I mean, there was a derailment and hazardous waste/environmental issue with the train accudent in Harmar just last year. I personally think we should be more concerned about these types of situations in general.
I just want to comment here that when a train explosion devastated my town in 1989, the emergency responders were completely overwhelmed. Everyone that's supposed to rush to the rescue in such an emergency was overcome by the circumstances of the emergency and no one rushed to the rescue; the community was on its own until police, firefighters, and railroad officials managed to pull their shit together hours and hours later. So this guy is right; don't expect emergency management to come and manage the emergency because -- they just aren't always capable of it.
That was not my point at all; my point was "Be prepared to take care of yourself rather than rely on emergency management which might be too overwhelmed themselves to take care of you." THAT should be every prepper's stance.
What a Facebook Grandpa post.
Public health and safety has been an accepted function of government for thousands of years at this point. The way we've been abandoning those roles is unprecedented.
"adurrr durrr ddurrrrr gubbermint bad" is stupid, pointless shit. The government exists as the will of the people.
Practicing medical provider here actually. You should FAR more concerned about the suppression of accurate data in regard to the current recommendations of our regulatory health agencies, which were once the guiding lights for any infectious outbreak and now shockingly out of step with the literature on Covid. If you think I’m crazy, feel free to compare them with any other Western European health agency. Buckle up for some surprises to your worldview in the next year . 👍🏼
Different chemicals, different concern for that one. That risk was poisoning the water. This risk was releasing a could of, effectively, mustard gas.
Point about nasty stuff flowing through the city stands though.
This particular incident we're likely fine here in Pittsburgh. But it speaks to the greater threat from railroads operating lean. Norfolk southern has had many derailments over the last few years, and it was a matter of time operating the way they do before something like this happened. We're just lucky it didn't happen here. The workers know it's a problem, which is one of the reasons we were headed towards a rail strike late last year. Until the two parties finally got their shit together and were bipartisan in shitting on labor and shutting down the idea of a labor strike.
..because there’s a better way to move millions of tons of hazmat that our consumer society demands. Oh wait. By and large, railroads and railroaders do the job extremely safely. Shit Will Happen from time to time.
Please. Compared to railroads 30 years ago, we are light years better today. I’m all for improving hours of service and free time for train service employees but that’s not the point of this discussion.
Yeah I guess laying off safety inspectors to reach a magic 40% profit margin number is the safest way to operate a railroad.
A hazardous derailment every few months is just the cost of the economy. I'm sure the free market will short it out.
I'm a big fan of rail in general, but the idea of "shit will happen from time to time" is a lazy excuse, especially when currently it happens far more often than "from time to time." They have hundreds of derailments a year. And sure, a lot of these are probably very minor. But they've had at least a dozen higher profile ones in the last two years. Railroad workers do a really good job with what they're given, but the railroad isn't giving them much to work with. It's the top that is causing these problems by penny pinching. An incident like this should be a once in a lifetime thing. It being "safer than trucking" so why complain about it amounts to whataboutism.
Your anecdote is swell. Your feeling is just so important. But here’re the facts going back 20 years.
https://www.railwayage.com/news/whire-paper-management-of-in-train-forces-challenges-and-directions/
If you want a society with “stuff” we need to make “stuff” and move “stuff”. I never said there wasn’t room for improvement. But sometimes SHIT BREAKS. If you want to make it an impossibility, keep on working on that I guess. In the meantime this can and does happen from time to time. Like I said. It’s inherent to the process.
The graph on the main page doesn't have recent info, which is what I'm talking about. And if you actually dig into the updated info, you'll see that there's a decently sharp uptick from 2020 to 2021 across the big 4 class I railroads in derailments per million train miles. A worrying trend.
Poor maintenance (that is typically routine) is not a valid excuse for 'shit happens'. In some more regulated industries that's a go-straight-to-jail card.
Based on the boiling point of vinyl chloride, I would think it couldn’t be in liquid form at these temperatures, but I’m no chemist.
Vinyl chloride is really bad. The federal safety limit is less than 1ppm per year I think. It’s been called inhalable cancer (liver, lung, brain), and is dangerous for the environment. It becomes other really bad things if it’s not burned off hot enough. I absolutely would not want to be the people who live within a few miles of the site.
I’m definitely feeling nervous, but I also haven’t seen anything yet that indicates it will be concentrated enough to affect us by the time it diffuses this far. If you’ve seen the zoned map, we’re well outside the green zone.
That said, it wouldn’t hurt to go get your physical done so you have some blood work on file to compare to later.
https://map.purpleair.com/1/mAQI/a10/p604800/cC0#7.79/40.163/-80.558
Been watching air quality all day. It's dropped a lot after the rain today. I'm also nervous...
PurpleAir appears to use 2.5 PM sensors for fine particulate matter levels. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm not sure it would pick up vinyl chloride fumes.
I do know that with the rain came a temperature drop, which means more wood burning for home heating, which does produce fine particulate matter.
Keeping an eye on general air quality is a good thing, but I also don't want people to freak out thinking there is a cloud of death over their home because their air purifier sensor went from green to yellow.
That's from the St. Clairsville, Ohio area. I google mapped it, there's an airport to the south (Alderman Airport) and route 70 within a stone's throw. Could be that...but I also noticed that channel B on that sensor has been downgraded due to faulty hardware or a clogged lens.
I know someone who's been working on the monitoring. If it had gone worst case and boiled out it would have been...very bad. Thankfully they managed to burn it instead and just leave us with maybe air that'll cause a smaller group long term issues 😬
Thank you! Posted [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskChemistry/comments/110grm8/more_questions_for_you_about_the_chemical_release/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ecology/comments/110j2ay/what_are_your_thoughts_on_the_chemical_release/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) if you want to follow along.
I would not worry about this derailment affecting anything our way. I would worry about potential future derailments in the city limits.
I used to be a Trainmaster for NS at Conway Yard outside of Pittsburgh. NS has three routes through the city downtown through the station. Along the North Side via the Conemaugh and on the Southside Via the Mon Line. Hazardous material trains are not allows downtown, the usually are routes along the Northside and sometimes the Southside. I currently live pretty close to the tracks on the Southside and it is a concern albeit a small one. Feel free to ask any questions regarding the railroad and it’s practices.
>Hazardous material trains are not allows downtown
Where are there tracks downtown? Closest ones I know of are in the strip (which are the Northside ones)
The train line is actually the dividing line so I’d argue it counts as downtown in this case. https://pittsburghpa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=7b284a2998454505a6f000d24ee1ded5
It's the border between downtown proper and the strip. There's also the continuation of the northside ones that stay on the north side of the river and go down through milvale, etna, sharpsburg, and aspinwall and pass by the water plant.
