In his chronology of what led up to this disaster, isn't Mr. Payan's failure to mention that, in addition to the surveillance videos showing the train's axle on fire 20 miles and nearly a full hour prior to the derailment, there were not one, but five (5!) 911 calls reporting that the train's axle was on fire--the earliest coming in from Sebring, Ohio, a full 30 miles west of East Palestine, and an hour prior to the derailment--a serious omission?
I suspect that this will be dealt with more in emergency response analysis, either in the rest of the hearing or in the report itself. There’s a lot to cover and the calls didn’t impact the events directly, so not necessary for just recounting the events.
@@kalindastrome2182 If the surveillance video was mentioned, the 911 calls (which were noted in the NTSB's preliminary report on the derailment) should also have been mentioned--as they have not in virtually any mainstream press coverage of this disaster to date! I am not wrong in my statement that this was a serious omission.
@@dbadagna the surveillance footage established the timeline of when issues began with the train. If the calls change that timeline, then their inclusion would be important, if not, I don’t think they’re necessary for this specific part of the hearing. I haven’t watched the entire hearing yet (and we don’t yet have the report), if the calls go unmentioned or are not substantially dealt with later, then I will agree it’s a serious omission. As it is, I don’t think they’re necessary for establishing the basic facts of what happened with the train itself, rather than with the resulting emergency response. Again, if they don’t discuss it elsewhere, I entirely agree with you! I just don’t think it was necessary at this point in the hearing
I commend NTSB for conducting the hearing in the affected community. While I haven’t gotten through the whole video yet, thus far I’ve been impressed by the respectful tone. Whatever it takes to train emergency responders throughout the nation to know precisely how to handle hazmat situations must happen. I hope the NTSB’s recommendations that come out of this investigation are implemented wayyy faster than the FAA implements their recommendations on air transportation safety.
07:10:54 08:07:18 09:28:03 How did Dr. Carroll (the vinyl industry chemist), who was asked about this no fewer than three times in this hearing, forget to mention that dioxins are another product of the burning of vinyl chloride??? That glaring omission undermines his entire testimony.
See the AP article "Rail union says Virginia derailment renews questions about Norfolk Southern's safety practices" (July 7, 2023) for information indicating that Norfolk Southern hasn't significantly changed its shoddy operating practices regarding unsafe wheel bearings.
Just to add to my previous statement the culture at Class I RR’s is horrible. A prime example is finding Hazmat cars in your train that you don’t have proper paper work to transport. I had multiple trains with cars without proper hazmat paperwork and BN would get mad. All this despite the fact that my crew and I identified a billing error that made it so BN had no idea how many hazmat cars without paperwork were rolling through the system. That culture needs to change and the best way for that is FRA actually regulating.
One of the Members is designated by the President as Chairman with the advice and consent of the Senate and one as Vice Chairman. 49 CFR ss 800.2 As per law, every previous Chairman has been a Chairman, regardless of which of the two sexes the person has been born as.
Something else that wasn't mentioned in this hearing: if the polymers were produced in the same chemical plants where the vinyl chloride monomers are produced, rather than shipping the highly dangerous monomers across the country on too-long, too-heavy trains traveling at high speed through populated areas (there's a reason people refer to them as "bomb trains"), again, the East Palestine disaster would never have happened. That's a lot of elephants in one room!
Magnitudes of scale, and expertise in specialization. It is far more efficient for one, or a handful, of companies to produce a material that they know well, and sell to consumers, than for every consumer (given this is in the PVC production family, that is a lot of customers) to construct, operate, and maintain, a process to produce a source material.
Not mentioned in this hearing: the fact that, if East Palestine had had a speed limit of 10 mph for trains carrying hazardous materials through the village (as some other municipalities in Ohio and elsewhere in the U.S. have), there wouldn't have been any derailment. At the time of its derailment in East Palestine, the Norfolk Southern train was moving at a speed of 47 mph. Also, if there had been a conductor in the caboose at the rear of the 9,300-foot-long train (a position that, apparently, has been largely phased out in the modern freight rail industry as a cost-cutting measure), he would surely have smelled the smoke from the flaming wheel bearing.
Getting a ten mile per hour slow zone would be a monumental task, since the rail is in fairly good shape, within FRA guidelines, the municipality can’t really do anything to slow them. Also note that right of way was not a contributing factor. The bearing was already destroyed. As for the conductor, hot bearing detection was half the point of cabooses in the first place, though with roller bearings, the hot box occurrence rate has dropped considerably. Note of interest, if the average train runs the subdivision every ten or fifteen minutes, how many trains passed 32N? Never mind the ineffectiveness of emergency services dispatchers passing on details to other jurisdictions or agencies, as noted with the multiple 911 calls in several counties, that not a single person from Norfolk Southern noticed a massive bearing failure and significant fire and smoke is, to put it politely, baffling.
@@jaysmith1408 "not a single person from Norfolk Southern noticed a massive bearing failure and significant fire and smoke" Wasn't this hearing supposed to get to the bottom of that massive problem? Talk about elephants in the room....
@@jaysmith1408 "hot bearing detection was half the point of cabooses in the first place" Really? I haven't heard this mentioned in any press coverage of the East Palestine disaster.
Just remember SIDE FRAME KEYS. Google SIDE FRAME KEYS it will show the part that the Carmen are not being installed after every axle/wheel set change out. I guess its cheaper to have a hearing with a good group of people, then (8) SIDE FRAME KEYS (8) bolts and ( 8) nuts on the pedestal jaw base of the truck frame to keep the axle/wheel set dislodging. Safety first.
