As we all know by now, the cause for the recent Ohio train derailment was traced to an overheated, failed wheel bearing, per the National Transportation Safety Board.
Sounds like a random equipment failure that, in this case, had some bad consequences.
But isn’t that just part of a much larger pattern of neglect, leading to an ever-increasing rate of train derailments?
No. And that’s easy to say, because, of course the Feds track this. Of course you can access it. You just need to bother to look.
From the Federal Railroad Administration, Office of Safety Analysis, Ten-year query form. Data for 2022 are preliminary through November.
Norfolk Southern’s rate of derailments has been more-or-less the same over the past two decades. Same for accidents involving hazardous materials.
Obviously, facts cannot possibly compete with the angertainment-fest that has become our national news reporting. As evidenced by the comments sections on newspaper articles.
But on the off chance that you might have been wondering about this, the answer is no. For Norfolk Southern, the rate of accidents of this type is about what it has been for the past twenty years.