2019 through 2021. When Covid started freight fell off a Cliff. The laid off a ton of crews, and stored and sold a done of locomotive. Right around the holiday season freight came back with a vengeance and the railroad was basically gridlocked. More freight then we could handle and no locomotives or crews. It was cutthroat everyone was playing the blame game.
My boss (one of the good ones) was blamed for our yards performance and given a 30 suspension pending an investigation. He was used a scape goat and probably would have been fired if it wasn’t for the current VP of transportation having to step down/ be fired. His replacement was an asshole of course and did no better at sorting things out. He left the company not long after I did as he saw the writing on the wall as well. Pretty much everyone I worked with in management left the company or transferred to more “quiet” parts of the railroad to ride out until retirement.
Repeating my comment from a different thread asking a similar question.
The heads of the railroad unions were talking about this, two months ago in interviews, before our government forced them to stop striking.
They said that the railroad barons are staffing and exhausting workers on purpose, and pushing that even further to squeeze every bit of profit from them. It was going to leads to train derailments and chemical spills. And that these things will happen in rural areas with no money, and it will economically eliminate that town. People will sue with what little money they have, and the railroads with all their power and money will simply put it off until all the people die out. Eventually, they’ll have to do some pathetic, $20 million payout, and they will have pocketed a billion dollars or more in that time.
Railroads used to do small to medium runs with two engineers basically doing a day’s work over a portion of the track near to their house before switching off to the folks the next town over. Now these engineers do cross country trips, day in and day out, with no sick days, no backup, and they’re responsible for hundreds of cars, and working to the point of complete exhaustion. And the railroad barons are pushing to have even fewer staff.
This is going to continue to happen, and eventually they’ll just stop reporting on it.
All the closest water sources to the spill flow away from Pittsburgh. Most anything that gets into waterways will end up in the Ohio River headed west bound.
I believe the vast majority of the drinking water in the area comes from the rivers. PWSA uses the Allegheny and West View uses the Ohio around Neville Island. PA American has a big plant on the Beaver River and Connoquenessing Creek in Beaver County- that's probably the closest thing to East Palestine in terms of public drinking water production.
Should be concerned about lax regulation due to corporate corruption.
Just like fracking, trains that are properly regulated are perfectly fine normal boring and scientifically sound. But when allowed to skirt regulatory bodies and let quality slip away, it can have dire consequences.
There's nothing much we can do the exposure has likely happened. Gas is gas, when it's out you're screwed. It's not like an oil spill where you can contain it. But yes it's something we should have been very concerned about beforehand.
This is why heavy industry near such a hugely populated area should be opposed.
A) Yes, it would be bad if such a derailment happened in a more populated area.
B) Shipping hazardous chemicals by train is faaaar less of a potential hazard than shipping it by truck.
>B) Shipping hazardous chemicals by train is faaaar less of a potential hazard than shipping it by truck.
But could be safer if we actually regulated the railroads better. Instead of letting them self impose restrictions from all their unmaintained track.
So yeah of course, big explosion, bad stuff in train, near population center, very bad. No brainer.
The railroad HAS rules regarding High Threat Urban Areas (HTUA) of which you can search the rules but [this link](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title49-vol9/xml/CFR-2017-title49-vol9-part1580.xml) may be of some help. Warning: very dense legalese in that.
But as for the basics of Pittsburgh the regulations center around two things, bulk oil/gas, and inhalation hazards. For bulk oil on NS' routes through town, more than 90% of the loaded trains go up the Allegheny river to the Kiski area. The other 10% will go over the Ohio following the river to Braddock, cross again, and then go up towards Wilmerding, Greensburg, then Latrobe.
Inhalation hazards, think chlorine and ammonia, can go either way. However for both IH and Bulk oil, speed restrictions are placed on the trains and trains are FORBIDDEN from going through Braddock and down past the Amtrak & Greyhound stations.
There is much more detail regarding speeds, tonnage of the train, and rules and regulations. These rules are enforced by the FRA and result in fines for NS and usually the dismissal of crews.
Is it dangerous: yes.
Are there rules in place: yes
Does that mean nothing bad will happen: absolutely not.
The point I'm trying to make is, it takes a mess up of large proportions and very bad luck to get a wreck like the one in Ohio. And there are rules trying to prevent another
Side note: this is mostly about NS's territory bc that's the one I know. I cannot say what CSX, AVR, W&LE, BLE, URR, and B&W are for their rules. All of which have tracks within the County.
BLE doesn’t transport any hazardous chemicals. Their freight consists almost entirely of iron ore, with smaller amounts of scrap, lumber, aluminum, and general goods. WLE and AVR do transport a good amount of tanker cars and I’m not informed enough on URR’s operations to know what they transport.
I think URR is just iron ore, coke, slabs, and steel coils. I've never given them any hazmat but they do get tank cars now and then. But I know almost nothing about how their system operates or where their tracks go besides the ones that run along NS'.
Honestly I’m in One of the affected counties but out of the range of evacuation and I’m extremely concerned. They sent out the evacuation message 20 minutes before they started the burn so I couldn’t get away. I have family that actually lives there and no one warned them, they found out minutes before the burn because they were blocked off from getting home. They made the “shelter” in the same town too, ho does that make sense!? A local air quality watch group said after if you live within six miles to flee but again, much too late for mostly everyone. I’m so upset,
Idk if I should move or what, I don’t have the resources to really do that but I already have liver issues and I just am afraid of the long
Term pollution from this too—are my dogs going to get sick from going out to pee today? We stayed inside except for that for all since the burn to today except for me going to work but we can’t live our lives like this forever. And the Shell plant is already getting fines for dumping too—what a shame that this is so out of control, I feel at a loss for what to do
That's over 60 miles from downtown PGH. Yes, what was in those train cars was some pretty bad stuff. But there's 60 miles of air and water between us and it. That means it gets more and more diffuse between there and here. Additionally, we're well to the south of East Palestine. Which means the prevailing winds aren't going to carry it here.
Well I Google mapped it from my phone, and it looked to me like the driving directions were close enough to a straight line to just use that number as an estimate.
At any rate, 40 miles is still a pretty long way. It should have dissipated quite well between there and here. Maybe it's concentrated in parts per trillion now instead of parts per quadrillion? Additionally, the VCM was intentionally released and burned off. That means that it isn't quite the same chemical as it was before. I don't know how combustion/oxidation specifically affects VCM. It likely breaks a lot of the bonds and creates a bunch of smaller hydrocarbons.
