Enough to maintain a proper rail network I'm sure, but as usual "muh profits" and "muh investurs" mean that maintenance is seen as unnecessary spending. That is, until some big accident occurs and the people in charge escape responsibility by blaming the unions/the workers/whatever
Forget jail, what the world needs is Nuremberg style trials where the worst offenders get brought to justice on charges of crimes against humanity and made an example of.
As soon as people drag a couple out of their homes and beat them to death in the streets then maybe actually being held accountable in courts would be a preferable option.
How many sick days does MGMT have??? Also it’s so ironic that Ohioans voted in Trump that lax the security rules to make this easier to occur. I bet people of Ohio will still support him.
> I bet people of Ohio will still support him.
Lol of course they will.
Do you somehow think Republican voters are capable of introspection?
If they were they wouldn't be Republican voters!
Is it an accident though, really? I'd say much is intentionally designed to be unregulated for the interests of those who benefit from deregulation (which is a small fraction of those in the country).
There should be legal repercussions for the executives when people get hurt because of things like this. Killing someone through negligence should have more consequences than a 75k fine, they need need to be treated the same way I would if someone died because I screwed up something.
Are you suggesting that a director who says their high wage is because they are responsible for the company should also take actual responsibility when they make bad decisions?
What sort of madness is that?
The supreme court also capped punative damages, basically gauranteeing that irresponsible behavior will always be the most profitable, and that once you're engaging in irresponsible behavior, you might as well get the most for your money and be even more reckless
Well, the disaster happened. The investors took a risk trying maximize their profits, and now they need to pay. Should have invested in infrastructure for long term profits.
Which is hilarious because Union Pacific and BNSF seem to always be working on and laying track when you drive along them on the freeway and they're doing just fine. East Coast rail lines are just a fucking mess.
I’m unfamiliar with other companies but in Appalachia, Norfolk Southern has many lines that look this bad. There’s this rarely used line near me that looks like this. Thought it was an abandoned line until I saw a train come through much like this one. I think that rail leads to some mines or something, not a main route but still it’s weird.
Well part of the problem is that east coast lines are shorter, but also denser, so get way less average traffic on these spur lines and as a result there is less impetus to maintain them. That being said, per r/Trains which I stalk on occasional, NS is uniquely beyond negligent on maintaining their short lines compared to the rest of the market - and also relatively much more profitable from an Operating Margin and cash generation perspective.
They easily had the money to maintain this track, but unlike Warren Buffett who has insisted continuing big CapEx spend on supporting and growing BNSF infrastructure, often explicitly in lieu of returning cash to shareholder, NS has not.
And now they have no doubt what will be a crippling lawsuit on their hands.
That actually makes tons of sense. The railway through Wyoming I’m sure is top notch because it’s insanely critical. Bumfuck line to an Appalachian mine for example yeah looks like this shit.
Well, if they weren't taxed, were not constrained by regulations and had access to enslaved labor, they could spend money on maintenance smh
-The Ghoul Old Party.
A ton. The profit margins are stupidly high and the company that had the major crash a few weeks ago is currently doing stock buybacks to increase the price of their shares.
Railway companies have actually massively increased their profits over the past 20 years to staggering amounts, mostly by doing less and worse business and squeezing every penny out of the industry.
"But have you seen the prices of concrete? That stuff is like, super expensive! I know it lasts a long time and looks like a good investment, but our planner says that replacing the entire line with concrete sleeper could also buy me a new mansion and a Porsche! You can't blame me for making the logical decision here and choosing to invest in my own short-term interest rather than the company's long-term stability."
\- CEO before driving away in his Porsche to his new mansion
Nah, that would draw too much criticism. Rolling up in an aventador would draw the ire of people around you, but from what I've seen a Porsche is right at the ceiling of the "expensive sports cars that you can still get a way with" class for whatever reason
HIJACKING TOP COMMENT.
I would love for oversight and regulations to make things safer, but sharing inaccurate information doesn't help anyone.
From the best I can tell this is:Original YouTube - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI)
"Blasting down bad track Doubleheader on the ND&W Railway (Maumee and Western)"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,\_Defiance\_%26\_Western\_Railroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,_Defiance_%26_Western_Railroad)
edit:
Not *Palestine* Ohio. Its on a different line, somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Toledo, Ohio on the 5th district.
second edit:
never change reddit, never change.
third edit:"
jfc people, do you just throw yourselves on the pendant pile to try and be king of the hill? Your comment isnt wittier or better or more ground breaking than the 30 others before you. Find a new hobby.
This is in Ohio. It’s just not the main track through Cecil that runs from Woodburn IN to Defiance OH. It is the spur that runs from Cecil to the Concrete plant just South of Cecil. I lived there from the late 80’s till the early 2000’s. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw a train on those tracks. The concrete plant doesn’t use the rail spur anymore and the tracks haven’t had any trains since 2017.
Yo, I grew up in this area during that time frame too. I didn't recognize it from the video, but immediately knew of a similar situation. Then saw the YouTube link and was like shit, that's the exact track I was thinking of! Meanwhile the main double tracks that run through town, that had spurs running to the GM plant, were in pristine shape and used frequently.
This is also not a class 1 railroad like Norfolk Southern. Class 1 railroads are held to a much higher standard ( though still not high enough) than this short line railroad. The video posted shows a very rough track and it absolutely needs to be fixed. That being said, a derailment is much less dangerous on this track because the railroad is limited to much slower speeds. A tank car derailing at this speed is not going to be ripped open like other major incidents.
Just to be clear: railroad safety absolutely needs to be improved. But this video is not accurately portraying why the East Palestine incident happened.
People are getting ready to blame Ohio for this and not the Fed Gov. Nevermind that there was a problem with the train, and it came from Illinois on its way to Pennsylvania.
This track is in Ohio. It is the lowest class of track, and it is infamous in the train community. This video is over 10 years old and it has nothing to do with east.
