I grew up in a house that was about 300' from a main line. One night 12 cars derailed at our rural rail crossing. The cause was a wheel journal that burned in two due to failed bearings. The SP&S (now BNSF) engineer new there was a hotbox, but wanted to make it to the rail yard 20 miles up the line. The rail company worked 24/7 to get the line repaired enough to reopen it, then jobbed the rest out to a salvage contractor who took months clean up(?) the mess, sort of. After a while the grass grew long and green from all the Ammonium Chloride that dumped out the top of a bottom dump car. Profit is the only thing that matters. It's cheaper to clean up the mess than to replace wheel bearings per a maintenance schedule.
A few other things to consider....Longer trains mean more wheel beaings. Bearing vibration analysis is a much better technique to identify bearings that are in the early stages of failure. Bearing vibration analysis is difficult to implement because 1) it is expensive, 2) Transducers must be mounted on the bearing housing and 3) The skills required are rather complex and the training process tends to make the workers uncomfortable. This is not text book theory. I know, I have been there. However it is sucessfully used in a number of Industries.
No one is putting sensors on bearings. It's not happening. You don't comprehend the number of rail cars online and the environment they live in. Simpler is better.
This is why the industry uses external fault detectors ("hot box detectors") to detect bad bearings - cheaper to have external detection of overheating bearings.
@@AlanTheBeast100 The problem is the profit drive of the capitalist bosses. The rate of profit in industry declines as machine replace skilled labor with unskilled labor.
I feel like the number of sensors required to put them on individual cars would not only be extremely expensive, but also make maintenance a nightmare as the failure rate of such sensors would be quite high.
Simple answer. US free economy is very ruthless and powerful. It places profit over safety. It has so much political clout that it can withstand any pressure to fix it. And that is why USA companies are very successful. Success comes with a price.
With a lot less workers, there are less employees to be killed by accidents. They are more likely to die on the yard, where they are walking around. Please try to put some logic into your thinking, because safety is irrelevant when there's nobody around to be hurt.
Except, this is at the Sunday Supplement (grade school level) of understanding and did NOT answer the question, other than in very general terms, of why freight trains keep derailing. It is the accountants trying to stretch every penny for the investors; not considering the human factors of employees, customers, and community; and not considering the costs when a stretched system fails.
@@BryanTorok It did, the entire runway is being monitored by people outside of the field. They don’t know anything on the matter. Many security procedures were taken from the Captain of the train. Faulty sensors were also part of the reason. The derailing is caused by the speed and weight. These are constant variables since the cargo may be different every time. Thats why they have sensors to detect excess of heat in the rails or faulty mechanics.
At the end, the guy like "we're putting in a THOUSAND more hot box detectors voluntarily" is committing that fallacy of saying the number instead of the proportion. A thousand sounds like a lot until you realize they need a hundred thousand of them, or something of the like. Any time a company or entity quotes the number of something, you should be wondering what proportion increase to the whole that is. Because they deal with larger numbers than everyday people.
Just played with Google. There are 160,000 miles of railroad in the US and there are (as of 2019) 6000 hot bix detectors and 39 acoustic bearing detectors. Based on what was said in the video, perhaps the railroads need to change their protocol when a detection is made. Let the railroaders determine when to stop. The office / depot personnel should be consulted so as to avoid a bigger issue (e.g. collisio ) but not be in charge of a remote event.
Kind of like when the media reports something as a percentage or "times" increase when the actual incident rate is extremely low. It happened with train derailments and COVID.
@@MilwaukeeF40C From what a quick Google could find: _Derailments in the United States are a particularly bad problem compared to other countries. While recording 777 million train-kilometers in 2019 (train-kilometers are the measure of a train traveling the distance of one kilometer), 1,338 derailments took place in the country. The EU, by contrast, only saw seventy-three derailments that year despite, by one count, recording 4.5 billion train-kilometers. For Japan, the same year saw more than 2 billion train-kilometers, according to Knoema, and only nine derailments. (In fact, the number of derailments in Japan over the past twenty-one years alone is roughly one-eighth of the amount the United States sees on average in a single year)._
Good luck with that, billions has been spend on high speed rail (HSR) but not a single mile is in operation. We're still running choo choo trains and can't even keep them on the tracks. While China has HSR that wraps around earth (in miles), they are moving away from 300kph to 600kph (372mph) with maglev trains. It's sad. China is so modern, clean, and futuristic, and we're still stuck in the 90s.
@@jaiho9442 The cost for future high speed rail will continue to increase the longer we wait. As well everyone points to what some other country has, however they opted to spend the money to reap the benefits, rather than just focus on how much it would cost.
All of the freight railroads have derailments. It's more than just longer trains, employee fatigue, and everything else they mentioned. It's also track maintenance. Maintaining the tracks gets overlooked. They also have to remember that while the tracks are all theirs, they do have Amtrak traveling across and local commuter rails that may also use those same tracks too and they could easily be disrupted too because of freight interference. Amtrak has had derailments too, on freight tracks because the Class 1 freights let the upkeep of track maintenance and repairs go undone for so long until it becomes too late and injuries and fatalities get reported. The U.S. is just behind on everything. We fall short compared to the rest of the world and this topic here is no exception. We're never going to learn until it becomes a reality that communities and human lives are being wiped out with all the derailments that keep occurring on a regular basis. I'd rather see shorter freight trains of 100 cars that are only a mile long they won't tie up traffic for no more than 5 minutes rather than a 200 car freight set that is 2 miles long and holding up traffic for 10 minutes and taken the risk of derailing impacting road travelers trying to get to school, work, appointments, run errands, a store, airport, train station, or home. Freight railroads have failed communities for a long time but more so failed their employees and now they're working like zombies and Hebrew slaves all because these corporate folks want that on-time performance and make that top dollar while employees get worked to the brim. This is not to say Employees shouldn't take responsibility and accountability. They have had numerous opportunities to walk off (as union members) and shut down everything until better safety conditions were met outside of getting paid sick days, but what did they do? They coward out and went back to work anyway instead of keeping their foot planted to the floor instead of saying "no, my family and my overall health physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically is far more important to me vs trying to reach that final destination on-time and until we get our sick days, all freight train movement comes to a halt until further notice and we don't care how much money the corporation loses because we aren't corporate workers, we are frontline workers and living human beings."
