This Is Why Trains Keep Derailing

Watch The Full Philip DeFranco Show: Subscribe for more Quickie News: ANOTHER train derailed yesterday. Law enforcement officials say that the incident took place outside of Houston, Texas, after a Union Pacific train collided with an 18-wheel truck, killing the truck now, we don’t have a ton of information about the crash, but it’s been reported that there was no railroad crossing arms or lights at the intersection where the truck crossed. Though one local outlet did report that police had said “the driver of the truck should have had a clear line of sight to see the train coming.” As far as what the train was carrying, that also remains unclear. A police lieutenant told reporters that 21 train cars were derailed, and a hazardous materials team from Union Pacific went to the site as a precaution, but also adding: “From what we’re being told and shown, there’s no major chemicals to be concerned about. It’s more so household chemicals on board for retail purposes. It’s not a large quantity from what we’re being told.” A Union Pacific spokesperson also confirmed that hazmat crews did go to the scene, noting that an estimated 100 gallons of diesel fuel had been released by the truck involved in the crash. Right, so this obviously has many on edge as it comes less than two weeks after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio, Sparking a huge fire and prompting officials to do a “controlled” burn of those chemicals to prevent a more dangerous explosion. We did a deep dive on this yesterday, in case you missed it. But at the end of that story, I mentioned that many groups have said this whole situation underscores how corporate interests have gutted essential rail protections. And that’s something I saw we were going to be talking about later, so, given the fact that there’s been another derailment, I guess there’s no better time than the present… Right, so there are two key areas where capitalist overlords have really fucked shit up that I’m going to touch on here: the profit-maximizing operational model that most of the rail industry uses and the efforts to undermine safety standards. So, first off, for the last few decades, rail carriers have been increasingly using a model called Precision Scheduled Railroading or PSR. The idea behind PSR is basically for operators to do more with less in order to maximize revenues by driving down operating expenses. So, to do this, PSR emphasizes running strict schedules, streamlining routes, and cutting costs, equipment, and employees. Experts say that, in theory, PSR increases efficiency while lowering costs. But, in reality, because these rail operators have so much market power, instead of doing more with less, they’re able to do less with less. So, as a result, railroads’ are essentially incentivized to spend less money on rail operations and more stock buybacks or dividends to measure success in the eyes of Wall Street. Right, under the PSR model, the railroad workforce has been totally gutted, the workers that remain are overworked to point of exhaustion, and safety precautions have been sacrificed for profits. And if all this sounds familiar to you, it’s because this whole discussion was at the heart of the railroad strike that was narrowly averted at the end of last year. We covered that on the show at the time, but basically, workers were asking for a number of really basic things like better pay and working conditions as well as more flexible schedules for things like medical appointments — All things that were denied as the result of a model that encourages railroads’ to do less with less. And that has been exemplified by Norfolk Southern — which operates the train that derailed in Ohio. The carrier has continually increased its dividend, and last March, it announced a $10 BILLION stock buyback program — that’s billion with a B — while simultaneously refusing to give workers basic benefits like fair pay and sick leave. Meanwhile, the company reported record-breaking operating revenues totaling $12.7 billion last year. And in a recent press release, the Railroad Workers United — an inter-union alliance of rail workers — argued that the Ohio derailment was just a predictable outcome of a system operated by PSR. In fact, RWU went as far as to explicitly argue that “the root causes of this wreck” were “associated with the hedge fund initiated operating model known as [PSR].” —————————— Produced by: Ben Wheeler, Philip DeFranco Edited by: James Girardier Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Lili Stenn, Philip DeFranco ———————————— #usa #ohio #train