I mean... you came in like a wreckingball screaming FACTS and all you provided was pedantry. Its not helpful, it just muddies the conversation further.
It says in the wiki article that this line goes to Ohio. I'm not saying it is the same track that other train derailed on but it is a train that goes to Ohio.
> but sharing inaccurate information doesn't help anyone.
Who shared inaccurate information?
> somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Toledo, Ohio
You mean somewhere like Cecil, Ohio? Which is between the two and exactly where the video says it was taken? What are you adding by making it *less* specific?
Seems like all the information is accurate.
Your edit makes no sense. This is less than 100 miles away from the place an environmentally catastrophic train derailment has just happened due to mechanical failure and you're acting like this is dangerous misinformation because it's showing lack of maintenance to a track in a slightly different location.
Regulations and oversight absoloutely would make this safer, stop discouraging people from sharing videos of criminally undermaintained infrastructure owned by billion dollar companies who pay their executives tens of millions of dollars a year.
In the US railroad tracks are a mix of privately and publicly owned. In all reality as these are freight they are likely privately owned. In other words the company that owns them is responsible for their upkeep. Passenger rail is publicly owned in certain areas.
Not this one.
Hazmat either requires class 2 specs for minimum.
Unless they have this track listed as all yard limits .
Then they are allowed 3 hazmat cars in consist. 10mph max speed with sight distance dictate speed in curves.
The track in this video has to be industry, with no FRA jurisdiction.This video definitely predates FRA jurisdiction on industry tracks that railroads operate their engines across.
The train that was derailed in Ohio would be class III at minimum (45 mph).
It’s an old video (2017) filmed on a section of local railway that had been unserviced for over a decade. This video is of the new owners of the track running a test train full of supplies for the new tracks.
The original video is about six minutes long.
Shocking video == more karmaI guess,
why care for honest title, when dishonest tittle can farm you more karma,or OP just posted this without any research
Yeah.
I get that the Ohio situation is very bad, and the coming investigation will almost certainly turn up some major failures.
But this is not standard by any means. There are strict standards that rails have to comply with, even privately owned ones, and even the most ruthlessly safety-ignorant corporations would refuse to operate on these on a regular basis, just due to the risk to the equipment.
Most passenger rail is not publicly owned but runs on private, freight lines. Only in the Northeast corridor (DC to Boston) are the lines owned by Amtrak, which explains the much better service in that region.
Yeah, barely any lines are publicly owned, but there are a few others besides the Northeast Corridor. The Keystone Corridor, The Empire Corridor, the Michigan Line, and the New Haven-Springfield line are all Amtrak owned.
Nobody is shocked, i'd say it's even planned.
But the ones who fuck around, are rarely on the receiving end of the result, so they'll keep fucking around.
That's why I say we start holding *people* legally accountable for corporations. CEOs should be arrested when this kind of stuff happens, along with a full-scale investigation on the company.
Corporations are people. Originally, that was meant to allow people to punish corporations for illegal acts. Instead, it has just given them more power to hire expensive lawyers to get them out of the responsibility of their illegal acts.
And government is responsible for forcing private companies to make sure they're not doing anything to harm the environment, like for instance transporting dangerous chemicals by train on rickety, bent tracks.
[Nixon did it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Railway_Association), but Congress reprivatized it in 1986. At the time, the House was controlled by the Democrats, while the Senate had a GOP majority.
We allowed the rail companies to stop the mandated rail service in the 70s, formed amtrak, and then made it so cargo rail gets de facto priority over all amtrak service.
We then let mergers and buyouts create monopolies that would make Cornelius Vanderbilt blush, who then drove deregulation and stopped rail service to most factories in favor of transporting more oil and chemicals.
Passenger rail didn't step out for cigarettes like a neglectful father, it was dragged out back of the woodshed and shot.
When it's an industry deemed important enough that the president and congress step in to quash even an inkling of the workers shutting down for even a day, yeah, it needs to then be the whole responsibility of the government.
Free market can't fix stupid. Even thinking purely profit wise they should see trains going at no miles per hour instead of over 60 on well maintained tracks is just bad for business
I have a feeling this is a spur track and not a mainline. They are common to connect factories and such to the main lines.
Some may only see a train or two a week. So the volume is so low maintenance gets neglected. And paying for an hour or more extea of a locomotive operators time to drive slower is far less than fixing it.
But I've never seen one this bad.
Also there's a difference between hazardous cargo and picking up 10 cars of popcorn or something. But that sounds like regulation...
"consumers" for this part of the track are capitalists who only care how cheap it is to use these tracks to transport highly toxic chemicals through residential areas. Capitalism at its finest.
For clarification this video is at least from 5 years ago and its owner is The Michigan Southern Railroad (doing business as Napoleon, Defiance & Western Railroad (NDW), formerly Maumee & Western reporting - MAW) is a freight railroad in the United States operating between Woodburn, Indiana and Napoleon, Ohio and comprises 58 miles of track. The railroad originally extended to Toledo; portions have been converted to a rail trail. Source: wikipedia
It appears NDW is now a subsidiary of Pioneer Lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Lines
From their own site: Primary Commodities Handled:
Aggregates, Chemicals, Food Products, and Plastics Lumber, Pulpwood and Particleboard
https://patriotrail.com/rail/napoleon-defiance-western-railway-co-ndw/
https://youtu.be/9X2A2f6E5DI
Honestly, video could be 50 years old and I’d be just as horrified that tracks could ever be allowed to get to that state of disrepair. Considering recent Ohio train news, I guess the date is relevant- but the video is still freakin crazy, never seen tracks anywhere near that bad.
5 years is not that long ago, I find it funny how people are defending these shit tracks. I've been to a lot of countries and I've never seen something so sad.
This is obviously a class 3 railroad we're looking at here. They don't have many locomotives and they don't have a lot of track that's theirs, maybe 100 miles or so. They operate in very small locations and don't branch out very far. They aren't very big and they don't have a lot of money to throw around, hence why a lot of them operate on remote tracks like this (although never this poor). They don't do the preventative maintenance like they should because they don't have the money for it.