Thank the greedy CEOS of the Class 1 railroads....cutting the track workers is really starting to take effect. Trains are not meant to run with 5,000 cars per train even with DPU TECHNOLOGY....somebody better get on it before they all derail..
Railroad Employees was wanting to strike but the railroads threatened them with firing them and the Greedy Pig Company Owners was complaining to the U.S. Government to stop the railroad employees from striking. It smells of Union Busting to me. It was in the news. :( 🤬🤬🤬🤬
Walking off and striking would have been an illegal strike. They were going to strike back in December, but the government blocked it and forced them to accept the new contract. Basically any time railworkers have an upcoming opportunity for a legal strike, the government blocks it (I get the logic, keeping the railroads going is critical for the economy and national defense, but it takes away whatever power the union might actually have).
They don't. Derailments are on the decline. The media is very interested in showing every derailment that happens in the USA because it is for good their ratings/click counts. Aviation accidents have not increased either, only the media coverage.
@@TheLewistownTrainspotter8102 Yes. In this instance laws have been changed making police departments release worn videos to the public. This has created a new market for police snuff films on the internet and TV.
Railroad companies need to do alot more to improve the industry--including adding more railroad workers. Also, let Amtrak add new lines, and fully upgrade their train engines & passenger cars.
Amtrak is currently in the process of upgrading their rolling stock but problem for them is that all the US manufacturers only make freight locomotives and cars so they have to turn to European manufacturers which haven’t had as much experience making trains designed for Americas more outdated rail infrastructure
CSX has derailments no matter how good their infrastructure is. Seriously, it’s crazy how long some of these trains are now. The tracks are not able to handle such extreme weights from trains that are two sometimes three miles long. Also, the stupid rules about being able to inspect a freight car in one minute. How is that possible to find safety defects?
Train length has nothing to do with weight on the rails...which is not the problem anyway. A visual inspection of the wheel sets will not determine if the bearings are going bad
@@noidea5597 The railroads are privately owned...except for Amtrak. And all in all, they do a pretty good job of maintenance on their rail cars and tracks.
No Freight train has derailed in countries like the UK for years. That tells you that someone at the department of transport in the US is sleeping at the switch....There is a systematic failure in planning and oversight at Federal level
@@TheVinster FROM THE BBC Phil James, Network Rail's North West route director, said: "On the rare occasions trains leave tracks like this it can cause extensive damage and unfortunately this is no exception. "I understand this will be extremely frustrating for passengers who rely on this crucial rail link from east to west, linking Carlisle and Newcastle as well as south to Skipton. "We're working hard to keep people on the move through rail replacement buses while we work as fast as we can to restore the railway for passengers and freight."
@@TheVinster The US situation is a systemic failure.;;;;In the UK any rail company that engages in reckless behaviour that is against strict regulations is blacklisted and their licences taken away....The US infrastructure is also too dilapidated compared to European rail infrastructure. The government in the US spends billions on foreign wars as opposed to fixing the US
The business structure and regulation is different than in the European Union. Here in Europe, the state owns the railway; in America, the company owns everything. Here in Europe, the state takes compensation from the companies that use the network and the state takes care of the maintenance of the railway. As compensation for truck tolls. So they should not be given a single cent of taxpayers' money for the reconstruction of the network. They need to be better regulated by sending them more frequent inspections and charging heavy fines for such events.
@@TheVinster The number of derailments points to systemic failure or government incompetence ....That is my point ....Also misplaced priorities such as focusing on affirmative action, woke agenda and war in ukraine
I’ve been around the world hundreds of times watching rail (out of interest). The rest of the world (for example Europe and China) have been improving their rail infrastructure and technology. Here in the US, where there’s a plethora of lawyers along with the “best Congress money can buy”.. I’m not surprised…
Reducing costs is a good idea but it seems that US companies always reduce costs on a short term base. They do not think about it on the long run. Obviously all derailments and accidents are cheaper than investing in a safe network. This applies on many things manufactured in or delivered by the US and to the overall infrastructure as well. Everything is more or less run down because money needs to be spent to fix it, so it won't happen until there is no other choice.
That's the way capitalism works the rate of profit is gotten very low because they have gotten rid of so many workers the capital value is high they don't want to reinvest and they just want to cut labor costs and wait until the everything collapses and then demand a bailout.
@@kimobrien. Yep, USA companies keep cutting costs. In the beginning that's not an issue, it might even be a good thing. After a while however, you start cutting into vital parts instead of excess. The problem is that disasters can (and likely will) happen before they realise they did one cost cut to many.
@@Robbedem The capitalist are driven by the need to profit and that's why they let every industry to either go into decline or replace it with another one. Hundreds of railroad miles have been abandoned and replaced with trucking because capitalist can make profits on trucks and building highways while getting government to pay for all the roads and bridges with a tax on diesel and gas. They then let the highway system decline because they want to cut taxes and invest in new ways to cut costs which is the road to bigger profits. They have decided that Elon Musk is a genius at making profits so they just finished sending up a rocket and star ship into space and it blew up. They then cheered because Musk says he needs to break things first. So while the destroy the earth in the interests of profits they promise to go elsewhere to do more of the same only better.
@@kimobrien. Ding! You are correct. We are definitely headed for a bailout of the railroads. They already verified their too big to fail status when Congress stepped in to prevent a strike. Given the seeming guarantee of a bailout, one could argue that it’s the railroads’ fiduciary duty to their shareholders to run themselves into the ground.
