Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declares state of emergency over train derailment, chemical spill

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abcnews.go.com

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.

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A few years ago, a CSX train carrying acrylonitrile had an axle snap and derailed in my town, igniting in the process, and creating a huge plume of cyanide gas. It was a damned miracle nobody was killed.

The response from CSX was impressive. I have no complaints about how they handled it AFTER it happened. However, and it only recently occurred to me, but that response that was so well oiled, rehearsed, and organized… they’ve CLEARLY had WAY too much experience doing this; way too many times they’ve had to sweep into a town and “handle” things after a derailment of a hazmat train.

Maybe… just maybe they should consider putting a little more emphasis on upgrading and maintaining their equipment. Maybe they wouldn’t have to have so many teams ready to sweep in and manage the medium-sized ecological catastrophes that happen so often.

Two different teams. Sounds like the response team has some real winners on it and the maintenance team doesn't, or, lacks budget

Cheaper to respond once in a while than to prevent fleet wide. Capitalism alone settles on cost efficacy.

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.”

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

I'm guessing 'nitpicky shit' is things like 'loose wheels.'