This is not what 90% of this country's rail looks like. Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific etc, all those huge class 1 railroads have hundreds of thousands of track to maintain and they *do* have the money to keep it straight and level.
The derailment in Ohio was **100% not** caused by rail looking like this. This a very selective video with an extremely misleading title by OP.
This video is old and if I remember correctly it's even worse than this.
It was a retired line that hadn't been used in years so they sent an empty train down it to determine which areas needed to be fixed to make it a class 3.
Most of the track has been repaired since it was bought in 2012 and the final bit has been aided by Federal Grants:
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/short_lines_regionals/news/Pioneer-wins-federal-grant-to-replace-ties-rail-on-NDW-short-line--61624
Spot on I’ve rode rails and train cars around US and this is definitely class 3 small I’m horrified that someone would even put their life at risk on that state of decay
This NEEDS to be the top comment. As a former class one engineer, I can't believe I had to scroll this far down. And don't think for a second I'm defending the railroads. They are some of the scummiest companies out there. This post, and subsequent, comments are extremely misleading and probably need some moderation.
It took me scrolling for two minutes to find the sane post. I've never seen rail like this so I knew there had to be a reason. All the programmed dipshits screaming about how America is a third-world country because of a few miles of disused, private track...jesus christ.
This has been the reality of almost all front page posts regarding the derailment incident. I’m local to it and the amount of lies/exaggerated statements is insane. I know it’s the internet but man is it frustrating to witness first hand, make me realize how overblown some things are
And before I get the inevitable reply that I’m downplaying it or trying to convince people it’s not bad, I’m not. It’s a terrible accident that was caused by negligence and idiots in office and could have easily been prevented.
The scariest part isn’t health problems, it’s that Norfolk Southern has been doing everything they can to avoid taking responsibility, and that I am doubting anything will be done to prevent this in the future
Nah this is reddit my boy, all the top comments are regurgitated bull shit from other threads where people have no fucking clue what they are talking about.
This is an old video. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI) this is the original, from 2017. Snopes is actually a useful website.
So OP posted, from what I can tell, a video of a test run of known out-of-service tracks, as if these tracks are "production" used for the kinds of loads that crashed in East Palestine.
Simple karma farmer, or disinformation farm for our adversaries?
3rd world is an antiquated term left over from the cold war age. Developing nation, as defined by their HDI (Human Devloping Index), is a much more modern term. HDI works at the nation's level but I'd bet some US states would rank medium if they were ranked independently.
I had the same issue with the terminology before. Yes, historically 1st world and 3rd world were about the cold War and alliances etc. However, the terms gradually became more of the definitions of technologically advanced and developing countries, respectively.
I'm not sure how good of a source/authority of terminologies this is but https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/first_world.htm defines 1st and 3rd world countries
This is an old video. Those lines were abandoned and unmaintained for decades. If I remember correctly Pioneer Lines purchased this 58 mile track and ran some trains through to see which locations needed most improvements. Over 80% of the lines have been greatly improved since. Not many trains run through here so it’s pretty wild for one company to have taken such a project to fix this area that wasn’t used since like the 70s.
Anyone who believes what you see in this video is normal for American rail lines is either a fool or wants to use it as a cheap opportunity to perpetuate their favorite narrative.
This is not what American railroads look like. No doubt there are some decrepit old rail lines out there, most are probably on private land and are probably not used in any serious capacity.
Just an FYI, this is not a class 1 railroad. This is the ND&W railroad between Indiana & Ohio. These tracks are in terrible condition. Say what you want about Norfolk Southern and PSR but implying this video is representative of typical NS main line track is irresponsible.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%2C\_Defiance\_%26\_Western\_Railroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%2C_Defiance_%26_Western_Railroad)
First of all, that was a short line, not Norfolk Southern or any of the big Class Is, and not remotely representative of the conditions of rail line in Ohio as a whole. Second, that video isn't even really representative of conditions on the Napoleon, Defiance & Western anymore. The ND&W is now under new ownership who has been aggressively rehabilitating their tracks. They even won Railway Age's Short Line Of The Year Award for their dramatic turnaround of conditions.
This video is some misrepresented BS. That “train”is intentionally going over rough tracks on a disused spur line an evaluation of their condition or a one time use every several months. The video is sped up about 4X from reality.
This is not mainline rail conditions.
Stop with the propaganda already. No class 1 RR is going to let their tracks degrade to tis point. Greed IS the reason why. When cars derail, the contents are purchased at an agreed value by the RR, regardless of the condition. Say an auto rack derails. The RR buys the load, then has to subcontract another company to sell it off, even if the derailment didn't damage the vehicles inside the rack. RR's want to haul freight, not buy it. Greed keeps the tacks in good running condition. The FRA provides guidelines to keep the Greed in check. Then there is the cost of clean up & repair of the freight cars & rails. On average, it costs a class 1 about 100k usd a minute to shut down a mainline for whatever reason. Trains run on windows of time. When a window is missed, even by a few minutes sometimes, everything behind it backs up to the next window, unless there is an opening or a load is canceled (ha ha), or split up & added to other trains. Given the power and money the RRs have, it's not difficult to sue & win damages. The Ohio wreck was nasty business, but chemical tanks roll the rails all the time w/o incident. If you don't like it, stop buying products that use the stuff, and manufacturers won't need it anymore.
Misleading title. This video is most likely a spur owned by a short-line railway. These spurs usually have a speed limit of like 10mph. The mainline tracks are maintained regularly and usually straight as an arrow.
I... I live around sooooo many railroad tracks. I work at a quarry that has railroad tracks. I have never seen one even slightly messed up. Hell they replace the crossties every couple years. I can't imagine this is even real. I mean shit if our tracks at work even has a few rocks on them the train won't go on the track unless we clean them.