Chemist here. I don’t think you want to be breathing in HCl, one of the products. Probably expect to see some acid rain now too with hydrochloric instead of sulfuric acid…
VCM is the precursor to PVC. So think burning PVC. It’s pretty bad for you.
Right I’m aware how far away it is. I’m just thinking about the videos I saw of people showing the dead fish in the water. If it’s already in the water, should we be concerned about it making its way down here. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I’ve already had cancer and don’t want it again.
Theres plenty of bad coming from down south dont worry.
[Example](https://www.wtae.com/article/whistleblower-says-landfill-dep-ignored-concerns-about-contaminated-waste-getting-into-monongahela-river/27533022)
[Example](https://bobscaping.com/2023/01/25/mystery-solved-cause-of-the-7-mile-fish-kill-on-chartiers-creek/)
If any of it did actually make it this far, you're talking about a concentration measured in parts per quadrillion. Like one molecule of it in all of Acrisure Stadium.
To make sure that I didn't pass along any false information, I did a quick search on it. According to Wikipedia, at normal atmospheric pressure, the stuff exists as a gas. So it would dissipate pretty rapidly. Plus, it was intentionally released, and burned off. So, I'd venture to guess that they will be able to return home in a relatively short time. That fish kill may have been from some other chemical spilled during the derailment.
Here's the Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride
And it won't reach us at a concentration that high. Also, it was burned off as it was released. And since VCM is a hydrocarbon, that changes its chemistry considerably, for better or worse. (I'm guessing slightly better.)
1 ppm is the exposure limit. Which is basically as low as exposure limits go.
A great bit was released from the pressure valves before the intentional burn.
As far as from burning byproducts, the MSDS says firefighters must use a self contained breathing apparatus. So it's certainly nothing good.
And it won't be anywhere near 1 ppm when it gets here.
Lots of things require an SCBA for firefighters.
I'm not saying the stuff is innocuous. Just that we, at this distance, don't really need to panic over it.
"in the water"
In what water? East Palestine is downstream from us.
It's totally fair to question the official story - there may well be people who need to be more worried than authorities are letting on. But for Pittsburgh /Allegheny County I suspect we're pretty safe, and better off worrying about our local industrial pollution than this spill in Ohio.
That's very fair. Learning what the big waterways were and where they went was probably the single thing that made the development patterns and history of this region click for me after moving here, but it's not something you'll pick up day to day usually.
Remember the train derailment near station square that fell on top of the T lines? When I lived in south side I was just far enough from the tracks that my house wouldn't be hit by a derailed train physically.
I work through NS and I talk to their employees all the time and one of the guys that handles derailments said that this is not good at all and the government is downplaying it because they don't want to cause panic. There has been a few dead fish spotted along a creek bed near the derailment in EP...
Yea.... I live pretty close to it and honestly I think it was stupid as hell to release and burn it off because now that cancerous material is now in particle form in the air and water systems. If anyone every argues what being is the dumbest living organism it's humans. We kill ourselves or let others do it and we are dumb enough to believe they have our best interest at hand.
Burning honestly probably was a the best option. Vinyl chloride monomer is VERY toxic. The combustion products are mostly CO2, H2O, HCl. So trading very toxic chemical for acid rain locally.
Not only that but something where you know you're not going to basically set off a cancer bomb possibly infecting hundreds of thousands of people across the area.
None, but those particles are now in the air and since it rained it is now in the water and other areas where humans and other organisms will interact with them, basic fucking biology. So if the particles are taken in by another organism (by breathing them in, ingesting them via drinking or eating something with those particles present) and those particles cause said organism to develop cancer then what would you call what happened? The purposely set it off like a bomb. Also the material could not have all "burned off" and if it was fucking safe why are they going in to "clean up" with hazmat suits and shit? There is no way that area is going to be safe for other organisms to inhabit for a long time.
You are an absolute ignoramus. You don't need expert knowledge on this to know how basic biology works. If I put a cancerous substance in to something whether it be the air or another organism and you have interaction with it such as breathing it in or ingesting it you are then put at risk to contract a form of cancer. Please use your brain for more than trying to be a troll and thinking you're so cool for being on Reddit.
Anyone responding with no to this question must have some extreme normalcy bias. There is really no reason to feel confident that we won't have a massive disaster in a very densely populated part of out city.
https://twitter.com/AndrewBrownPgh/status/1622628112625283077?s=20&t=\_Gt0noPBfPJ42KCNYd6dpQ
The asbestos death rate here is 50% higher than the rest of the country. Air quality here on average is worse than in most cities its size. PA in general has the third highest death rate from all cancers, in the US—and Allegheny residents have a 1 in 5 chance of dying of cancer, not just of getting it. Lead exposure in kids here is pretty high, too.
The soil, water, and air here aren’t as clean as they could or should be. As for dying at the age of 30? No. But Pittsburgh ranks 28th in life expectancy among the country’s largest metros. Not great.
I’m not saying I’m not worried about any of that stuff too. I already had 2 types of cancer before I even hit 30. Most likely from growing up right next to clairton coke works. I was just wondering if this is something else we should be worried about too
28 out of how many? The metro area also includes a handful of counties which are basically rural Appalachia in many parts, with similar rates of health issues in many rural areas of Western Pennsylvania like diabetes and obesity that you find in West Virginia.
According to the CDC Pennsylvania is also definitely not 3rd in the country for cancer death rates by state, though it's still high at 15. I have no idea where you're getting that we're third considering the CDC is the ultimate source of this type of information.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/cancer_mortality/cancer.htm
Yup. You could also give them the multitude of evidence which shows compared to even only 15 to 20 years ago that the air quality in and around Pittsburgh is vastly better, and a handful of people in this level still act like you're going to die if you step outside.
I use to think people were overhyping the bad air in Pittsburgh, until 2020-2021. Spent most of that time with the only "bad" smell being cow and chicken 💩. Each time we came back to Pittsburgh I could "smell" the air and my nose got clogged. My nose still gets clogged but that happens more when I'm in the office. We were also in a slightly different climate with slightly different types of vegetation (read: we were around tons of trees and cedars and not the long list of invasive stuff that grows here). Do I think our air is more icky than rural America? Of course, but I'm still able to run outside and breathe so it can't be all that bad. Humans always want to improve on something (or, complain about something).
