Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency in Rockcastle County following a multi-car train derailment on Wednesday that his office said resulted in a chemical spill.

Around 16 train cars were involved in the incident, including two carrying molten sulfur that ended up on fire, according to CSX, which operates the train.

“At approximately 2:23pm today, a CSX train derailed north of Livingston, KY. Preliminary information indicates that at least 16 cars were involved, including two molten sulphur cars that have been breached and have lost some of their contents which is on fire,” a statement from the company to ABC News read.

  • ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Maintenance teams are discouraged from marking trains and rails for maintenance because delays impact profits.

    https://www.propublica.org/article/railroad-safety-union-pacific-csx-bnsf-trains-freight

    Bradley Haynes and his colleagues were the last chance Union Pacific had to stop an unsafe train from leaving one of its railyards. Skilled in spotting hidden dangers, the inspectors in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote up so-called “bad orders” to pull defective cars out of assembled trains and send them for repairs.

    But on Sept. 18, 2019, the area’s director of maintenance, Andrew Letcher, scolded them for hampering the yard’s ability to move trains on time.

    “We’re a transportation company, right? We get paid to move freight. We don’t get paid to work on cars,” he said. “The first thing that I’m getting questioned about right now, every day, is why we’re over 200 bad orders and what we’re doing to get them down. … If I was an inspector on a train,” he continued, “I would probably let some of that nitpicky shit go.”

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      “I would probably let some of that nitpicky shit go.”

      I’m guessing ‘nitpicky shit’ is things like ‘loose wheels.’