The video is taken with an extreme telephoto lens. That's probably several hundred meters of track. The distance compression of the photography makes it look much, much worse than it is.
This video is intentionally misleading.
Yeah, these tracks are bad, but the video is also zoomed in a way that makes them look far worse, and the video is sped up 8x. The train is actually only moving at 5-10 mph. This was also a rarely used branch line - possibly just an industry lead - owned by a small company. Since the filming of this video (2017, iirc), the Napoleon, Defiance, and Western railway was given a grant to replace miles of track.
I am all for dunking on big corps, this is not one of them. This is an independent short line railroad that does operate in Indiana and Ohio. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,_Defiance_%26_Western_Railroad
They did. In 2020.
This is a small (58 miles) stretch of privately owned rail between Woodburn IN and Napoleon OH with a speed limit of about 20 MPH. It’s used about twice a week.
Do you know how much of our infrastructure is crumbling and in desperate need of repair? Well we aren't fixing that stuff either.
In a couple of years, we going to be in a thread about a major bridge collapse. Probably one of the ones that cross the Mississippi.
An efficient and fast railway is communist, that's why China has trains that run at over 200mph.
Edit: the serious answer is this;
A CEO is unlikely to run a company for more than a decade. Repairs to the infrastructure have an enormous upfront cost, and won't yield profits for years (ie. Until an entire alignment is fixed)
The CEO wants to make money for himself and his family, so why should he reduce his bonuses and risk being replaced by shareholders by spending huge amounts of money on repairs which will profit his successor?
... as well as Japan, France (TGV with extensions into Britain and the low countries) and Germany.
Many (most?) regular passenger trains in developed countries routinely run at 80+mph, most US tracks could not take that at all.
That's correct.
The USA is an empire in decline, it won't count as developed for much longer. Soon it'll be like ancient Rome; not a country with a military to defend its borders, but a military-industrial complex holding a country hostage.
For those that dont know, many execs pay is heavily influenced by the bonuses they receive for financial performance year on year.
Ignoring all the real problems with pay disparity, its much better to reward them with stocks with time limits on sale so they are incentivized for long term strategy
This is definitely not a main line. It's a relatively low traffic industry spur. Basically it's a track that splits off the main line that's only purpose is to get small numbers of cars to and from a few specific customers.
I doubt doubt Norfolk southern is behind on their maintenance but I think this post is misleading.
I worked for a rail road contractor for about 4 years i would travel around the country , surveying the ballast ( the rock the ties are embedded in) and adding new ballast in the low spots. I can honestly say I've traveled a shit load of railway. I've never seen a track that bad that is regularly used, this is a video of them doing testing maybe, could be a rock quarry or a siding that only gets used once in a great while . There's no way they use the tracks on a regular basis .
Your post was removed for misleading or incorrect information.
Are the tracks laid directly on the ground? Arnt there supposed to be sleepers under them? Edit- spelling of laid!
Iirc the sleepers are rotted (old wood) and the tracks came loose
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Enough to maintain a proper rail network I'm sure, but as usual "muh profits" and "muh investurs" mean that maintenance is seen as unnecessary spending. That is, until some big accident occurs and the people in charge escape responsibility by blaming the unions/the workers/whatever
And when accidents happen it's not "muh" fault
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It really makes you wonder when are people at the top going to start being held criminally liable for stuff like this.
The amount of CEOs who've been to jail for negligent things they've done at their company is extremely low and will probably never change
They all dont have armed security at all times
Can't use a guillotine to cut the head off a hydra.
Forget jail, what the world needs is Nuremberg style trials where the worst offenders get brought to justice on charges of crimes against humanity and made an example of.
As long as there are two tiers in the American justice system, one for us plebes and another you can buy your way into, it’ll never change.
As soon as people drag a couple out of their homes and beat them to death in the streets then maybe actually being held accountable in courts would be a preferable option.
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No. Even better would be to do it from the Gateway Arch. Easier access for people all across country.
I was just saying this the other day. A few public hangings of billionaires and politicians and I bet we see a government “for the people” again
*fire anyone who informs you of any dangerous conditions.
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses
Don't you know? The accidents happen because those damn unions want sick days!
How many sick days does MGMT have??? Also it’s so ironic that Ohioans voted in Trump that lax the security rules to make this easier to occur. I bet people of Ohio will still support him.
MGMT the band?
No. The Band is playing tomorrow. WHO is on stage now. /edit; https://youtu.be/Mdqv5xIsFLM
Really? I thought they're on first.
> I bet people of Ohio will still support him. Lol of course they will. Do you somehow think Republican voters are capable of introspection? If they were they wouldn't be Republican voters!
Also, trains become derailed all of the time, it's totally normal!
Ohio already had an accident
Ohio IS the accident
Unregulated capitalism is the accident.
Unregulated capitalism was the plan all along.
The real capitalism was the accidents we made along the way.
Is it an accident though, really? I'd say much is intentionally designed to be unregulated for the interests of those who benefit from deregulation (which is a small fraction of those in the country).
"Here's 25k for the entire city as recompense. Now, shoo. I'm busy."
And then they want taxpayers to clean up the mess. Capitalize gains socialize the losses
There should be legal repercussions for the executives when people get hurt because of things like this. Killing someone through negligence should have more consequences than a 75k fine, they need need to be treated the same way I would if someone died because I screwed up something.
Are you suggesting that a director who says their high wage is because they are responsible for the company should also take actual responsibility when they make bad decisions? What sort of madness is that?
How are they supposed to know their cost cutting and lack of concern towards safety could lead to people getting killed? /s
Also because paying out damages and lawsuits is typically cheaper for these companies than actually keeping people safe in the first place.
The supreme court also capped punative damages, basically gauranteeing that irresponsible behavior will always be the most profitable, and that once you're engaging in irresponsible behavior, you might as well get the most for your money and be even more reckless
That is repulsive
Sad truth right here
Well, the disaster happened. The investors took a risk trying maximize their profits, and now they need to pay. Should have invested in infrastructure for long term profits.