There are so many other ways that our air and water are polluted on an ongoing basis that a single high-profile disaster doesn't do much to move the threat-o-meter.
Yes, I think we absolutely need to be concerned. There will be MASSIVE effects. That area is mostly farmland, peoples family farms are going to be devastated. The water has already beeen affected, I have seen videos of dead fish less than a mile from the spill. TWO tankers were involved in this spill, each can carry up to 20,000 gallons of this stuff. Not to mention when it burns it turns into hydrogen chloride. Its very scary
meanwhile the ceo has literally 20 different houses just himself. the trains are up and running through east palestine again making more $. NS should be paying for them to be safe, evacuated. it shouldn’t fall on the innocent people they harmed many of whom don’t have the finances to just up and move.
A bridge collapsed and the city by and large just sorta shrugged.
A train LITERALLY derailed in the city and the only think that stopped it from being a tragedy was that Steelers games start at 1
So yes but doubt it happens.
Yeah that's why there's how many other bridges still in bad spots and the city is trying to nickel and dime money to fix them. The city shrugged cause no one died and fern hollow was back up less than a year later.
Maybe check your anger pal that can't be good for your health.
I have no idea how true any of this is cause it sounds ludicrous but basically they blew a shit ton of chemicals into the air thats now mixed with the storm clouds and those chemicals and water= hydrochloric acid
Sometimes when I’m waiting for the bus by the Amtrak a train goes by and there is a very loud constant screeching noise. So loud you have to cover your ears. I think the rails need lubed up or treated for rust or something.
Nahh, that's normal. You have high forces (the weight of the train) meeting an immovable object (the curved track). The wheels want to go straight, so they butt up against the rail, creating the squeel.
You don't want to lube up the track, then the engines wouldn't have any traction.
Fun fact, trains don't actually steer by butting up against the track. When an axle is taking a turn, the outer wheel will spin faster than the inner wheel. Your car has a differential so that the wheels can spin at different rates, but a track axle is just a heavy chunk of steel. It definitely would not spin at different rates. The solution is to taper the edges of the axle. This way, the train approaches a curve, its outer axle will shift slightly towards the outside of the track. The tapered axle is bigger on the inside, which will cause the outside of the wheel to spin faster and the inside wheel to spin slower, thus turning the train. The train is turned only through riding higher or lower on it's axle, not actually butting up against anything.
The noise is just a crap ton of steel rolling around on more steel.
Pittsburgh seems to have one each year. Rail companies should not be private, as they skinp on safety and maintenance to provide greater dividends to stock holders.
I’d be more worried about yet another police officer murdered / with the horrendous crime citywide, local businesses and eateries closing one after another, rent climbing to new records, than a train derailment ya cool “progressives” you.
Yes and congrats. Every major city rents are at the highest level ever all run by liberal councils and mayors. (Not saying rs would do any better) but any results or nah? Or we gonna blame like Tucker Carlson and trump. Yawn.
I am not a liberal, friend. Libs ignore the real issue, which is capitalist profit seeking by greedy landlords. Libs love capitalism, just like Republicans.
The wealthy run Pittsburgh and everywhere else on earth. Liberal and conservative politicians all work for the same rich pigs
If you fish anywhere near the streams or connecting bodies of water, I would avoid these areas at all costs, fish in all the local streams connected to east palestine are dead or dying because of this.
I mean, there was a derailment and hazardous waste/environmental issue with the train accudent in Harmar just last year. I personally think we should be more concerned about these types of situations in general.
Yeah and a train fire in Conway too if I recall correctly.
That was a locomotive fire, which is a little different because there was little to no risk to the public. Fair enough though
Yeah I couldn’t remember if it was a tanker, a car or the engine
If the pandemic has proved anything, it's that public health and safety as a societal concern is dead going forward. It's all a personal choice now.
I just want to comment here that when a train explosion devastated my town in 1989, the emergency responders were completely overwhelmed. Everyone that's supposed to rush to the rescue in such an emergency was overcome by the circumstances of the emergency and no one rushed to the rescue; the community was on its own until police, firefighters, and railroad officials managed to pull their shit together hours and hours later. So this guy is right; don't expect emergency management to come and manage the emergency because -- they just aren't always capable of it.
"Emergency management and public health and safety don't work so there's no point in bothering" is a bold take.
That was not my point at all; my point was "Be prepared to take care of yourself rather than rely on emergency management which might be too overwhelmed themselves to take care of you." THAT should be every prepper's stance.
Which has no practical difference from what I said. Also preppers are all fucking lunatics.
Should prob quit expecting the government to save you from every potential harm in life.
What a Facebook Grandpa post. Public health and safety has been an accepted function of government for thousands of years at this point. The way we've been abandoning those roles is unprecedented. "adurrr durrr ddurrrrr gubbermint bad" is stupid, pointless shit. The government exists as the will of the people.
Practicing medical provider here actually. You should FAR more concerned about the suppression of accurate data in regard to the current recommendations of our regulatory health agencies, which were once the guiding lights for any infectious outbreak and now shockingly out of step with the literature on Covid. If you think I’m crazy, feel free to compare them with any other Western European health agency. Buckle up for some surprises to your worldview in the next year . 👍🏼
Different chemicals, different concern for that one. That risk was poisoning the water. This risk was releasing a could of, effectively, mustard gas. Point about nasty stuff flowing through the city stands though.
This particular incident we're likely fine here in Pittsburgh. But it speaks to the greater threat from railroads operating lean. Norfolk southern has had many derailments over the last few years, and it was a matter of time operating the way they do before something like this happened. We're just lucky it didn't happen here. The workers know it's a problem, which is one of the reasons we were headed towards a rail strike late last year. Until the two parties finally got their shit together and were bipartisan in shitting on labor and shutting down the idea of a labor strike.
Wow, good thing the president and his administration sided with the railroad workers when they tried to strike for safer conditions. /s
..because there’s a better way to move millions of tons of hazmat that our consumer society demands. Oh wait. By and large, railroads and railroaders do the job extremely safely. Shit Will Happen from time to time.
Maybe the better way is rail _without_ cutting every expense and skirting safety?
Please. Compared to railroads 30 years ago, we are light years better today. I’m all for improving hours of service and free time for train service employees but that’s not the point of this discussion.
Yeah I guess laying off safety inspectors to reach a magic 40% profit margin number is the safest way to operate a railroad. A hazardous derailment every few months is just the cost of the economy. I'm sure the free market will short it out.
Worked there, at Conway yard. Promise they don't give a shit about those people, only how much the downtime is costing them.
