• reddig33@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

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

    • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

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

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

      • dumbluck@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

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

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        5 months ago

        led by Biden to take away their labor rights.

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

        • Incandemon@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          That’s only because you individually have been made responsible for the election. Every one else was at the meeting and didn’t want the job. Good luck, and don’t choose wrong!

        • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          They only tell you your the problem? I got called a Chinese psy-op the other day.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

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

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

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

      • jake_jake_jake_@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

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

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

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

      • reddig33@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

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

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

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

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

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

    • Steve@startrek.website
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      5 months ago

      Thats line saying why are bridges still collapsing

      Because zero effort has been put into maintenance!

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

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