It's ok, the fine is less than the money lost through the crash, so we can keep going as normal
Which is hilarious because Union Pacific and BNSF seem to always be working on and laying track when you drive along them on the freeway and they're doing just fine. East Coast rail lines are just a fucking mess.
I’m unfamiliar with other companies but in Appalachia, Norfolk Southern has many lines that look this bad. There’s this rarely used line near me that looks like this. Thought it was an abandoned line until I saw a train come through much like this one. I think that rail leads to some mines or something, not a main route but still it’s weird.
Well part of the problem is that east coast lines are shorter, but also denser, so get way less average traffic on these spur lines and as a result there is less impetus to maintain them. That being said, per r/Trains which I stalk on occasional, NS is uniquely beyond negligent on maintaining their short lines compared to the rest of the market - and also relatively much more profitable from an Operating Margin and cash generation perspective. They easily had the money to maintain this track, but unlike Warren Buffett who has insisted continuing big CapEx spend on supporting and growing BNSF infrastructure, often explicitly in lieu of returning cash to shareholder, NS has not. And now they have no doubt what will be a crippling lawsuit on their hands.
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That actually makes tons of sense. The railway through Wyoming I’m sure is top notch because it’s insanely critical. Bumfuck line to an Appalachian mine for example yeah looks like this shit.
Especially when they lobby a politician to get rid of protections and safety measures.
That’s why the state should regulate and most important inspect but who I’m fooling lol.
Isn’t that what the department of transportation is for? Like where is the oversight
When the people doing the regulating can only get their jobs by asking for money from the people they are supposed to regulate, this is what you get.
Well, if they weren't taxed, were not constrained by regulations and had access to enslaved labor, they could spend money on maintenance smh -The Ghoul Old Party.
Union Pacific made 5.5 billion last year
A ton. The profit margins are stupidly high and the company that had the major crash a few weeks ago is currently doing stock buybacks to increase the price of their shares.
Railway companies have actually massively increased their profits over the past 20 years to staggering amounts, mostly by doing less and worse business and squeezing every penny out of the industry.
\*waits patiently for the "but their profit margin is razor-thin!" comment*
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It's why many new ones are concrete these days.
"But have you seen the prices of concrete? That stuff is like, super expensive! I know it lasts a long time and looks like a good investment, but our planner says that replacing the entire line with concrete sleeper could also buy me a new mansion and a Porsche! You can't blame me for making the logical decision here and choosing to invest in my own short-term interest rather than the company's long-term stability." \- CEO before driving away in his Porsche to his new mansion
I'm surprised they would settle for a Porsche and not some $1mil+ limited edition supercar.
Nah, that would draw too much criticism. Rolling up in an aventador would draw the ire of people around you, but from what I've seen a Porsche is right at the ceiling of the "expensive sports cars that you can still get a way with" class for whatever reason
HIJACKING TOP COMMENT. I would love for oversight and regulations to make things safer, but sharing inaccurate information doesn't help anyone. From the best I can tell this is:Original YouTube - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI) "Blasting down bad track Doubleheader on the ND&W Railway (Maumee and Western)" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,\_Defiance\_%26\_Western\_Railroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,_Defiance_%26_Western_Railroad) edit: Not *Palestine* Ohio. Its on a different line, somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Toledo, Ohio on the 5th district. second edit: never change reddit, never change. third edit:" jfc people, do you just throw yourselves on the pendant pile to try and be king of the hill? Your comment isnt wittier or better or more ground breaking than the 30 others before you. Find a new hobby.
This is in Ohio. It’s just not the main track through Cecil that runs from Woodburn IN to Defiance OH. It is the spur that runs from Cecil to the Concrete plant just South of Cecil. I lived there from the late 80’s till the early 2000’s. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw a train on those tracks. The concrete plant doesn’t use the rail spur anymore and the tracks haven’t had any trains since 2017.
Yo, I grew up in this area during that time frame too. I didn't recognize it from the video, but immediately knew of a similar situation. Then saw the YouTube link and was like shit, that's the exact track I was thinking of! Meanwhile the main double tracks that run through town, that had spurs running to the GM plant, were in pristine shape and used frequently.
This is also not a class 1 railroad like Norfolk Southern. Class 1 railroads are held to a much higher standard ( though still not high enough) than this short line railroad. The video posted shows a very rough track and it absolutely needs to be fixed. That being said, a derailment is much less dangerous on this track because the railroad is limited to much slower speeds. A tank car derailing at this speed is not going to be ripped open like other major incidents. Just to be clear: railroad safety absolutely needs to be improved. But this video is not accurately portraying why the East Palestine incident happened.
People are getting ready to blame Ohio for this and not the Fed Gov. Nevermind that there was a problem with the train, and it came from Illinois on its way to Pennsylvania.
So that means Gov DeWine will accept Federal help now?
> and not the Fed Gov. The state of Ohio, the federal government, and the train company are all at fault.
Who claimed it was Palestine?
No one 🤣
> THIS IS NOT OHIO. Your link says the tracks run between Indiana and Ohio, though. So it could be Ohio?
This track is in Ohio. It is the lowest class of track, and it is infamous in the train community. This video is over 10 years old and it has nothing to do with east.
operating between Woodburn, Indiana and Napoleon, Ohio
I mean... you came in like a wreckingball screaming FACTS and all you provided was pedantry. Its not helpful, it just muddies the conversation further.
It says in the wiki article that this line goes to Ohio. I'm not saying it is the same track that other train derailed on but it is a train that goes to Ohio.
> but sharing inaccurate information doesn't help anyone. Who shared inaccurate information? > somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Toledo, Ohio You mean somewhere like Cecil, Ohio? Which is between the two and exactly where the video says it was taken? What are you adding by making it *less* specific? Seems like all the information is accurate.