@@jeffreysnyder290 That's why we say the workers need to take control of industry with our unions and run it for human needs and create a labor party to take government out of capitalist hands.
BUNCH of VULTURES!!!!! Cars crashes are common too. The conductors for East Palestine did EVERYTHING right for the handbook. SOMETIMES......Things just happen
Train companies are only changing something because they're scared of regulation that will do more. They get the most profit from avoiding regulation by doing as little as possible.
I have been buying some stocks since the beginning of the year, but nothing substantial. Why am I treating this poorly? However, people in the same profession are earning six figures on articles, which inspires me to aim toward becoming the first person in my polygamous family to hit the million dollar mark. I am perfectly aware that working harder to gain more money is expensive.
@เข็ม เข็มม I’ve actually been looking into advisors lately, the news I’ve been seeing in the market hasn’t been so encouraging. who’s the person guiding you?.
ook at the big picture. Railroad companies have significantly increased the length of the trains to lower cost and increase profits. The consequence of longer trains is a significant increase of the risk. Did the railroad companies put risk reduction actions in place? This is a $ billion question! The cost reduction data in the chart shown in the video are mind-boggling : maintenance -39%, maintenance of way -21.5%. The train length was increased, but the risk was not reduced! After the tragic Lac Megantic disaster min 2013, Transport Canada has introduced a risk-based approach. A train transporting hazardous and flammable substances has many orders of magnitude of higher risk than a train transporting non-hazardous substance. Then the frequency of inspection and preventive maintenance and rail replacement must be increased to reduce the risk!
These sort of hit pieces are such garbage. Train derailments happen all the time, have happened all the time, and are something that will continue to happen. But do you really think that the railroads don't care about them? Any derailment costs time on the main line that freight isn't moving, which costs them money. But yeah, big bad rail companies just don't care if their trains make a mess. 1000 incidents/year, most in rail yards. Vs how many hundreds of thousands of cars/containers and millions of miles traveled every year. Railroad companies aren't saints and they have a long way to go to provide reasonable working schedules for engineers, etc. However, imagine putting those millions of containers back onto trucks. Highway accidents would go up, delivery times would go up, cost of goods would go up, and the environmental impact would have greenies thrashing 24/7. And do you want to pay more for the things you buy? Truth of the matter is, rail transport is the safest, most economical way to move goods. Period. The cost per rail mile is 4 times cheaper than moving by truck and significantly faster.
This is at the Sunday Supplement (grade school level) of understanding and did NOT answer the question, other than in very general terms, of why freight trains keep derailing. It is the accountants trying to stretch every penny for the investors; not considering the human factors of employees, customers, and community; and not considering the costs when a stretched system fails.
The rr's are not a government subsidy with the exception of Amtrak. If you look a their books, they do reinvest in their infrastructure. As in most instances, the gov't does not need to be handing out money.
Because they keep making them longer due to PSR (precision schedule railroading), they're not staffed like they should be to maximize profits. they're not maintaining the cars like they should be, they're not maintaining the tracks like they should be, and probably not inspecting the parts as often to be able to catch a part thats starting to fail. They also need to reevaluate the spacing in the defect detectors (i think it's one every twenty miles right now) especially when the track is getting near a town/city on a track thats going to go through said town/city. Things on a train car can fail in quick order, it can go over a defect detector and everything's fine and within that 20 miles before it reaches the next defect detector it can have a failure and can detail.
The freight RRs decided not to compete with trucking once the interstate system got built as local freight delivery to warehouses was not very profitable due to how much extra track mileage you need to maintain for moving so few cars at a time. The public pays for the construction and upkeep of the interstate system so trucks do not have this profitability issue. The only stuff that gets moved by train these days are really heavy bulk commodities like coal, oil, grain, ore, etc., and intermodal freight from ports (thank you commenter that pointed this out)* that are impractical to ship by truck overland. The only solution to this is to turn the railroads into a copy of our interstate system by nationalizing the US railway infrastructure.
@@whoisthatkidd2212 Incorrect. Intermodal trains that carry container boxes (usually double stacked) are filled with common merchandise. These are unloaded at ports from ocean liners onto trains. Trains then can take these containers thousands of miles to inland ports where then they are unloaded onto trucks for delivery to warehouses and customers. One of these intermodal trains can eliminate 300 truck loads per trip. This is part of the whole intermodal system of the United States. Every means of transportation is dependent of the other. In fact the fastest growing type of freight train is intermodal commodities.
The interstates are underpriced for users. This should be fixed by privatizing them all. Right now the railroads actually take advantage of heavily subsidized roads with intermodal freight rates that are hard for all-road trucking to compete with. But the catch is that "last mile" can be hundreds of miles on highways with new warehouses locating further away from cities and rail terminals. And the trucks are often parked clogging city streets waiting to get in to lift yards.
Why is it that only the USA locomotives have extensions to the cabs to help protect the driver in an accident? Other countries prefer to avoid accidents.
Train wheels flanges are essential to help keep the train on the track. But yet they are too small. 1" of wheel lift is all it takes for a wheel to come off the rail; especial on a curve. Make the flanges a bit longer and I guarantee you there will be less derailments.
There are more than 1000 derailments every damn year. You don't hear about them because most happen at very low speeds in railroad yards and there's no hazmat involved and therefore there's nothing for the media to get hysterical about.
imo They should just force the rail company to foot the bill zero excuses. If they chose to lower safety then it's on them because they took the risk (just like the NYSE) Personally I think if you get national government involvement it'll just drag on etc. Only thing I want from the government for instances like this is to force them to pay no exceptions (or very little) You, me and 99% of businesses would have to be accountable for our decisions. Why aren't these companies or people? At the end of the day let them learn their own lesson. Most larger companies do risk analysis and see if it's cheaper to pay the bill for stuff like this or have extra employees and costs. Which ultimately is why they decide on just paying for it. Because why take the chance you have an accident with a full staff then get sued. Crazy world we live in.
