRA makes safety recommendations for hotbox detector warnings https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/fra-makes-safety-recommendations-for-hotbox-detector-warnings/ “Specifically, the FRA safety advisory recommends that railroads: Evaluate the temperature thresholds for inspections based on hot bearing detector data.” I have concluded that the problem of hotbox detection has two options for a solution: OPTION ONE: Lower the threshold heat upper limit for warning. OPTION TWO: Reduce the distance between hotbox detectors by increasing their number. Both options will reduce the chance of derailment. The first option will increase the chance of unnecessarily delaying trains. The second option will add the cost of added detectors. Assuming there is a wide variety of bearing failure development trends, it may be that option one is not practical. The reason may be that if the settings for the heat action threshold are low enough to make the system able to deal with the wide variety of bearing failure progressions that are possible, that may cause excessive delay to trains due to false alarm situations. In the case of the first two detectors involved with the East Palestine bearing failure, temperatures were reported to the evaluation people who decided to let the train proceed past the reporting detectors. I guess this is what is meant by the widely circulated claim that the detectors did not find a temperature high enough to trigger action to stop and inspect. But I wonder if this is accurate. It implies that the detectors have a set heat level, above which automatically calls for stopping the train. But if that is the case, why have this human element that is evaluating the temperature reading? If the detector has a specific heat level trigger, why not just leave decision to stop and inspect to the detector? Why have humans deliberate on how serious the problem is? How can they deliberate and come up with a decision that is nothing more than a guess? Also, what railroad employee wants to risk stopping and delaying a train with a false alarm? How are they going to balance taking a chance on stopping a train versus causing a derailment? Obviously, causing a derailment is far worse than delaying a train. But still I wonder. Delays happen every day, the cause is scrutinized. Derailments seem like a distant event. Just in the sense of railroad culture, I think there would be a strong bias favoring letting a warm bearing continue rather than stopping the train.
Euclid, this is the key concept to wrap your mind around: NS was trying to be proactive. They were watching for potential problems as they were developing in real time, rather than using their HBD network as a simple pass/fail system. Yes, some human judgement got inserted into the mix here, which doesn't look too good in 20/20 hindsight. But the nature of roller bearings is that they're good until they go bad. And, as Jeff mentioned, there's other things than can being going on such as use of the train's air brakes that can generate significant amounts of heat that is below the critical alarm threshold.
Another NS derailment, about 20 cars, near Soringfield, Ohio. But no fires or Hazmat.
A post on a railfan site stated that a "container" with hazmat had spilled into the Ohio River during the derailment...
While the incident did occur within the Ohio River watershed, statements like that are just pot stirring. At the point of the derailment, one is nearly 20 miles from the Ohio River.
And I don't recall seeing any intermodal containers in the mess, so their probable mislabeling of a tank car as a "container" indicates they probably don't have clue of what they're talking about.
Falcon48 Any bets on whether this will generate anywhere near the amount of adverse publicity that the NS East Palestine accident did? Or maybe bets on whether Transportation Secretary Buttigieg will bestir himself enough to take a short drive from his office in WDC to Frederick for a press conference lambasting the trucking industry. https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/deadly-tanker-truck-crash-frederick-county-fire-explosion-investigation/
Any bets on whether this will generate anywhere near the amount of adverse publicity that the NS East Palestine accident did? Or maybe bets on whether Transportation Secretary Buttigieg will bestir himself enough to take a short drive from his office in WDC to Frederick for a press conference lambasting the trucking industry.
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/deadly-tanker-truck-crash-frederick-county-fire-explosion-investigation/
ns145 And, as Jeff mentioned, there's other things than can being going on such as use of the train's air brakes that can generate significant amounts of heat that is below the critical alarm threshold.
Indeed - although dynamics are the option of choice these days, I'm sure we've all seen pictures of trains wreathed in brake smoke.
The detector remote readout would also have temps for the rest of the train. If other cars had been higher over the second detector, someone reviewing the entire train's readout and seeing higher, but not to the threshold levels, temperatures on the failing bearing may conclude that the rise in temperature for that bearing was due to other factors.
CSX RobertThe Norfolk Southern hot bearing detector alarm thresholds are listed in the NTSB preliminary report:
I would opine that the thresholds are based on experience as well as possibly the recommendations of the bearing manufacturers.
Thus, the spot temperatures were of no consequence by themselves. It was the trend that should have been troubling.
EuclidIn the case of the first two detectors involved with the East Palestine bearing failure, temperatures were reported to the evaluation people who decided to let the train proceed past the reporting detectors. I guess this is what is meant by the widely circulated claim that the detectors did not find a temperature high enough to trigger action to stop and inspect. But I wonder if this is accurate. It implies that the detectors have a set heat level, above which automatically calls for stopping the train.
The Norfolk Southern hot bearing detector alarm thresholds are listed in the NTSB preliminary report:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/RRD23MR005%20East%20Palestine%20OH%20Prelim.pdf
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