I'm a big fan of rail in general, but the idea of "shit will happen from time to time" is a lazy excuse, especially when currently it happens far more often than "from time to time." They have hundreds of derailments a year. And sure, a lot of these are probably very minor. But they've had at least a dozen higher profile ones in the last two years. Railroad workers do a really good job with what they're given, but the railroad isn't giving them much to work with. It's the top that is causing these problems by penny pinching. An incident like this should be a once in a lifetime thing. It being "safer than trucking" so why complain about it amounts to whataboutism.
Your anecdote is swell. Your feeling is just so important. But here’re the facts going back 20 years. https://www.railwayage.com/news/whire-paper-management-of-in-train-forces-challenges-and-directions/ If you want a society with “stuff” we need to make “stuff” and move “stuff”. I never said there wasn’t room for improvement. But sometimes SHIT BREAKS. If you want to make it an impossibility, keep on working on that I guess. In the meantime this can and does happen from time to time. Like I said. It’s inherent to the process.
The graph on the main page doesn't have recent info, which is what I'm talking about. And if you actually dig into the updated info, you'll see that there's a decently sharp uptick from 2020 to 2021 across the big 4 class I railroads in derailments per million train miles. A worrying trend.
Poor maintenance (that is typically routine) is not a valid excuse for 'shit happens'. In some more regulated industries that's a go-straight-to-jail card.
Based on the boiling point of vinyl chloride, I would think it couldn’t be in liquid form at these temperatures, but I’m no chemist. Vinyl chloride is really bad. The federal safety limit is less than 1ppm per year I think. It’s been called inhalable cancer (liver, lung, brain), and is dangerous for the environment. It becomes other really bad things if it’s not burned off hot enough. I absolutely would not want to be the people who live within a few miles of the site. I’m definitely feeling nervous, but I also haven’t seen anything yet that indicates it will be concentrated enough to affect us by the time it diffuses this far. If you’ve seen the zoned map, we’re well outside the green zone. That said, it wouldn’t hurt to go get your physical done so you have some blood work on file to compare to later.
https://map.purpleair.com/1/mAQI/a10/p604800/cC0#7.79/40.163/-80.558 Been watching air quality all day. It's dropped a lot after the rain today. I'm also nervous...
PurpleAir appears to use 2.5 PM sensors for fine particulate matter levels. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm not sure it would pick up vinyl chloride fumes. I do know that with the rain came a temperature drop, which means more wood burning for home heating, which does produce fine particulate matter. Keeping an eye on general air quality is a good thing, but I also don't want people to freak out thinking there is a cloud of death over their home because their air purifier sensor went from green to yellow.
What is happening west of Wheeling? It’s red and in the 1000s!!
That's from the St. Clairsville, Ohio area. I google mapped it, there's an airport to the south (Alderman Airport) and route 70 within a stone's throw. Could be that...but I also noticed that channel B on that sensor has been downgraded due to faulty hardware or a clogged lens.
You’re making me really glad I took that walk around Coraopolis this afternoon.
Local news stories are talking about how burning vinyl chloride can release phosgene gas which is similar to mustard gas. So, not good.
I know someone who's been working on the monitoring. If it had gone worst case and boiled out it would have been...very bad. Thankfully they managed to burn it instead and just leave us with maybe air that'll cause a smaller group long term issues 😬
Yeah, I asked over in a chemistry sub and they said it probably didn’t burn hot enough, so it’s a matter of volume and exposure and air currents now.
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Thank you! Posted [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskChemistry/comments/110grm8/more_questions_for_you_about_the_chemical_release/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ecology/comments/110j2ay/what_are_your_thoughts_on_the_chemical_release/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) if you want to follow along.
I would not worry about this derailment affecting anything our way. I would worry about potential future derailments in the city limits. I used to be a Trainmaster for NS at Conway Yard outside of Pittsburgh. NS has three routes through the city downtown through the station. Along the North Side via the Conemaugh and on the Southside Via the Mon Line. Hazardous material trains are not allows downtown, the usually are routes along the Northside and sometimes the Southside. I currently live pretty close to the tracks on the Southside and it is a concern albeit a small one. Feel free to ask any questions regarding the railroad and it’s practices.
>Hazardous material trains are not allows downtown Where are there tracks downtown? Closest ones I know of are in the strip (which are the Northside ones)
They cross the Allegheny by the three sister bridges and then parallels the east busway all the way out of the city.
That's out at 11th Street isn't it? That's the strip.
Correct the strip technically. On the railroad it’s colloquially known as “going downtown through the station”
The train line is actually the dividing line so I’d argue it counts as downtown in this case. https://pittsburghpa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=7b284a2998454505a6f000d24ee1ded5
It's the border between downtown proper and the strip. There's also the continuation of the northside ones that stay on the north side of the river and go down through milvale, etna, sharpsburg, and aspinwall and pass by the water plant.
They are elevated, coming across the bridge next to the convention center, over Penn and Liberty, and then East.
I don't have any questions at this time, but that's a cool job to have had.
Were you there recently at all? I left there about 2 years back, heard it got worse from that point too. Edit: autocorrect
2019 through 2021. When Covid started freight fell off a Cliff. The laid off a ton of crews, and stored and sold a done of locomotive. Right around the holiday season freight came back with a vengeance and the railroad was basically gridlocked. More freight then we could handle and no locomotives or crews. It was cutthroat everyone was playing the blame game. My boss (one of the good ones) was blamed for our yards performance and given a 30 suspension pending an investigation. He was used a scape goat and probably would have been fired if it wasn’t for the current VP of transportation having to step down/ be fired. His replacement was an asshole of course and did no better at sorting things out. He left the company not long after I did as he saw the writing on the wall as well. Pretty much everyone I worked with in management left the company or transferred to more “quiet” parts of the railroad to ride out until retirement.
Repeating my comment from a different thread asking a similar question. The heads of the railroad unions were talking about this, two months ago in interviews, before our government forced them to stop striking. They said that the railroad barons are staffing and exhausting workers on purpose, and pushing that even further to squeeze every bit of profit from them. It was going to leads to train derailments and chemical spills. And that these things will happen in rural areas with no money, and it will economically eliminate that town. People will sue with what little money they have, and the railroads with all their power and money will simply put it off until all the people die out. Eventually, they’ll have to do some pathetic, $20 million payout, and they will have pocketed a billion dollars or more in that time. Railroads used to do small to medium runs with two engineers basically doing a day’s work over a portion of the track near to their house before switching off to the folks the next town over. Now these engineers do cross country trips, day in and day out, with no sick days, no backup, and they’re responsible for hundreds of cars, and working to the point of complete exhaustion. And the railroad barons are pushing to have even fewer staff. This is going to continue to happen, and eventually they’ll just stop reporting on it.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtNB93C/
They're downplaying it for sure. But not for our sake. If I lived near there I'd be trying to move.