Part of the issue that railroads are contending with is that it is the only transportation mode in the US whose operational costs are not directly subsidized by the government tax base (e.g. highways, airport security, customs, etc). Any funds that are made available tend to be discretionary or competitive...not a stable form of subsidization like other modes of transport. This has placed the railroads in a distinct competitive disadvantage. This is unfortunate since the advantages of a robust rail infrastructure benefit everyone in one way or another. Rail is a particularly efficient and safe method of transport...even on a really bad year.
Everyone wants to harp on the companies for doing a bad job, and they are, but the reality is they are doing what a for-profit company is designed to do. What we really need to do is nationalize the infrastructure and maintain all the mainline rail, just like we do with highways and airports. The rail companies can still operate on these lines, but with much better rail infrastructure, and much higher scrutiny of what they put in the tracks.
Putting in more detectors doesn't solve the problem sure they'll catch issues before they arise but it doesn't address the fact that issues are happening more often.
Oil companies are mad about resurgence of mass transit advocates and electric vehicles, freight logistics maintenance standards have dropped to crucial levels, people are acting out against "capitalism" is so many ways
Hm... I see where you're coming from... So you're saying, these companies are really profitable and I should buy the stock and join in on the party? Gotcha.
Cars keep wrecking. Why? Planes keep crashing. Why? .... because risk is involved anytime you move faster than walking speed .... and oh, yah, people keep tripping. Why?
In the mid-1970's the AAR conducted a study that determined the longer the train length, the greater the odds of a derailment. That AAR guy in this video is lying.
Well, start to lobby for your state to buy the RR ROW. Some states (e.g.: VA & NC) actually did own a lot of the tracks partly because they "saved" the operators after the Civil War and during the depression. In the 70s, they sold them back.
10:50 Jeffries/AAR: industry installing another 1,000 hot box detectors nationwide. Statista: "In 2020, the Class I network... around 91,773 statute miles". FRA/DOT/Congress: Why no decades-old federal mandate for multiple types of detectors on *all* hazmat lines?
I grew up in a house that was about 300' from a main line. One night 12 cars derailed at our rural rail crossing. The cause was a wheel journal that burned in two due to failed bearings. The SP&S (now BNSF) engineer new there was a hotbox, but wanted to make it to the rail yard 20 miles up the line. The rail company worked 24/7 to get the line repaired enough to reopen it, then jobbed the rest out to a salvage contractor who took months clean up(?) the mess, sort of. After a while the grass grew long and green from all the Ammonium Chloride that dumped out the top of a bottom dump car. Profit is the only thing that matters. It's cheaper to clean up the mess than to replace wheel bearings per a maintenance schedule.
A few other things to consider....Longer trains mean more wheel beaings. Bearing vibration analysis is a much better technique to identify bearings that are in the early stages of failure. Bearing vibration analysis is difficult to implement because 1) it is expensive, 2) Transducers must be mounted on the bearing housing and 3) The skills required are rather complex and the training process tends to make the workers uncomfortable. This is not text book theory. I know, I have been there. However it is sucessfully used in a number of Industries.
There are eight bearings per car. They would need a power supply, a data link for the entire train, and sensors that can take a beating.
No one is putting sensors on bearings. It's not happening. You don't comprehend the number of rail cars online and the environment they live in. Simpler is better.
This is why the industry uses external fault detectors ("hot box detectors") to detect bad bearings - cheaper to have external detection of overheating bearings.
@@AlanTheBeast100 The problem is the profit drive of the capitalist bosses. The rate of profit in industry declines as machine replace skilled labor with unskilled labor.
I feel like the number of sensors required to put them on individual cars would not only be extremely expensive, but also make maintenance a nightmare as the failure rate of such sensors would be quite high.
Simple answer.
US free economy is very ruthless and powerful.
It places profit over safety.
It has so much political clout that it can withstand any pressure to fix it.
And that is why USA companies are very successful.
Success comes with a price.
Uphill slow
Downhill fast
Tonnage first
Safety last
Burma shave
I can't imagine they are making a lot of profit which troonportation secretary Pete at the wheel
With a lot less workers, there are less employees to be killed by accidents. They are more likely to die on the yard, where they are walking around. Please try to put some logic into your thinking, because safety is irrelevant when there's nobody around to be hurt.
Yeah, they control our country by Oil & Banks, of coarse it makes them more money by having states borrowing money to fix it.
US infrastructure and transportation is still much safer than most of the world.
I LOVE these Docu series, they are so well done and interesting.
Practical Engineering also has a good video
WE NEED PROOF OF WHO IS CAUSING THIS
Except, this is at the Sunday Supplement (grade school level) of understanding and did NOT answer the question, other than in very general terms, of why freight trains keep derailing. It is the accountants trying to stretch every penny for the investors; not considering the human factors of employees, customers, and community; and not considering the costs when a stretched system fails.
@@BryanTorok It did, the entire runway is being monitored by people outside of the field. They don’t know anything on the matter. Many security procedures were taken from the Captain of the train. Faulty sensors were also part of the reason.
The derailing is caused by the speed and weight. These are constant variables since the cargo may be different every time. Thats why they have sensors to detect excess of heat in the rails or faulty mechanics.
At the end, the guy like "we're putting in a THOUSAND more hot box detectors voluntarily" is committing that fallacy of saying the number instead of the proportion. A thousand sounds like a lot until you realize they need a hundred thousand of them, or something of the like. Any time a company or entity quotes the number of something, you should be wondering what proportion increase to the whole that is. Because they deal with larger numbers than everyday people.
Word.
