It seems as if there are more derailments happening. Is it because freight railroads are higher profile these days? Or is it the fact there is better coverage? Any thoughts?
Yes there have been lots of derailments happening latly but, back in the olden days there were more derailments than now. The main reason is because of lack of information, mechnical failure, and just plain old human error. Also many conglomerate railroads weren’t geared towards safety. They wanted things done as fast as possible. some just didn’t want to invest in new technology. Over 90 percent of railroad related accidents happen because of human error, therefor there is no such thing as 100 percent safe equipment on railroads. The best systems in the world can’t wipe out human error. However, their is a thing called 100 percent Safety., that many railroads pratice each day.
This topic has come up before – a number of times. Check the history. In a nutshell, no, there really aren’t more derailments happening now than before, it’s simply that you hear about them. Further, the ones which do happen tend to be less severe than in the good ol’ days – and much less often fatal.
There is a previous thread on derailments in this forum that documented the fact that there are actually fewer derailments today than in days of yore – derailments are just being reported more widely. You might do a search to find this thread - it was very interesting.
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