• Atelopus-zeteki@kbin.run
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    6 months ago

    I’m so glad that Norfolk Southern is going to pay for all of the necessary remediation. Really a very considerate, and socially/ enviromentally conscious company. Bravo!

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      6 months ago

      What are you talking about? Some politician grimaced as he took a sip of water and another one put it to his lips without actually taking a sip. Everything is fine!

      • Atelopus-zeteki@kbin.run
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        6 months ago

        Just hoping to shame Norfolk Southern into action. It was worth inconveniencing a few electrons/ photons, dammit.

    • sunzu@kbin.run
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      6 months ago

      They can’t DoT will likely stop them since they are “handling” it now

        • sunzu@kbin.run
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          6 months ago

          no doubt, let state AG test it!!!

          I am just not hopeful considering courts are also captured by big business esp RAILROADS lol

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It’s 2024. Why are trains still derailing? Surely there’s a better engineering design than this.

    • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Rail workers do not have the proper time to fully inspect cars and arrange them in the proper order due to understaffing and the high volume created by maximized rail schedules that prioritize profits over safety.

      That’s a huge reason why rail workers wanted to go on strike before there was bipartisan cooperation led by Biden to take away their labor rights.

      • dumbluck
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        6 months ago

        It’s cheaper to pay the fines when accidents happen than it is to run the trains safely. Just the cost of doing business.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        6 months ago

        led by Biden to take away their labor rights.

        Yet if I criticize him, I’m accused of refusing to vote against Trump and told that I’m the problem.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The engineering is fine, great even. Executives have demanded that the trains run at the red line, for maximum profit. With no safety margin, when something goes wrong it goes really really wrong. That’s why it was so important to hold them accountable and so fucked that we didn’t. It’s just a matter of time until the next accident.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      It’s effectively impossible to engineer around knowingly unsafe operation. The trains are fine, it’s the railroads operating them unsafely and the state and federal governments refusing to maintain infrastructure that is the problem.

      • jake_jake_jake_@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        i wish the govt was in charge of maintaining the infrastructure, and i wish the govt owned the infrastructure then prioritized passenger traffic over freight so we could get some semblance of a working regional rail system.

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            They often do prioritize passenger trains, but if it’s single track already occupied by a long, slow freight train, the passenger train is going to have to wait anyway.

      • reddig33@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I dunno. You never hear about high speed rail in Japan derailing, or the monorail at DisneyWorld going off the track. There was some crazy invention ages ago where a train with a gyroscope actually traveled on a single rail. We’ve got to do better than this.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Yeah, because they actually care about safety and put money into maintenance.

          Most derailments happen due to operational error such as too much speed for the track (preventable with ATC), equipment failure (preventable with better inspection and maintenance) or external factors like a car on the tracks (not really preventable without major gate upgrades).

          The only real technological innovations are automated train systems, but that technology already exists, we just don’t use it in the US because the private rail operators make more money by cutting corners, not spending on upgrades.

    • Steve@startrek.website
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      6 months ago

      Thats line saying why are bridges still collapsing

      Because zero effort has been put into maintenance!

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Boats still sink, planes and cars still crash. Fundamentally, transportation will fail. The question is are these failures within an acceptable rate due to unforseen issues, or is this a problem with the system that operates and profits off of these devices, letting safety slip to maximize profit?

  • aaaaace@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 months ago

    Maybe have a transportation secretary who has experience in transportation, as opposed to being a consultant and focusing on ticket refunds instrad of aircraft doors coming off and trains exploding…or would that hurt profitability?

    • sunzu@kbin.run
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      6 months ago

      They don’t call him Wall Street Pete for no reason… he is plant and he is there to ensure no accountability for business.

      Fucking lapdog made a career from being their bitch.

  • sunzu@kbin.run
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    6 months ago

    Damn I guess wall street Pete covering it up for railroads didn’t even bother doing a clean up

  • Crismus@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    So nice that before this happened, the railworkers wanted to strike duets safety concerns and understaffed Railroads. All to keep them from taking days off and lowering profits.

    Good old Joe Biden (friend to the working man) denied the strike request because interfering with Christmas shipping would be a problem.

    I think the railworkers should have called his bluff and all off the job. Unlike Reagan and the Air Traffic Strike, the military can’t just take over those jobs. He couldn’t replace the entire unionized jobs like the AIR Force could take over flight operators.

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      And then they negotiated behind the scenes and got most of what they wanted without a strike. The part that anti Biden posters conveniently leave out every time they bring this up

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        For roughly half the unions. The Rail companies gave a ton of stuff to their IT department and everyone called it a win to save face. Meanwhile the guys on the trains themselves are only sporadically getting wins. The points system that automatically fires people for being sick notably still exists which means one of the core complaints, (people literally falling over dead on the job because they worked through being sick) is unaddressed. As is the low staffing numbers on the actual trains and maintenance crews. To be clear a bunch of those guys officially have sick days now, but the points system will still deduct points if they miss a duty call that day.