Just played with Google. There are 160,000 miles of railroad in the US and there are (as of 2019) 6000 hot bix detectors and 39 acoustic bearing detectors. Based on what was said in the video, perhaps the railroads need to change their protocol when a detection is made. Let the railroaders determine when to stop. The office / depot personnel should be consulted so as to avoid a bigger issue (e.g. collisio ) but not be in charge of a remote event.
Kind of like when the media reports something as a percentage or "times" increase when the actual incident rate is extremely low. It happened with train derailments and COVID.
@@MilwaukeeF40C From what a quick Google could find:
_Derailments in the United States are a particularly bad problem compared to other countries. While recording 777 million train-kilometers in 2019 (train-kilometers are the measure of a train traveling the distance of one kilometer), 1,338 derailments took place in the country. The EU, by contrast, only saw seventy-three derailments that year despite, by one count, recording 4.5 billion train-kilometers. For Japan, the same year saw more than 2 billion train-kilometers, according to Knoema, and only nine derailments. (In fact, the number of derailments in Japan over the past twenty-one years alone is roughly one-eighth of the amount the United States sees on average in a single year)._
@@KaiHenningsen Ouch, I can feel the burn heat your reply just caused!
We need more and better rail in the US. I don't want to have to fly and drive everywhere
Good luck with that, billions has been spend on high speed rail (HSR) but not a single mile is in operation. We're still running choo choo trains and can't even keep them on the tracks. While China has HSR that wraps around earth (in miles), they are moving away from 300kph to 600kph (372mph) with maglev trains. It's sad. China is so modern, clean, and futuristic, and we're still stuck in the 90s.
@@jaiho9442 The cost for future high speed rail will continue to increase the longer we wait. As well everyone points to what some other country has, however they opted to spend the money to reap the benefits, rather than just focus on how much it would cost.
@@jaiho9442 Billions well spent (would have been cheaper if we built it YEARS ago) and when they are complete the riders will come
All of the freight railroads have derailments. It's more than just longer trains, employee fatigue, and everything else they mentioned. It's also track maintenance. Maintaining the tracks gets overlooked. They also have to remember that while the tracks are all theirs, they do have Amtrak traveling across and local commuter rails that may also use those same tracks too and they could easily be disrupted too because of freight interference. Amtrak has had derailments too, on freight tracks because the Class 1 freights let the upkeep of track maintenance and repairs go undone for so long until it becomes too late and injuries and fatalities get reported.
The U.S. is just behind on everything. We fall short compared to the rest of the world and this topic here is no exception. We're never going to learn until it becomes a reality that communities and human lives are being wiped out with all the derailments that keep occurring on a regular basis.
I'd rather see shorter freight trains of 100 cars that are only a mile long they won't tie up traffic for no more than 5 minutes rather than a 200 car freight set that is 2 miles long and holding up traffic for 10 minutes and taken the risk of derailing impacting road travelers trying to get to school, work, appointments, run errands, a store, airport, train station, or home. Freight railroads have failed communities for a long time but more so failed their employees and now they're working like zombies and Hebrew slaves all because these corporate folks want that on-time performance and make that top dollar while employees get worked to the brim.
This is not to say Employees shouldn't take responsibility and accountability. They have had numerous opportunities to walk off (as union members) and shut down everything until better safety conditions were met outside of getting paid sick days, but what did they do? They coward out and went back to work anyway instead of keeping their foot planted to the floor instead of saying "no, my family and my overall health physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically is far more important to me vs trying to reach that final destination on-time and until we get our sick days, all freight train movement comes to a halt until further notice and we don't care how much money the corporation loses because we aren't corporate workers, we are frontline workers and living human beings."
Its Biden's fault
Thank the greedy CEOS of the Class 1 railroads....cutting the track workers is really starting to take effect. Trains are not meant to run with 5,000 cars per train even with DPU TECHNOLOGY....somebody better get on it before they all derail..
A small group can't just walk off without being fired and blacklisted by the railroads. They have the railway slave labor act to contend with.
Railroad Employees was wanting to strike but the railroads threatened them with firing them and the Greedy Pig Company Owners was complaining to the U.S. Government to stop the railroad employees from striking. It smells of Union Busting to me. It was in the news. :( 🤬🤬🤬🤬
Walking off and striking would have been an illegal strike. They were going to strike back in December, but the government blocked it and forced them to accept the new contract. Basically any time railworkers have an upcoming opportunity for a legal strike, the government blocks it (I get the logic, keeping the railroads going is critical for the economy and national defense, but it takes away whatever power the union might actually have).
So sad, I have loved trains since elementary school.
They don't. Derailments are on the decline. The media is very interested in showing every derailment that happens in the USA because it is for good their ratings/click counts. Aviation accidents have not increased either, only the media coverage.
Same for things like police shootings.
@@TheLewistownTrainspotter8102 Yes. In this instance laws have been changed making police departments release worn videos to the public. This has created a new market for police snuff films on the internet and TV.
Railroad companies need to do alot more to improve the industry--including adding more railroad workers. Also, let Amtrak add new lines, and fully upgrade their train engines & passenger cars.
Amtrak is currently in the process of upgrading their rolling stock but problem for them is that all the US manufacturers only make freight locomotives and cars so they have to turn to European manufacturers which haven’t had as much experience making trains designed for Americas more outdated rail infrastructure
@@tux_the_astronaut pretty sure theres no “c” in Amtrak 🤷♂️
@@tux_the_astronaut you can’t get around tracks build better tracks
Glad to see an update video to this after the previous one had nothing but good things to say about the freight railroad operations.
CSX has derailments no matter how good their infrastructure is.
Seriously, it’s crazy how long some of these trains are now.
The tracks are not able to handle such extreme weights from trains that are two sometimes three miles long.
Also, the stupid rules about being able to inspect a freight car in one minute.
How is that possible to find safety defects?
