Originally published at: Another train derailment, this time one carrying corn syrup | Boing Boing
…
Sweet!
Absolutely not. You need fruit, custard and cream for that.
So not like the Great Molasses flood… which was not nearly as funny as it sounds…
Corn syrup is still pretty bloody toxic tho.
Is it more so inside or outside our bodies?
Perhaps we need a wider gauge railroad? US standard-gauge is 4’8", broad-gauge is at 5’6" maybe we need double that to keep these things from tipping over. Super-broad-gauge!
Fun fact, broad-gauge is used on BART in the San Francisco area. Also used in India.
Right wingers will insist on the Stephenson-gauge.
Maintaining track properly and not overloading trains would also solve the problem.
I’m thinking there are surely countless events of this nature every year that go completely unregarded when they’re not happening in the wake of a much bigger and politically-interesting disaster.
From the RailUKforums thread on the East Palestine crash:
Even allowing for the much greater numbers and lengths of freight trains in the US and Canada in comparison with Europe, their tolerance of frequent major derailments does surprise me. At a guess I’d estimate that a major derailment (10 or 20 wagons not just off the road, but piled in heaps, down in rivers, on fire, etc.) occurs pretty much every week on average. RJCorman* seem to have a large fleet of side-boom tractors on standby across most of the country, ready to go in to clear up the mess. They’re very quick to rebuild and reopen tracks, no doubt in part because they get so much practice.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.