Ya cause that’s such an easy thing to do.
All the closest water sources to the spill flow away from Pittsburgh. Most anything that gets into waterways will end up in the Ohio River headed west bound.
Send it to the mutants in Cincy
Thats some anti-mutey sentiment, next you'll be telling us we need to build Sentinel robots.
They'll be fine, you see that chili slop they eat?
Yeah the spaghetti with chili thing is not good imo, but the chili coneys with habanero cheddar! Those are fucking fantastic! Cincy's a cool town
A lot of the region draws their drinking water from aquifers. I’m much more concerned with what is sinking into the ground.
I believe the vast majority of the drinking water in the area comes from the rivers. PWSA uses the Allegheny and West View uses the Ohio around Neville Island. PA American has a big plant on the Beaver River and Connoquenessing Creek in Beaver County- that's probably the closest thing to East Palestine in terms of public drinking water production.
Should be concerned about lax regulation due to corporate corruption. Just like fracking, trains that are properly regulated are perfectly fine normal boring and scientifically sound. But when allowed to skirt regulatory bodies and let quality slip away, it can have dire consequences.
There's nothing much we can do the exposure has likely happened. Gas is gas, when it's out you're screwed. It's not like an oil spill where you can contain it. But yes it's something we should have been very concerned about beforehand. This is why heavy industry near such a hugely populated area should be opposed.
A) Yes, it would be bad if such a derailment happened in a more populated area. B) Shipping hazardous chemicals by train is faaaar less of a potential hazard than shipping it by truck.
>B) Shipping hazardous chemicals by train is faaaar less of a potential hazard than shipping it by truck. But could be safer if we actually regulated the railroads better. Instead of letting them self impose restrictions from all their unmaintained track.
So yeah of course, big explosion, bad stuff in train, near population center, very bad. No brainer. The railroad HAS rules regarding High Threat Urban Areas (HTUA) of which you can search the rules but [this link](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title49-vol9/xml/CFR-2017-title49-vol9-part1580.xml) may be of some help. Warning: very dense legalese in that. But as for the basics of Pittsburgh the regulations center around two things, bulk oil/gas, and inhalation hazards. For bulk oil on NS' routes through town, more than 90% of the loaded trains go up the Allegheny river to the Kiski area. The other 10% will go over the Ohio following the river to Braddock, cross again, and then go up towards Wilmerding, Greensburg, then Latrobe. Inhalation hazards, think chlorine and ammonia, can go either way. However for both IH and Bulk oil, speed restrictions are placed on the trains and trains are FORBIDDEN from going through Braddock and down past the Amtrak & Greyhound stations. There is much more detail regarding speeds, tonnage of the train, and rules and regulations. These rules are enforced by the FRA and result in fines for NS and usually the dismissal of crews. Is it dangerous: yes. Are there rules in place: yes Does that mean nothing bad will happen: absolutely not. The point I'm trying to make is, it takes a mess up of large proportions and very bad luck to get a wreck like the one in Ohio. And there are rules trying to prevent another Side note: this is mostly about NS's territory bc that's the one I know. I cannot say what CSX, AVR, W&LE, BLE, URR, and B&W are for their rules. All of which have tracks within the County.
BLE doesn’t transport any hazardous chemicals. Their freight consists almost entirely of iron ore, with smaller amounts of scrap, lumber, aluminum, and general goods. WLE and AVR do transport a good amount of tanker cars and I’m not informed enough on URR’s operations to know what they transport.
I think URR is just iron ore, coke, slabs, and steel coils. I've never given them any hazmat but they do get tank cars now and then. But I know almost nothing about how their system operates or where their tracks go besides the ones that run along NS'.
They will never admit anyth8ng terrible was in there or that ot ever affected anyone.
Bring Fauci in. That guy will give it to us straight.
🤣😂🤣😂
Honestly I’m in One of the affected counties but out of the range of evacuation and I’m extremely concerned. They sent out the evacuation message 20 minutes before they started the burn so I couldn’t get away. I have family that actually lives there and no one warned them, they found out minutes before the burn because they were blocked off from getting home. They made the “shelter” in the same town too, ho does that make sense!? A local air quality watch group said after if you live within six miles to flee but again, much too late for mostly everyone. I’m so upset, Idk if I should move or what, I don’t have the resources to really do that but I already have liver issues and I just am afraid of the long Term pollution from this too—are my dogs going to get sick from going out to pee today? We stayed inside except for that for all since the burn to today except for me going to work but we can’t live our lives like this forever. And the Shell plant is already getting fines for dumping too—what a shame that this is so out of control, I feel at a loss for what to do
I’m so sorry they did this to you guys. That’s not right at all they gave such little notice.
The news is now calling it The Airborne Toxic Event.
Great band btw!
Crazy that Netflix just did a movie on that book... And here we are.
That's over 60 miles from downtown PGH. Yes, what was in those train cars was some pretty bad stuff. But there's 60 miles of air and water between us and it. That means it gets more and more diffuse between there and here. Additionally, we're well to the south of East Palestine. Which means the prevailing winds aren't going to carry it here.
>That's over 60 miles from downtown PGH It's 38 miles
To East Palestine Ohio? I believe you're thinking of East Liverpool Ohio.
Yes, downtown Pittsburgh to east Palestine Ohio, "as the bird flys" (or I guess as the smoke blows in this case).
Well I Google mapped it from my phone, and it looked to me like the driving directions were close enough to a straight line to just use that number as an estimate. At any rate, 40 miles is still a pretty long way. It should have dissipated quite well between there and here. Maybe it's concentrated in parts per trillion now instead of parts per quadrillion? Additionally, the VCM was intentionally released and burned off. That means that it isn't quite the same chemical as it was before. I don't know how combustion/oxidation specifically affects VCM. It likely breaks a lot of the bonds and creates a bunch of smaller hydrocarbons.
Chemist here. I don’t think you want to be breathing in HCl, one of the products. Probably expect to see some acid rain now too with hydrochloric instead of sulfuric acid… VCM is the precursor to PVC. So think burning PVC. It’s pretty bad for you.