Train length has nothing to do with weight on the rails...which is not the problem anyway.
A visual inspection of the wheel sets will not determine if the bearings are going bad
Tracks are only subject to the maximum weight of locomotives (heavier than cars) directly over them, not the entire train.
You might enjoy seeing the visual inspection done of the underside of a jet plane by one of the pilots before every flight.
The infrastructure is miserable! The railroads need to be repaired by the government!
@@noidea5597 The railroads are privately owned...except for Amtrak. And all in all, they do a pretty good job of maintenance on their rail cars and tracks.
Enjoyed the program. The information presented was interesting.
Good video. Hit the nail on the head! Hope some good come out of these tragical accidents.
The higher ups of the railway don't seem to not care about the disasters so much.
So they seem to care.
Only common in the USA. Terrible terrible trains and infrastructure. Derailments are rare and big news in most of the rest of the world.
Well done, NBC--thank you! 🙏
No Freight train has derailed in countries like the UK for years. That tells you that someone at the department of transport in the US is sleeping at the switch....There is a systematic failure in planning and oversight at Federal level
@@TheVinster FROM THE BBC Phil James, Network Rail's North West route director, said: "On the rare occasions trains leave tracks like this it can cause extensive damage and unfortunately this is no exception.
"I understand this will be extremely frustrating for passengers who rely on this crucial rail link from east to west, linking Carlisle and Newcastle as well as south to Skipton.
"We're working hard to keep people on the move through rail replacement buses while we work as fast as we can to restore the railway for passengers and freight."
@@TheVinster A very rare occurrence. I lived in the UK for 8 years up to 2015 and never heard of freight train derailment
@@TheVinster The US situation is a systemic failure.;;;;In the UK any rail company that engages in reckless behaviour that is against strict regulations is blacklisted and their licences taken away....The US infrastructure is also too dilapidated compared to European rail infrastructure. The government in the US spends billions on foreign wars as opposed to fixing the US
The business structure and regulation is different than in the European Union. Here in Europe, the state owns the railway; in America, the company owns everything. Here in Europe, the state takes compensation from the companies that use the network and the state takes care of the maintenance of the railway. As compensation for truck tolls. So they should not be given a single cent of taxpayers' money for the reconstruction of the network. They need to be better regulated by sending them more frequent inspections and charging heavy fines for such events.
@@TheVinster The number of derailments points to systemic failure or government incompetence ....That is my point ....Also misplaced priorities such as focusing on affirmative action, woke agenda and war in ukraine
Still the safest form of Transportation
Only because freight trains don't carry passengers. ;)
That’s not true at all
Aircraft? Space?
That was a great video on about train derailments news reports
Love the stock video of a tallowhead lubing the rods of a steam locomotive.
No blame on Wall Street at all on putting pressure on public companies to persistently increase profits at all costs??
They don't care
I’ve been around the world hundreds of times watching rail (out of interest). The rest of the world (for example Europe and China) have been improving their rail infrastructure and technology. Here in the US, where there’s a plethora of lawyers along with the “best Congress money can buy”.. I’m not surprised…
Typical corporate greed.
12:18 I feel very safe knowing that man is working on trains. Look at that technique!
Trains derail because the railroads don't want to spend the money to prevent it.
Reducing costs is a good idea but it seems that US companies always reduce costs on a short term base. They do not think about it on the long run. Obviously all derailments and accidents are cheaper than investing in a safe network.
This applies on many things manufactured in or delivered by the US and to the overall infrastructure as well. Everything is more or less run down because money needs to be spent to fix it, so it won't happen until there is no other choice.
That's the way capitalism works the rate of profit is gotten very low because they have gotten rid of so many workers the capital value is high they don't want to reinvest and they just want to cut labor costs and wait until the everything collapses and then demand a bailout.
@@kimobrien. Yep,
USA companies keep cutting costs.
In the beginning that's not an issue, it might even be a good thing.
After a while however, you start cutting into vital parts instead of excess.
The problem is that disasters can (and likely will) happen before they realise they did one cost cut to many.
@@Robbedem The capitalist are driven by the need to profit and that's why they let every industry to either go into decline or replace it with another one. Hundreds of railroad miles have been abandoned and replaced with trucking because capitalist can make profits on trucks and building highways while getting government to pay for all the roads and bridges with a tax on diesel and gas. They then let the highway system decline because they want to cut taxes and invest in new ways to cut costs which is the road to bigger profits. They have decided that Elon Musk is a genius at making profits so they just finished sending up a rocket and star ship into space and it blew up. They then cheered because Musk says he needs to break things first. So while the destroy the earth in the interests of profits they promise to go elsewhere to do more of the same only better.
@@kimobrien. Ding! You are correct. We are definitely headed for a bailout of the railroads. They already verified their too big to fail status when Congress stepped in to prevent a strike. Given the seeming guarantee of a bailout, one could argue that it’s the railroads’ fiduciary duty to their shareholders to run themselves into the ground.
@@jeffreysnyder290 That's why we say the workers need to take control of industry with our unions and run it for human needs and create a labor party to take government out of capitalist hands.
Not a single word about the cumulative effects of 40 years of rail deregulation. Not a single word about future government regulations.
If the government applied the same strict rules to the train transport industry like the FAA does to airplanes, there would be a lot less disasters.
Should remind you that FAA let Boeing self-certify the MAX?
BUNCH of VULTURES!!!!! Cars crashes are common too. The conductors for East Palestine did EVERYTHING right for the handbook. SOMETIMES......Things just happen
Railroads can save a ton of money just by neglecting maintenance.
Csx derailed in Blue Island, Illinois today
Blue Island is a trainwreck.
Train companies are only changing something because they're scared of regulation that will do more. They get the most profit from avoiding regulation by doing as little as possible.
