Rail cars carrying hazardous material have derailed and burst into flames in a remote area of North Dakota.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/Keq48
Implying there are non remote areas of North Dakota.
Feels like we’re having a major derailing like this every six weeks or so in the US.
They were significantly deregulated under Trump. They have less rules to follow now. The part where they were supposed to have more freedom to choose how to be safe properly, didn’t seem to be how that played out for some reason.
I’m trying to think, “how does this work?” I mean, if one has a train company, is it no longer important to maintain tracks and other equipment such that destruction of equipment and the cargo are not damaged? I would think, if I had a train company, that it would be useful to have the trains, you know, move from point A to point B without a whole lot of loss of trains and cargo. Maybe I just don’t understand how trains and transportation work.
In capitalism, this is called “cost of doing business”. If the maintenance costs surpass cleanup costs due to accidents, then it is not worth doing maintenance.
I notced you omitted the payment of meaningul regulatory penalties, that’s okay, so did the United States.
The morons in charge see short term expenses and not the future consequences of their actions.
Also, between insurance and shoving the costs of cleanup onto various local, state, and federal governments, the cost of these derailments might even be lower than the cost of maintaining these tracks. But I’m speculating pretty hard there.