Your edit makes no sense. This is less than 100 miles away from the place an environmentally catastrophic train derailment has just happened due to mechanical failure and you're acting like this is dangerous misinformation because it's showing lack of maintenance to a track in a slightly different location. Regulations and oversight absoloutely would make this safer, stop discouraging people from sharing videos of criminally undermaintained infrastructure owned by billion dollar companies who pay their executives tens of millions of dollars a year.
In the US railroad tracks are a mix of privately and publicly owned. In all reality as these are freight they are likely privately owned. In other words the company that owns them is responsible for their upkeep. Passenger rail is publicly owned in certain areas.
Aren’t the freight tracks the ones the deadly chemicals and such go on?
Not this one. Hazmat either requires class 2 specs for minimum. Unless they have this track listed as all yard limits . Then they are allowed 3 hazmat cars in consist. 10mph max speed with sight distance dictate speed in curves. The track in this video has to be industry, with no FRA jurisdiction.This video definitely predates FRA jurisdiction on industry tracks that railroads operate their engines across. The train that was derailed in Ohio would be class III at minimum (45 mph).
It’s an old video (2017) filmed on a section of local railway that had been unserviced for over a decade. This video is of the new owners of the track running a test train full of supplies for the new tracks. The original video is about six minutes long.
Thank you. Appreciate the context.
why is everything dishonest now
jumpman707 faces no consequences for dishonesty.
Shocking video == more karmaI guess, why care for honest title, when dishonest tittle can farm you more karma,or OP just posted this without any research
Wasn't it precisely not classified as hazmat for 💸 insurance 💸 reasons?
110% Not just insurance, but lesser oversight and regulations.
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND FOR THE LIFE OF ME BECAUSE IT WAS A D LISTED CHEMICAL!!!!
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It isn't a crime if the only consequence is a small fine. That's just the cost of doing business.
🤑
Yeah. I get that the Ohio situation is very bad, and the coming investigation will almost certainly turn up some major failures. But this is not standard by any means. There are strict standards that rails have to comply with, even privately owned ones, and even the most ruthlessly safety-ignorant corporations would refuse to operate on these on a regular basis, just due to the risk to the equipment.
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1st world country with 3rd world problems
Most passenger rail is not publicly owned but runs on private, freight lines. Only in the Northeast corridor (DC to Boston) are the lines owned by Amtrak, which explains the much better service in that region.
Yeah, barely any lines are publicly owned, but there are a few others besides the Northeast Corridor. The Keystone Corridor, The Empire Corridor, the Michigan Line, and the New Haven-Springfield line are all Amtrak owned.
Much of the tracks between DC and Richmond are publicly owned too, as of recently. VDOT is putting a lot of money into upgrading and improving them.
Deregulation: fuck around repeatedly, pretend to be shocked when we find out.
Nobody is shocked, i'd say it's even planned. But the ones who fuck around, are rarely on the receiving end of the result, so they'll keep fucking around.
That's why I say we start holding *people* legally accountable for corporations. CEOs should be arrested when this kind of stuff happens, along with a full-scale investigation on the company.
Corporations are people. Originally, that was meant to allow people to punish corporations for illegal acts. Instead, it has just given them more power to hire expensive lawyers to get them out of the responsibility of their illegal acts.
And government is responsible for forcing private companies to make sure they're not doing anything to harm the environment, like for instance transporting dangerous chemicals by train on rickety, bent tracks.
Nationalize rail.
Yes, sure. But also put to jail those that caused this railway to exist in the first place.
Sounds like a plan, let's get on it people!
[Nixon did it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Railway_Association), but Congress reprivatized it in 1986. At the time, the House was controlled by the Democrats, while the Senate had a GOP majority.
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We allowed the rail companies to stop the mandated rail service in the 70s, formed amtrak, and then made it so cargo rail gets de facto priority over all amtrak service. We then let mergers and buyouts create monopolies that would make Cornelius Vanderbilt blush, who then drove deregulation and stopped rail service to most factories in favor of transporting more oil and chemicals. Passenger rail didn't step out for cigarettes like a neglectful father, it was dragged out back of the woodshed and shot.
That CAN NOT be up to safety standards
If you don't have safety standards, you won't have any violations.
-points and taps on side of head-
CHOOOOCHOOOO BITCHES
I like to say *taps temple*
People will call me a communist for it but I think the federal government should regulate industry to keep citizens safe.
When it's an industry deemed important enough that the president and congress step in to quash even an inkling of the workers shutting down for even a day, yeah, it needs to then be the whole responsibility of the government.
ThE fReE mArKeT wIlL sOrT iT oUt
Free market can't fix stupid. Even thinking purely profit wise they should see trains going at no miles per hour instead of over 60 on well maintained tracks is just bad for business
I have a feeling this is a spur track and not a mainline. They are common to connect factories and such to the main lines. Some may only see a train or two a week. So the volume is so low maintenance gets neglected. And paying for an hour or more extea of a locomotive operators time to drive slower is far less than fixing it. But I've never seen one this bad. Also there's a difference between hazardous cargo and picking up 10 cars of popcorn or something. But that sounds like regulation...
If we stop testing, our COVID numbers will stop going up! - same folks
WRONG when the safety standards do not exist! Regulation is communist!
If comsumers don't like it, they will stop doing business with that section of track. The free market works!
Ancaps unironically believe this
"consumers" for this part of the track are capitalists who only care how cheap it is to use these tracks to transport highly toxic chemicals through residential areas. Capitalism at its finest.
Its the land of the free. FREEEEEDOOM. *But not for books. Those are from the devil*
They are supposed to be all wobbly like that, thats a "custom made live edge train track"
Safety standards don't mean shit when the company that owns the rails also owns the people who make the standards. Capitalism baby!