I have been buying some stocks since the beginning of the year, but nothing substantial. Why am I treating this poorly? However, people in the same profession are earning six figures on articles, which inspires me to aim toward becoming the first person in my polygamous family to hit the million dollar mark. I am perfectly aware that working harder to gain more money is expensive.
@เข็ม เข็มม I’ve actually been looking into advisors lately, the news I’ve been seeing in the market hasn’t been so encouraging. who’s the person guiding you?.
ook at the big picture.
Railroad companies have significantly increased the length of the trains to lower cost and increase profits.
The consequence of longer trains is a significant increase of the risk.
Did the railroad companies put risk reduction actions in place? This is a $ billion question! The cost reduction data in the chart shown in the video are mind-boggling : maintenance -39%, maintenance of way -21.5%.
The train length was increased, but the risk was not reduced!
After the tragic Lac Megantic disaster min 2013, Transport Canada has introduced a risk-based approach. A train transporting hazardous and flammable substances has many orders of magnitude of higher risk than a train transporting non-hazardous substance. Then the frequency of inspection and preventive maintenance and rail replacement must be increased to reduce the risk!
Corporation: "We always put safety first"
Also corporation: "Maintenance staff employment is down 40% in the last decade"
These sort of hit pieces are such garbage. Train derailments happen all the time, have happened all the time, and are something that will continue to happen. But do you really think that the railroads don't care about them? Any derailment costs time on the main line that freight isn't moving, which costs them money. But yeah, big bad rail companies just don't care if their trains make a mess.
1000 incidents/year, most in rail yards. Vs how many hundreds of thousands of cars/containers and millions of miles traveled every year. Railroad companies aren't saints and they have a long way to go to provide reasonable working schedules for engineers, etc. However, imagine putting those millions of containers back onto trucks. Highway accidents would go up, delivery times would go up, cost of goods would go up, and the environmental impact would have greenies thrashing 24/7.
And do you want to pay more for the things you buy? Truth of the matter is, rail transport is the safest, most economical way to move goods. Period. The cost per rail mile is 4 times cheaper than moving by truck and significantly faster.
I think the same thing.
One word greed !!! This culture of expecting growth every year by shareholders is not sustainable in many industry , it only leads to short cuts.
thank you
There's not enough competition in the industry -too much consolidation. And industry lobbyists have captured members of Congress.
This is at the Sunday Supplement (grade school level) of understanding and did NOT answer the question, other than in very general terms, of why freight trains keep derailing. It is the accountants trying to stretch every penny for the investors; not considering the human factors of employees, customers, and community; and not considering the costs when a stretched system fails.
The railroad companies should be given money so they can repair their tracks!
oh they have the money, they just only care about short term profits and choose not to upgrade any of their infrastructure.
Pretty sure they wont use that money towards that
The rr's are not a government subsidy with the exception of Amtrak. If you look a their books, they do reinvest in their infrastructure. As in most instances, the gov't does not need to be handing out money.
18,000 foot trains including DPU's are regular in the desert southwest with BNSF (intermodal and tanker)
Excellent journalism CNBC!
this vid is actully underated and this is actully the real amarica that the amarican mainstream media actully dont show you
This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed immediately.
Shut up
won't happen, we live under rule of oligarchy. all that democracy and freedom is just advertising.
They are all planned. We are literally living one of the greatest extermination events in human history. Wake up sheep, wake up.
The US will never invest enough in its infrastructure to limit this. And the private owned companies will even less do it.
@@marcbuisson2463 We literally have the best infrastructure in human history, airhead
Stephen Colbert said it best: "Norfolk You!"
Long story short the freight train industry pays our politicians to create favorable legislation that lets them skirt responsibilities.
Because they keep making them longer due to PSR (precision schedule railroading), they're not staffed like they should be to maximize profits. they're not maintaining the cars like they should be, they're not maintaining the tracks like they should be, and probably not inspecting the parts as often to be able to catch a part thats starting to fail. They also need to reevaluate the spacing in the defect detectors (i think it's one every twenty miles right now) especially when the track is getting near a town/city on a track thats going to go through said town/city.
Things on a train car can fail in quick order, it can go over a defect detector and everything's fine and within that 20 miles before it reaches the next defect detector it can have a failure and can detail.
I really hope they figure this out. We need trains. They are so much more efficient than trucks.
Are they??
The freight RRs decided not to compete with trucking once the interstate system got built as local freight delivery to warehouses was not very profitable due to how much extra track mileage you need to maintain for moving so few cars at a time. The public pays for the construction and upkeep of the interstate system so trucks do not have this profitability issue. The only stuff that gets moved by train these days are really heavy bulk commodities like coal, oil, grain, ore, etc., and intermodal freight from ports (thank you commenter that pointed this out)* that are impractical to ship by truck overland. The only solution to this is to turn the railroads into a copy of our interstate system by nationalizing the US railway infrastructure.
@@whoisthatkidd2212 Incorrect. Intermodal trains that carry container boxes (usually double stacked) are filled with common merchandise. These are unloaded at ports from ocean liners onto trains. Trains then can take these containers thousands of miles to inland ports where then they are unloaded onto trucks for delivery to warehouses and customers. One of these intermodal trains can eliminate 300 truck loads per trip. This is part of the whole intermodal system of the United States. Every means of transportation is dependent of the other. In fact the fastest growing type of freight train is intermodal commodities.
The interstates are underpriced for users. This should be fixed by privatizing them all. Right now the railroads actually take advantage of heavily subsidized roads with intermodal freight rates that are hard for all-road trucking to compete with. But the catch is that "last mile" can be hundreds of miles on highways with new warehouses locating further away from cities and rail terminals. And the trucks are often parked clogging city streets waiting to get in to lift yards.
@@MilwaukeeF40C privatize the highway system?? Are you a communist??
Lets hear their excuse..
Job cuts, not enough people to handle the work load
Swiss here, wondering how this is even possible.
