JUST AS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA WILL NOT DISCLOSE THE RACE OF A
BLACK PERPETRATOR, MY SUSPICION IN THE WEEK AFTER THE DERAILMENT,
WITH ALMOST NO NATIONAL COVERAGE & REGULATORS ACTING LIKE THEY WANTED THE WHOLE FIASCO TO GO WAY AND SLIP DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE,
IS THAT THE TRAIN WAS OPERATED BY AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CREW.
PROVE ME WRONG.

Exhibit 'A' On Stupidity

The NTSB "early look" report is out and it makes very clear that the Ohio derailment was:

• Directly caused by stupidity
  
  and
  
  
• Entirely avoidable had anyone been able and willing to perform basic math been on board the train or at Norfolk-Southern, or the system in question was deliberately designed to withhold critical safety information.

In other words but for putting people in places of authority where they had absolutely no business being, to the point that their best and highest job offer ought to be pushing a broom on a floor, whether due to believing that 2 + 2 = 22 or some other sort of insanity it would have not happened.

The hotbox detectors were working.

Here is the short-form of the explanation, then we'll get into the details:

Train 32N was operating with a dynamic brake application as the train passed a wayside defect detector on the east side of Palestine, Ohio, at milepost (MP) 49.81.  The wayside defect detector, or hot bearing detector (HBD), transmitted a critical audible alarm message instructing the crew to slow and stop the train to inspect a hot axle. The train engineer increased the dynamic brake application to further slow and stop the train. During this deceleration, an automatic emergency brake application initiated, and train 32N came to a stop.

Ok, let's dissect this paragraph.

Dynamic braking is the use of the electric motor in a diesel-electric locomotive as a brake.  Instead of being coupled to the generator driven by the diesel engine to move the train forward it is instead connected to a big honking resistor (that's what that "bulging sideways thing" is on the engines; it is the housings and fans for those as, you might imagine, they produce a lot of heat when in use), the motor generates electricity from the train's movement which is intentionally dumped into the resistor.  The result is to slow the train instead of accelerating it, much like a Tesla does if you have it set to use regenerative braking.

This implies that the train was descending a mild grade and the dynamic was sufficient to control the train's speed.  That would be normal for a mild descent where there's no reason to use the service brakes; the dynamic incurs no wear on the braking components.  And, in fact, we know the train was in control speed-wise; it was operating within the speed limits for that section of track.

While the train was being slowed via the dynamic and almost-immediately after the hotbox detector (the last one) went off the emergency brakes -- air driven -- actuated.  This was almost certainly (not yet proved, but I'll bet we will eventually find that it was) caused by a violation of the integrity of the airline that powers the service brake system and runs the length of the train, quite-possibly because the fire in the axle truck burned through it.  When that happens the air pressure rapidly collapses in the line and the emergency brake system actuates.  The engineer in the cab can also command that and the data recorder should show this if in fact it was.  We will learn this in time.

Multiple cars derailed; the probable cause was:

NTSB investigators identified and examined the first railcar to derail, the 23rd railcar in the consist. Surveillance video from a local residence showed what appeared to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment. The wheel bearing and affected wheelset have been collected as evidence and will be examined by the NTSB.

The wheelset in question from publicly-released surveillance video was on fire.  That would be consistent with the airline burning through.  The axle bearing loses its location capability, it shifts, one or both wheels on that axle jump and/or destroy the integrity of the rail it is traveling on and once the first truck goes off it drags the others off due to the ridiculous amount of momentum in the whole.

This is the very-likely set of events, and what we already knew was likely to have been the direct cause of the derailment (as I commented on previously.)

But what we now know is that the progressive failure process was detected with plenty of time and reason to stop.

Specifically:

Train 32N passed three HBD systems on its trip before the derailment. At MP 79.9, the suspect bearing from the 23rd car had a recorded temperature of 38°F above ambient temperature. When train 32N passed the next HBD, at MP 69.01, the bearing’s recorded temperature was 103°F above ambient. The third HBD, at MP 49.81, recorded the suspect bearing’s temperature at 253°F above ambient.

NS has established the following HBD alarm thresholds (above ambient temperature) and criteria for bearings:
• Between 170°F and 200°F, warm bearing (non-critical); stop and inspect
• A difference between bearings on the same axle greater than or equal to 115°F (non-critical); stop and inspect
• Greater than 200°F (critical); set out railcar

At the first sensor the temperature was 38F above ambient.

10.89 miles later it was at 103F above ambient, just below the "stop and inspect" threshold for a differential reading.

19.2 miles later it was well over the critical temperature at 253F.

Shortly after that the train derailed.

Anyone with a brain in their head had to know that if you are at 38F over ambient and ten miles later you're more than 100F over ambient you will exceed the "stop and inspect threshold" well before you reach the next detector in 20 more miles, and if the failure is progressive, and most failures are, you will be well over the critical threshold and on the verge of a catastrophic failure by the time you get there.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know this -- you simply need to be competent to operate dangerous machinery with known margins which you must not exceed for said machinery to remain safe and know that there is a progressive failure showing up in the data.

That's exactly what happened and nothing more than basic arithmetic -- sixth grade material here folks -- was required for anyone and everyone who saw that data to know that continuing to operate that train was dangerous and quite likely to lead to a disastrous failure.

Therefore there are only two possibilities: The system did not alert anyone or the crew ignored it.

If the system didn't alert anyone then everyone involved in that design needs to be tried and thrown in prison for the rest of their miserable lives as such a trend is critical information and deliberately not disclosing it to the crew on board the train is beyond unconscionable.  For this Norfolk-Southern must pay.

If, on the other hand the crew knew and ignored it because safety limits were not yet breached despite the trend change then whoever made that call is incompetent to operate a broom, say much less a locomotive.

The bottom line is that there is no valid reason the crew did not have twenty miles of fair warning in which to stop and avert the derailment and did not do so.  We are now down to why did they not stop -- was the system programmed to deliberately withhold that information or did it provide it and the crew ignored it?

The entire point of a system like this is to detect incipient problems with plenty of time to take corrective action.  The equipment was functional but no equipment can do anything about HUMAN STUPIDITY whether in what the equipment communicates due to its design or what people do with the information if it is communicated.  Damn written policy and "limits" to Hades; if you as an operating engineer with two firing neurons in your head observe a condition that any reasonable person who has an IQ sufficient to be trusted with dangerous machinery is nearly certain to degrade beyond safe limits based on the data you have before you can get to the next confirmatory signaling device YOU STOP NOW AND FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING ON.

If we have people like this designing and operating our nuclear and chemical plants -- and you know damn well that we almost-certainly do -- it is merely a matter of time before one or more of our cities glow in the dark.

PRISON.
NOW.

And get rid of every single person in a safety-critical position who cannot do basic math in their head in 30 seconds in a situation like this, when you have PLENTY of warning, or who will not immediately, when such a situation exists, SHUT IT DOWN, along with anyone who puts together a system that deliberately withholds trend information that strongly suggests a failure will occur based on what it observes.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

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