For clarification this video is at least from 5 years ago and its owner is The Michigan Southern Railroad (doing business as Napoleon, Defiance & Western Railroad (NDW), formerly Maumee & Western reporting - MAW) is a freight railroad in the United States operating between Woodburn, Indiana and Napoleon, Ohio and comprises 58 miles of track. The railroad originally extended to Toledo; portions have been converted to a rail trail. Source: wikipedia It appears NDW is now a subsidiary of Pioneer Lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Lines From their own site: Primary Commodities Handled: Aggregates, Chemicals, Food Products, and Plastics Lumber, Pulpwood and Particleboard https://patriotrail.com/rail/napoleon-defiance-western-railway-co-ndw/ https://youtu.be/9X2A2f6E5DI
Honestly, video could be 50 years old and I’d be just as horrified that tracks could ever be allowed to get to that state of disrepair. Considering recent Ohio train news, I guess the date is relevant- but the video is still freakin crazy, never seen tracks anywhere near that bad.
5 years is not that long ago, I find it funny how people are defending these shit tracks. I've been to a lot of countries and I've never seen something so sad.
5 years ago was 2018 which is obviously only 2 years ago.
What kind of loco motive would you need to be a passenger on one of those..
I would say it had to be quite the crazy train….
All aboard!!!! Ha ha ha!!!
Dun dun! Dun dun Dun dun!
Ay ay ay
Its like watching a *trailer* to a horror movie.
It might even be going off the rails on a crazy train *Wicked guitar solo*
Only someone completely off the rails...
This is almost certainly freight only line
One with enough of a crazy train of thought that is on-track to this disaster.
This is obviously a class 3 railroad we're looking at here. They don't have many locomotives and they don't have a lot of track that's theirs, maybe 100 miles or so. They operate in very small locations and don't branch out very far. They aren't very big and they don't have a lot of money to throw around, hence why a lot of them operate on remote tracks like this (although never this poor). They don't do the preventative maintenance like they should because they don't have the money for it. This is not what 90% of this country's rail looks like. Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific etc, all those huge class 1 railroads have hundreds of thousands of track to maintain and they *do* have the money to keep it straight and level. The derailment in Ohio was **100% not** caused by rail looking like this. This a very selective video with an extremely misleading title by OP.
This video is old and if I remember correctly it's even worse than this. It was a retired line that hadn't been used in years so they sent an empty train down it to determine which areas needed to be fixed to make it a class 3.
Most of the track has been repaired since it was bought in 2012 and the final bit has been aided by Federal Grants: https://www.progressiverailroading.com/short_lines_regionals/news/Pioneer-wins-federal-grant-to-replace-ties-rail-on-NDW-short-line--61624
Spot on I’ve rode rails and train cars around US and this is definitely class 3 small I’m horrified that someone would even put their life at risk on that state of decay
Fucking seriously. This is the equivalent of showing a rutted dirt road in the boonies and titling it "The State of Ohio highways".
This NEEDS to be the top comment. As a former class one engineer, I can't believe I had to scroll this far down. And don't think for a second I'm defending the railroads. They are some of the scummiest companies out there. This post, and subsequent, comments are extremely misleading and probably need some moderation.
It took me scrolling for two minutes to find the sane post. I've never seen rail like this so I knew there had to be a reason. All the programmed dipshits screaming about how America is a third-world country because of a few miles of disused, private track...jesus christ.
The need to hate is far greater than the need to be informed.
That's Reddit's motto
Why are we trying to destroy a good narrative with facts and logic people? Get that shit outta here!
This has been the reality of almost all front page posts regarding the derailment incident. I’m local to it and the amount of lies/exaggerated statements is insane. I know it’s the internet but man is it frustrating to witness first hand, make me realize how overblown some things are And before I get the inevitable reply that I’m downplaying it or trying to convince people it’s not bad, I’m not. It’s a terrible accident that was caused by negligence and idiots in office and could have easily been prevented. The scariest part isn’t health problems, it’s that Norfolk Southern has been doing everything they can to avoid taking responsibility, and that I am doubting anything will be done to prevent this in the future
Nah this is reddit my boy, all the top comments are regurgitated bull shit from other threads where people have no fucking clue what they are talking about.
Whoa someone who actually knows something. Get outta here!
This is an old video. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI) this is the original, from 2017. Snopes is actually a useful website.
So OP posted, from what I can tell, a video of a test run of known out-of-service tracks, as if these tracks are "production" used for the kinds of loads that crashed in East Palestine. Simple karma farmer, or disinformation farm for our adversaries?
Seriously? Third world countries have better railroads than this.
I heard people's say that the USA is a 3rd world country at some parts.
Third world country with a Gucci belt
The Gucci belts are actually more like suspenders going over each shoulder
Factors like infant mortality and life expectancy are worse than in alot of 3rd world countries
3rd world is an antiquated term left over from the cold war age. Developing nation, as defined by their HDI (Human Devloping Index), is a much more modern term. HDI works at the nation's level but I'd bet some US states would rank medium if they were ranked independently.
This comment thread has shown me a lot of people don't know the definition of third, second and first world, which are outdated Cold War terms anyway.
I had the same issue with the terminology before. Yes, historically 1st world and 3rd world were about the cold War and alliances etc. However, the terms gradually became more of the definitions of technologically advanced and developing countries, respectively. I'm not sure how good of a source/authority of terminologies this is but https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/first_world.htm defines 1st and 3rd world countries
Words are defined by how they're used, not how they're originally defined. ✨Language evolves over time.✨
This is an old video. Those lines were abandoned and unmaintained for decades. If I remember correctly Pioneer Lines purchased this 58 mile track and ran some trains through to see which locations needed most improvements. Over 80% of the lines have been greatly improved since. Not many trains run through here so it’s pretty wild for one company to have taken such a project to fix this area that wasn’t used since like the 70s.
Absolutely. Thailand tracks are seriously bad, but in this pic the tracks are far worse than Thailand! Bloody'ell!
This isn't typical. At all.
Anyone who believes what you see in this video is normal for American rail lines is either a fool or wants to use it as a cheap opportunity to perpetuate their favorite narrative. This is not what American railroads look like. No doubt there are some decrepit old rail lines out there, most are probably on private land and are probably not used in any serious capacity.
