Posted on 03/10/2023 2:37:21 AM PST by Libloather
Norfolk Southern - the railway company whose train derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, contaminating the surrounding area with toxic chemicals - announced Thursday night that it had determined that some of its railcars, of a specific make and model, had loose wheels.
During its cleanup of the derailment site, Norfolk Southern investigators discovered that a "specific model and series of railcars had loose wheels," the company said in a news release Thursday night, calling the discovery "an urgent safety issue."
The wheels came from "a series of recently acquired cars from a specific manufacturer," Norfolk Southern said.
Norfolk Southern did not identify the manufacturer, or say if or how many of the railcars specifically involved in the East Palestine crash were part of that model and series.
The Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were "immediately notified and began inspecting other cars from this series on our network," Norfolk Southern said.
The company added that the cause of the crash remains under investigation.
The announcement came on the same day that Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw appeared before a Senate panel to address the East Palestine crisis and several recent derailments of Norfolk Southern trains, including one that occurred earlier Thursday in Alabama. Shaw vowed the company "will clean the site thoroughly, and with urgency. We are making progress every day."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
So, which Chinese company made the wheels? Thought I read hear a week or two ago that the Chinese bought a company like that two years ago.
There are a lot of pronouns....but no names.
Why?
The equipment defect detectors pick these faults up, so there’s that.
But without a careful forensic examination, we can’t determine whether the wheels were manufactured poorly or if they were intentionally damaged by saboteurs.
Doesn’t matter. Norfolk had the responsibility of inspecting the cars before putting them on the rails.
Video Flames and sparks under car before derailment in East Palestine
https://rumble.com/v29wbxs-flames-and-sparks-under-car-before-derailment-of.html
You have hit the nexus of the matter. Railroads from time immemorial have tried to skimp on routine required maintenance in order to push more profit to the bottom line. “The public be damned “ William Vanderbilt.
Did these cars actually belong to Norfolk Southern or to another company? Mixed trains almost always have cars the carrier of record doesn’t own.
If they are working. N&S is clearly falling apart from “deferred maintenance”. Or as I call it - bean counters running the company.
How very convenient. A scape goat just in time...
Incoming material inspection. Where are the torque check logs?
“You picked a fine to leave me, loose wheels.”
Agreed. This smacks of an attempt to deflect domestic (potentially government-backed) sabotage internationally.
By the 1990s, there were critical quality control problems with basic materials such as piping and associated fittings used in the chemical, refining and oil production industries. The issue was nonconforming materials, their fabrication and fraudulent documentation certifying conformance to specific standards. The primary root cause? Counterfeit raw materials and finished parts from Asia (errr China). The distribution chain was contaminated.
ISO9000 QA/QC programs to the rescue. ISO9000 series programs give a framework to track end use products all the way back to the starting raw materials and verify conformance to engineering standards.. As an example, common PVC pipe.
XYZ chemical company produces millions of pounds per year of PVC pellets and sells these to product fabricators. XYZ company is an ISO9000 company and provides appropriate certification of conformance to their fabricator customers. The ISO9000 certified fabricator makes their product, say PVC pipe and fittings. Everything is documented to verify that their raw materials are from XYZ chemical company and that their products comply with specific engineering standards. All this is traceable.
The product fabricator then sells to a specialty distributor that is not ISO9000 certified. The quality chain can be broken and assume it is. A buyer makes a good deal and gets shipment of it bulk PVC items at a big discount. The distributor sells these imitations as name brand and makes a bigger profit. Now, these cheap PVC piping items have the appropriate stamping on them as to manufacturer, engineering standards and such. Is the distributor an idiot or corrupt? Take your pick, fraudulent ISO documentation goes forward towards the end user.
Say the fraudulent PVC components are installed then fail unexpectedly in conditions that on paper should not be a problem. People can be hurt and $$$ lost.
All this I've described is a setup to one solution I encountered in the process industry. A high end industrial fabricator implemented two entirely segregated parts rooms and manufacturing lines. These were entirely separate buildings, no interconnection at all. One building was high level ISO9000 tracked all the way from the XYZ company making the PVC pellets through to their parts room then to the fabrication floor. The middleman distributor was completely cut out of the chain. I've seen this scenario played out in a number of industries.
And…. Once again I've rambled too long. Off I go!
Doesn’t matter. Norfolk had the responsibility of inspecting the cars before putting them on the rails.
___________________________
Norfolk is primarily responsible because they need to inspect and maintain what is probably the most crucial part of a rail car, the wheels, and bearings.
What used to be exclusive skilled jobs are no longer filled because it is assumed the marvelous electron will spot, identify and alert for repair/replace to prevent tragedy.
I understand the Palestine derailment was ultimately human error, ignoring warning signals of a specific problem, overheating of (a) wheel(s).
If true, I think I can safely state that at one time the RR company (et al . . . which USED TO BE one of the strongest unions in America) no longer employ wheel/bearing checkers (I have no idea if this ever WAS a true job description).
THAT would explain the lack of awareness on the part of (a) human responding to an alert.
We will probably NEVER see again in America, the factory whistle and hundreds of workers changing shifts like it was just 50 or 60 years ago.
The evil in America is that men SEE this situation and are making no effort to rectify the problem.
Technology has snowballed so rapidly, it rolled out of sight, only to circle the globe and run us over . . . a form of suicide, if I may.
Called a hot box! None, or insufficient lube for the wheels.
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