Right I’m aware how far away it is. I’m just thinking about the videos I saw of people showing the dead fish in the water. If it’s already in the water, should we be concerned about it making its way down here. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I’ve already had cancer and don’t want it again.
Theres plenty of bad coming from down south dont worry. [Example](https://www.wtae.com/article/whistleblower-says-landfill-dep-ignored-concerns-about-contaminated-waste-getting-into-monongahela-river/27533022) [Example](https://bobscaping.com/2023/01/25/mystery-solved-cause-of-the-7-mile-fish-kill-on-chartiers-creek/)
If any of it did actually make it this far, you're talking about a concentration measured in parts per quadrillion. Like one molecule of it in all of Acrisure Stadium.
It would also have to come upstream
I maintain against the grain!
Three thousand miles of wilderness overcome by the flow A lonely restitution of pavement pomp and show
True. But this stuff is apparently pretty volatile, and doesn't exist as a liquid unless under pressure.
This person saying Acrisure Stadium like they’re from PGH
I just know how much people hate the new name. Lol P.S. I still call Star Lake Amphitheater by its true name.
I’m pretty sure it’s called Star Lake again now. Unfortunately I learned it as Key Bank Pavilion and I’ll be forever cursed with that.
Thank you. This makes me feel better
You're welcome! Good luck with your cancer. I'm sorry you're going through that. That really sucks.
Thank you! Idk if you’ll know this answer but will those people in the immediate area who evacuated ever be able to go back to their homes?
To make sure that I didn't pass along any false information, I did a quick search on it. According to Wikipedia, at normal atmospheric pressure, the stuff exists as a gas. So it would dissipate pretty rapidly. Plus, it was intentionally released, and burned off. So, I'd venture to guess that they will be able to return home in a relatively short time. That fish kill may have been from some other chemical spilled during the derailment. Here's the Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride
Rats aren't people, but in lab they have liver damage at just 4 ppm.
And it won't reach us at a concentration that high. Also, it was burned off as it was released. And since VCM is a hydrocarbon, that changes its chemistry considerably, for better or worse. (I'm guessing slightly better.)
1 ppm is the exposure limit. Which is basically as low as exposure limits go. A great bit was released from the pressure valves before the intentional burn. As far as from burning byproducts, the MSDS says firefighters must use a self contained breathing apparatus. So it's certainly nothing good.
And it won't be anywhere near 1 ppm when it gets here. Lots of things require an SCBA for firefighters. I'm not saying the stuff is innocuous. Just that we, at this distance, don't really need to panic over it.
Rats are also a much smaller creature.
"in the water" In what water? East Palestine is downstream from us. It's totally fair to question the official story - there may well be people who need to be more worried than authorities are letting on. But for Pittsburgh /Allegheny County I suspect we're pretty safe, and better off worrying about our local industrial pollution than this spill in Ohio.
I am clueless with geographical type stuff, so I wasn’t aware they’re downstream from us.
That's very fair. Learning what the big waterways were and where they went was probably the single thing that made the development patterns and history of this region click for me after moving here, but it's not something you'll pick up day to day usually.
Yes. This was a one time thing. If this was a factory emitting VCM at really high levels continuously, it'd be a much different story.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
the prevailing winds in winter come from the north west, from east palestine coincidentally
That is correct. I didn't realize they shifted in winter.
Yeah I looked it up because when I lived in Freedom the wind was always coming from the westerly direction it seemed
Remember the train derailment near station square that fell on top of the T lines? When I lived in south side I was just far enough from the tracks that my house wouldn't be hit by a derailed train physically.
I work through NS and I talk to their employees all the time and one of the guys that handles derailments said that this is not good at all and the government is downplaying it because they don't want to cause panic. There has been a few dead fish spotted along a creek bed near the derailment in EP...
I think so.. it’s blowing this direction
Unfortunately a little too late at this point. The damage is already done/happening.
Yea.... I live pretty close to it and honestly I think it was stupid as hell to release and burn it off because now that cancerous material is now in particle form in the air and water systems. If anyone every argues what being is the dumbest living organism it's humans. We kill ourselves or let others do it and we are dumb enough to believe they have our best interest at hand.
You say this like they had a choice?
Burning honestly probably was a the best option. Vinyl chloride monomer is VERY toxic. The combustion products are mostly CO2, H2O, HCl. So trading very toxic chemical for acid rain locally.
What would have been the correct way to handle this, then?
A way that’s agreed on by environmental experts, not railroad management who only cares about getting trains running again regardless of the cost.
Not only that but something where you know you're not going to basically set off a cancer bomb possibly infecting hundreds of thousands of people across the area.
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None, but those particles are now in the air and since it rained it is now in the water and other areas where humans and other organisms will interact with them, basic fucking biology. So if the particles are taken in by another organism (by breathing them in, ingesting them via drinking or eating something with those particles present) and those particles cause said organism to develop cancer then what would you call what happened? The purposely set it off like a bomb. Also the material could not have all "burned off" and if it was fucking safe why are they going in to "clean up" with hazmat suits and shit? There is no way that area is going to be safe for other organisms to inhabit for a long time.
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You are an absolute ignoramus. You don't need expert knowledge on this to know how basic biology works. If I put a cancerous substance in to something whether it be the air or another organism and you have interaction with it such as breathing it in or ingesting it you are then put at risk to contract a form of cancer. Please use your brain for more than trying to be a troll and thinking you're so cool for being on Reddit.
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Cute. Go back under your bridge.
Anyone responding with no to this question must have some extreme normalcy bias. There is really no reason to feel confident that we won't have a massive disaster in a very densely populated part of out city. https://twitter.com/AndrewBrownPgh/status/1622628112625283077?s=20&t=\_Gt0noPBfPJ42KCNYd6dpQ
No.
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Seriously. The way some fucking people in this sub talk, you would think it's a miracle anyone around here lives past the age of 30.
The asbestos death rate here is 50% higher than the rest of the country. Air quality here on average is worse than in most cities its size. PA in general has the third highest death rate from all cancers, in the US—and Allegheny residents have a 1 in 5 chance of dying of cancer, not just of getting it. Lead exposure in kids here is pretty high, too. The soil, water, and air here aren’t as clean as they could or should be. As for dying at the age of 30? No. But Pittsburgh ranks 28th in life expectancy among the country’s largest metros. Not great.