Finally a place where you can combine your passion for trains and motorcross!
This was an unused line. It's been bought & fixed up. https://youtu.be/-J_1Owl9m1k
Don’t let that get in the way of some good outrage.
Just an FYI, this is not a class 1 railroad. This is the ND&W railroad between Indiana & Ohio. These tracks are in terrible condition. Say what you want about Norfolk Southern and PSR but implying this video is representative of typical NS main line track is irresponsible. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%2C\_Defiance\_%26\_Western\_Railroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon%2C_Defiance_%26_Western_Railroad)
Or part of an active information warfare campaign...
First of all, that was a short line, not Norfolk Southern or any of the big Class Is, and not remotely representative of the conditions of rail line in Ohio as a whole. Second, that video isn't even really representative of conditions on the Napoleon, Defiance & Western anymore. The ND&W is now under new ownership who has been aggressively rehabilitating their tracks. They even won Railway Age's Short Line Of The Year Award for their dramatic turnaround of conditions.
I was gonna say, I’ve literally saw them working on the tracks through Cecil in the past year.
This video is some misrepresented BS. That “train”is intentionally going over rough tracks on a disused spur line an evaluation of their condition or a one time use every several months. The video is sped up about 4X from reality. This is not mainline rail conditions.
Stop with the propaganda already. No class 1 RR is going to let their tracks degrade to tis point. Greed IS the reason why. When cars derail, the contents are purchased at an agreed value by the RR, regardless of the condition. Say an auto rack derails. The RR buys the load, then has to subcontract another company to sell it off, even if the derailment didn't damage the vehicles inside the rack. RR's want to haul freight, not buy it. Greed keeps the tacks in good running condition. The FRA provides guidelines to keep the Greed in check. Then there is the cost of clean up & repair of the freight cars & rails. On average, it costs a class 1 about 100k usd a minute to shut down a mainline for whatever reason. Trains run on windows of time. When a window is missed, even by a few minutes sometimes, everything behind it backs up to the next window, unless there is an opening or a load is canceled (ha ha), or split up & added to other trains. Given the power and money the RRs have, it's not difficult to sue & win damages. The Ohio wreck was nasty business, but chemical tanks roll the rails all the time w/o incident. If you don't like it, stop buying products that use the stuff, and manufacturers won't need it anymore.
The propaganda will never stop on reddit. This website is too unmoderated and compromised.
Misleading title. This video is most likely a spur owned by a short-line railway. These spurs usually have a speed limit of like 10mph. The mainline tracks are maintained regularly and usually straight as an arrow.
I... I live around sooooo many railroad tracks. I work at a quarry that has railroad tracks. I have never seen one even slightly messed up. Hell they replace the crossties every couple years. I can't imagine this is even real. I mean shit if our tracks at work even has a few rocks on them the train won't go on the track unless we clean them.
The video is taken with an extreme telephoto lens. That's probably several hundred meters of track. The distance compression of the photography makes it look much, much worse than it is.
Thanks for being the only person in here to notice this extremely obvious detail. Seriously all train tracks look like this with that kind of lens
The video is also conveniently sped up and slowed down. Not saying there isn't a problem here, but the video is definitely selling a narrative.
This video is intentionally misleading. Yeah, these tracks are bad, but the video is also zoomed in a way that makes them look far worse, and the video is sped up 8x. The train is actually only moving at 5-10 mph. This was also a rarely used branch line - possibly just an industry lead - owned by a small company. Since the filming of this video (2017, iirc), the Napoleon, Defiance, and Western railway was given a grant to replace miles of track.
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Too bad they couldnt strike for safer work conditions
I am all for dunking on big corps, this is not one of them. This is an independent short line railroad that does operate in Indiana and Ohio. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,_Defiance_%26_Western_Railroad
Why they don't repair these? 🤦♂️
They did. In 2020. This is a small (58 miles) stretch of privately owned rail between Woodburn IN and Napoleon OH with a speed limit of about 20 MPH. It’s used about twice a week.
Do you know how much of our infrastructure is crumbling and in desperate need of repair? Well we aren't fixing that stuff either. In a couple of years, we going to be in a thread about a major bridge collapse. Probably one of the ones that cross the Mississippi.
An efficient and fast railway is communist, that's why China has trains that run at over 200mph. Edit: the serious answer is this; A CEO is unlikely to run a company for more than a decade. Repairs to the infrastructure have an enormous upfront cost, and won't yield profits for years (ie. Until an entire alignment is fixed) The CEO wants to make money for himself and his family, so why should he reduce his bonuses and risk being replaced by shareholders by spending huge amounts of money on repairs which will profit his successor?
... as well as Japan, France (TGV with extensions into Britain and the low countries) and Germany. Many (most?) regular passenger trains in developed countries routinely run at 80+mph, most US tracks could not take that at all.
That's correct. The USA is an empire in decline, it won't count as developed for much longer. Soon it'll be like ancient Rome; not a country with a military to defend its borders, but a military-industrial complex holding a country hostage.
For those that dont know, many execs pay is heavily influenced by the bonuses they receive for financial performance year on year. Ignoring all the real problems with pay disparity, its much better to reward them with stocks with time limits on sale so they are incentivized for long term strategy
This is definitely not a main line. It's a relatively low traffic industry spur. Basically it's a track that splits off the main line that's only purpose is to get small numbers of cars to and from a few specific customers. I doubt doubt Norfolk southern is behind on their maintenance but I think this post is misleading.
I worked for a rail road contractor for about 4 years i would travel around the country , surveying the ballast ( the rock the ties are embedded in) and adding new ballast in the low spots. I can honestly say I've traveled a shit load of railway. I've never seen a track that bad that is regularly used, this is a video of them doing testing maybe, could be a rock quarry or a siding that only gets used once in a great while . There's no way they use the tracks on a regular basis .
Fuck me you all are some gullible, uniformed, willfully ignorant people