Always enjoy these videos CNBC 🥂
I think the US should rebuild the tracks where derailments were common
Why is it that only the USA locomotives have extensions to the cabs to help protect the driver in an accident? Other countries prefer to avoid accidents.
These derailments are rated E for everyone
Train wheels flanges are essential to help keep the train on the track. But yet they are too small.
1" of wheel lift is all it takes for a wheel to come off the rail; especial on a curve. Make the flanges a bit longer and I guarantee you there will be less derailments.
Dang I was expecting a blame on everything but the companies
Europe: You could have switched to passenger trains to balance the loss from coal
US: I don't get it
There are more than 1000 derailments every damn year. You don't hear about them because most happen at very low speeds in railroad yards and there's no hazmat involved and therefore there's nothing for the media to get hysterical about.
The dude with the shifty😂
imo
They should just force the rail company to foot the bill zero excuses. If they chose to lower safety then it's on them because they took the risk (just like the NYSE)
Personally I think if you get national government involvement it'll just drag on etc. Only thing I want from the government for instances like this is to force them to pay no exceptions (or very little)
You, me and 99% of businesses would have to be accountable for our decisions. Why aren't these companies or people? At the end of the day let them learn their own lesson.
Most larger companies do risk analysis and see if it's cheaper to pay the bill for stuff like this or have extra employees and costs. Which ultimately is why they decide on just paying for it. Because why take the chance you have an accident with a full staff then get sued.
Crazy world we live in.
The railroads already pay for everything they fuckup.
Part of the issue that railroads are contending with is that it is the only transportation mode in the US whose operational costs are not directly subsidized by the government tax base (e.g. highways, airport security, customs, etc). Any funds that are made available tend to be discretionary or competitive...not a stable form of subsidization like other modes of transport. This has placed the railroads in a distinct competitive disadvantage.
This is unfortunate since the advantages of a robust rail infrastructure benefit everyone in one way or another. Rail is a particularly efficient and safe method of transport...even on a really bad year.
True. Mind you, they still profit by billions a year, plus billions in stock buy-backs to bump up executives' bonuses.
Profit over safety. That's the best way to sum up every bullet point under that.
More railway inspection instead of Starship inspection
Everyone wants to harp on the companies for doing a bad job, and they are, but the reality is they are doing what a for-profit company is designed to do. What we really need to do is nationalize the infrastructure and maintain all the mainline rail, just like we do with highways and airports. The rail companies can still operate on these lines, but with much better rail infrastructure, and much higher scrutiny of what they put in the tracks.
Outstanding report....
Putting in more detectors doesn't solve the problem sure they'll catch issues before they arise but it doesn't address the fact that issues are happening more often.
There is not a chance that Fed will pay 40% of the cost.
Companies look for profit making and less interest on safety measures
The total answer is.....blatant neglect of equipment, and employees all for profit!!!
Freight train derailment rates are historically low.
Typical private railroads. Profits before safety.
Oil companies are mad about resurgence of mass transit advocates and electric vehicles, freight logistics maintenance standards have dropped to crucial levels, people are acting out against "capitalism" is so many ways
Why can't you use the safety procedures already in
Shut em down like the trucking industry. Prepare as this will get worse !
Letter agencies.
2:51 For a second I thought Norm MacDonald had popped in the video...
Hm... I see where you're coming from... So you're saying, these companies are really profitable and I should buy the stock and join in on the party? Gotcha.
Cars keep wrecking. Why? Planes keep crashing. Why? .... because risk is involved anytime you move faster than walking speed .... and oh, yah, people keep tripping. Why?
Money wins over safety EVERY TIME in the USA...
In the mid-1970's the AAR conducted a study that determined the longer the train length, the greater the odds of a derailment. That AAR guy in this video is lying.
Poorly maintained tracks carrying overloaded trains.
Grid and the Transportantion Companys should be seperated!
Agreed, it should be rail companies and carriers. Like airlines, the sky belong to country, and the airliner just need to pay for using it
That is ridiculous.
@@MilwaukeeF40C does United airline own the sky?
Well, start to lobby for your state to buy the RR ROW. Some states (e.g.: VA & NC) actually did own a lot of the tracks partly because they "saved" the operators after the Civil War and during the depression. In the 70s, they sold them back.
@@GilmerJohn Taking into account the current condition of the tracks, I'ld guess the states should be able to buy them for almost nothing. ;)
I can save you 12 minutes. It's lack of regulation. The end.
It’s going to take a big fall that hurts A Lot of people for anyone to care. Greed and division is scary in this country.
Over the last decade we have had about 3 derailments per day. The headline should be why is the media suddenly reporting on derailment….
this is what happens when you cut federal funding for railroad companies
Isn't the answer in the USA to arm them? Arm the trains!
Sounds logical.
Arm the trains and the people living at those tracks.
Win/win situation for the average american.
You still have to use the hot box
10:50 Jeffries/AAR: industry installing another 1,000 hot box detectors nationwide. Statista: "In 2020, the Class I network... around 91,773 statute miles". FRA/DOT/Congress: Why no decades-old federal mandate for multiple types of detectors on *all* hazmat lines?
서울발 여수엑스포행 무궁화호 1517호 탈선사고로 사고현장에서 과다출혈로 안타깝게 숨진 양모 기관사님이 생전에 순천역에서 근무준비를 하고 있었다.
Time to nationalize the railroads maybe?
NS at the very least.
Contrary to the view of one commentator, any time a wheel leaves the track--it is reportable (not about $$).
But why are wheel bearings failing now all of a sudden, it’s not they haven’t existed 🤷🏾♂️for years
Do Americans pronounce the Palestine in the middle east the same as they do on this video? Strange pronunciation
No, only the one in Ohio
In the US, you mean? (speaking as a US citizen!)
and we wanna go to 1 man crews its absolutely crazy