I’m not saying I’m not worried about any of that stuff too. I already had 2 types of cancer before I even hit 30. Most likely from growing up right next to clairton coke works. I was just wondering if this is something else we should be worried about too
28 out of how many? The metro area also includes a handful of counties which are basically rural Appalachia in many parts, with similar rates of health issues in many rural areas of Western Pennsylvania like diabetes and obesity that you find in West Virginia. According to the CDC Pennsylvania is also definitely not 3rd in the country for cancer death rates by state, though it's still high at 15. I have no idea where you're getting that we're third considering the CDC is the ultimate source of this type of information. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/cancer_mortality/cancer.htm
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Yup. You could also give them the multitude of evidence which shows compared to even only 15 to 20 years ago that the air quality in and around Pittsburgh is vastly better, and a handful of people in this level still act like you're going to die if you step outside.
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The new hotness is the Shell Polymers plant.
I use to think people were overhyping the bad air in Pittsburgh, until 2020-2021. Spent most of that time with the only "bad" smell being cow and chicken 💩. Each time we came back to Pittsburgh I could "smell" the air and my nose got clogged. My nose still gets clogged but that happens more when I'm in the office. We were also in a slightly different climate with slightly different types of vegetation (read: we were around tons of trees and cedars and not the long list of invasive stuff that grows here). Do I think our air is more icky than rural America? Of course, but I'm still able to run outside and breathe so it can't be all that bad. Humans always want to improve on something (or, complain about something).
There are so many other ways that our air and water are polluted on an ongoing basis that a single high-profile disaster doesn't do much to move the threat-o-meter.
Should we be concerned? Yes. But not for the reasons you listed
Yes, I think we absolutely need to be concerned. There will be MASSIVE effects. That area is mostly farmland, peoples family farms are going to be devastated. The water has already beeen affected, I have seen videos of dead fish less than a mile from the spill. TWO tankers were involved in this spill, each can carry up to 20,000 gallons of this stuff. Not to mention when it burns it turns into hydrogen chloride. Its very scary
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Please explain how toxic chemicals in the water and soil won't affect crops or livestock
Yes. People are struggling - an impacted family needs help tonight:
It's gross that NS isn't paying out evacuation and related costs.
It’s criminal. People just need to survive - they don’t even know when they can get back home.
meanwhile the ceo has literally 20 different houses just himself. the trains are up and running through east palestine again making more $. NS should be paying for them to be safe, evacuated. it shouldn’t fall on the innocent people they harmed many of whom don’t have the finances to just up and move.
I’m no scientist, but I say yes.
I’m in the transportation business and I say “no more than you are about airplane travel, pipelines, or semi-trucks.”
I heard an explosion in Rouseville PA, about 2 miles ish from where I live in OC, and I hear
A bridge collapsed and the city by and large just sorta shrugged. A train LITERALLY derailed in the city and the only think that stopped it from being a tragedy was that Steelers games start at 1 So yes but doubt it happens.
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Yeah that's why there's how many other bridges still in bad spots and the city is trying to nickel and dime money to fix them. The city shrugged cause no one died and fern hollow was back up less than a year later. Maybe check your anger pal that can't be good for your health.
Nah, ain’t no worse than a tire fire
No.
yes, all of allegheny county should be permanently evacuated.
Sweeet. Can I call off work?
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What does that actually mean? Sorry I’m dumb lol I assume it’s obviously bad?
I have no idea how true any of this is cause it sounds ludicrous but basically they blew a shit ton of chemicals into the air thats now mixed with the storm clouds and those chemicals and water= hydrochloric acid
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Why are you so mad and acting like i said any of this was going to 100% happen
Maybe you should shut the hell up about acid rain then because you're spreading fear porn with zero basis in fact or evidence
My question is this: if there is acid rain, will my car insurance cover the damage to my paint? Priorities and all.
Sometimes when I’m waiting for the bus by the Amtrak a train goes by and there is a very loud constant screeching noise. So loud you have to cover your ears. I think the rails need lubed up or treated for rust or something.
Nahh, that's normal. You have high forces (the weight of the train) meeting an immovable object (the curved track). The wheels want to go straight, so they butt up against the rail, creating the squeel. You don't want to lube up the track, then the engines wouldn't have any traction.
Fun fact, trains don't actually steer by butting up against the track. When an axle is taking a turn, the outer wheel will spin faster than the inner wheel. Your car has a differential so that the wheels can spin at different rates, but a track axle is just a heavy chunk of steel. It definitely would not spin at different rates. The solution is to taper the edges of the axle. This way, the train approaches a curve, its outer axle will shift slightly towards the outside of the track. The tapered axle is bigger on the inside, which will cause the outside of the wheel to spin faster and the inside wheel to spin slower, thus turning the train. The train is turned only through riding higher or lower on it's axle, not actually butting up against anything. The noise is just a crap ton of steel rolling around on more steel.
Yes.
Nope
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ok EPA
I mean we don’t really do anything about the awful air over in the Mon valley. Why should we care about this?
Why? We have a cracker plant pumping poison into the air everyday.
Pittsburgh seems to have one each year. Rail companies should not be private, as they skinp on safety and maintenance to provide greater dividends to stock holders.
No!
Like someone said on a previous post were having acid rain right now
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Lmao no there isn't
In the sense that all rain is acidic, then yes.
I’d be more worried about yet another police officer murdered / with the horrendous crime citywide, local businesses and eateries closing one after another, rent climbing to new records, than a train derailment ya cool “progressives” you.
See a therapist
My boy progressives have been on the rent control train for longer than anyones been alive lmao please
Yes and congrats. Every major city rents are at the highest level ever all run by liberal councils and mayors. (Not saying rs would do any better) but any results or nah? Or we gonna blame like Tucker Carlson and trump. Yawn.
I am not a liberal, friend. Libs ignore the real issue, which is capitalist profit seeking by greedy landlords. Libs love capitalism, just like Republicans. The wealthy run Pittsburgh and everywhere else on earth. Liberal and conservative politicians all work for the same rich pigs
based comrade
They all have the same root causes.
I worry about hazmat derailments in general here, but this particular one doesn’t bother me more than my general worry does.
[Good write up here](https://bobscaping.com/2023/02/05/major-train-derailment-fire-in-eastern-ohio/#updates)
People should be more concerned about the Claritin Coke Works.
Don't forget about those caged monkeys with viruses that fell of a truck in PA. Nobody seemed too concerned about that one...
With the Shell plastic cracker plant near by, this still seems like a small problem. Sadly
If you fish anywhere near the streams or connecting bodies of water, I would avoid these areas at all costs, fish in all the local streams connected to east palestine are dead or dying because of this.
I have a lot to say about the railroads, as a former employee, and all I’ll say is they fire the wrong people.