East Palestine, Ohio
February 15, 2023
A TRAIN on the Norfolk Southern line that was carrying large quantities of hazardous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, derailed a week ago in East Palestine, Ohio and some say the extent of the disaster is being covered up. The chemicals apparently were drained from the trains and then set on fire for disposal, causing toxic clouds for hundreds of miles. Whether calling it a “Chernobyl-like” catastrophe (see video) is alarmism, I cannot say, but caution against rushing to conclusions or dismissing the seriousness of the story.
A comment found here:
So, ya. I can confirm the massive budget cuts at Norfolk Southern being a likely cause of this. My brother worked for them as the railroad equivalent of a mechanic and got laid off about three years ago due to the railroad adopting a “precision railroading” policy. To very quickly simplify the policy, the idea is to cut jobs within the company by the thousands, removing mechanics, track repairmen, general maintenance, and even engineers who ran the trains, while also adding too many cars to the trains and simply not working on engines or cars when they needed repairs and simply doing the absolute bare minimum to maintain a “functional” railroad.
If you look around Altoona PA, where Norfolks biggest repair shop is, there are a whole slew of train cars left on their side on the tracks from the trains constantly wrecking the last few years due to lack of maintenance or having too many cars on the trains for the turns they are making. They don’t even bother picking them up because they are too short staffed and just move them enough that the trains can pass by. Seriously, they have had dozens of wrecks in the last few years because of this.
This was put in place because the investors in Norfolk Southern had been watching a few railroads in Canada, I believe the primary was Canadian Pacific, followed the practice and maximized profits with this policy. Despite all the same problems occurring there, the investors demanded Norfolk, as well as other railroads here in the states do the same thing so they could make a bunch of fast money at the cost of ruining lives and good jobs. This was bound to happen, and I doubt the people at fault face actual punishment.Look up “precision railroading” and the name Hunter Harrison if you want to go down an insane rabbit hole of failure and incompetence. There are forums all over the internet of railroad employees talking about this insanity for years now. This is the cost of nobody listening to the boots on the ground and just making money at all costs.