5:35 Start
28:40 Overview of Derailment
[29:18] Trainset Description from Start to Derailment
[33:21] Trackside Defect Detectors Passed
[36:44] Security Footage of Train
[41:18] Emergency Response
44:50 Overview of Hazardous Materials
[45:25] Released Hazardous Materials
[50:25] Derailment Damage
55:11 Panel 1 (Hazard Communications & Emergency Responder Preparedness)
1:54:30 Break Start
2:11:02 Break End
3:47:50 Break Start
5:34:40 Break End
5:35:00 Panel 2 (Timeline of Events - Vinyl Chloride Monomer - Communications - Vent & Burn)
7:20:15 Break Start
7:39:05 Break End
9:51:57 End
You have my greatest thanks my friend
Thank you!
And thank you to the NTSB for pinning it.
Thanks! and, never trust a guy with 2 first names...
Thank you for making this important video available on RUclips.
NTSB one of the few government agencies I actually like and trust. Always the most Professional with the highest standards.
In his chronology of what led up to this disaster, isn't Mr. Payan's failure to mention that, in addition to the surveillance videos showing the train's axle on fire 20 miles and nearly a full hour prior to the derailment, there were not one, but five (5!) 911 calls reporting that the train's axle was on fire--the earliest coming in from Sebring, Ohio, a full 30 miles west of East Palestine, and an hour prior to the derailment--a serious omission?
I suspect that this will be dealt with more in emergency response analysis, either in the rest of the hearing or in the report itself. There’s a lot to cover and the calls didn’t impact the events directly, so not necessary for just recounting the events.
@@kalindastrome2182 If the surveillance video was mentioned, the 911 calls (which were noted in the NTSB's preliminary report on the derailment) should also have been mentioned--as they have not in virtually any mainstream press coverage of this disaster to date! I am not wrong in my statement that this was a serious omission.
@@dbadagna the surveillance footage established the timeline of when issues began with the train. If the calls change that timeline, then their inclusion would be important, if not, I don’t think they’re necessary for this specific part of the hearing. I haven’t watched the entire hearing yet (and we don’t yet have the report), if the calls go unmentioned or are not substantially dealt with later, then I will agree it’s a serious omission. As it is, I don’t think they’re necessary for establishing the basic facts of what happened with the train itself, rather than with the resulting emergency response. Again, if they don’t discuss it elsewhere, I entirely agree with you! I just don’t think it was necessary at this point in the hearing
I commend NTSB for conducting the hearing in the affected community. While I haven’t gotten through the whole video yet, thus far I’ve been impressed by the respectful tone. Whatever it takes to train emergency responders throughout the nation to know precisely how to handle hazmat situations must happen. I hope the NTSB’s recommendations that come out of this investigation are implemented wayyy faster than the FAA implements their recommendations on air transportation safety.
07:10:54
08:07:18
09:28:03
How did Dr. Carroll (the vinyl industry chemist), who was asked about this no fewer than three times in this hearing, forget to mention that dioxins are another product of the burning of vinyl chloride??? That glaring omission undermines his entire testimony.
See the AP article "Rail union says Virginia derailment renews questions about Norfolk Southern's safety practices" (July 7, 2023) for information indicating that Norfolk Southern hasn't significantly changed its shoddy operating practices regarding unsafe wheel bearings.
Okay who is here from the board meeting to see what the railroad is spinning?
5:36 actual start (could have trimmed dead air in RUclips Studio. Editorial: couldn't YT algorithm figure this out - and automagically fix?)
Just to add to my previous statement the culture at Class I RR’s is horrible. A prime example is finding Hazmat cars in your train that you don’t have proper paper work to transport. I had multiple trains with cars without proper hazmat paperwork and BN would get mad. All this despite the fact that my crew and I identified a billing error that made it so BN had no idea how many hazmat cars without paperwork were rolling through the system. That culture needs to change and the best way for that is FRA actually regulating.
One of the Members is designated by the President as Chairman with the advice and consent of the Senate and one as Vice Chairman.
49 CFR ss 800.2
As per law, every previous Chairman has been a Chairman, regardless of which of the two sexes the person has been born as.
Hearing: Day 2 of 2:
v=x-QON0Tel1Q
Something else that wasn't mentioned in this hearing: if the polymers were produced in the same chemical plants where the vinyl chloride monomers are produced, rather than shipping the highly dangerous monomers across the country on too-long, too-heavy trains traveling at high speed through populated areas (there's a reason people refer to them as "bomb trains"), again, the East Palestine disaster would never have happened. That's a lot of elephants in one room!
Magnitudes of scale, and expertise in specialization. It is far more efficient for one, or a handful, of companies to produce a material that they know well, and sell to consumers, than for every consumer (given this is in the PVC production family, that is a lot of customers) to construct, operate, and maintain, a process to produce a source material.
Not mentioned in this hearing: the fact that, if East Palestine had had a speed limit of 10 mph for trains carrying hazardous materials through the village (as some other municipalities in Ohio and elsewhere in the U.S. have), there wouldn't have been any derailment. At the time of its derailment in East Palestine, the Norfolk Southern train was moving at a speed of 47 mph.
Also, if there had been a conductor in the caboose at the rear of the 9,300-foot-long train (a position that, apparently, has been largely phased out in the modern freight rail industry as a cost-cutting measure), he would surely have smelled the smoke from the flaming wheel bearing.
Getting a ten mile per hour slow zone would be a monumental task, since the rail is in fairly good shape, within FRA guidelines, the municipality can’t really do anything to slow them. Also note that right of way was not a contributing factor. The bearing was already destroyed. As for the conductor, hot bearing detection was half the point of cabooses in the first place, though with roller bearings, the hot box occurrence rate has dropped considerably.
Note of interest, if the average train runs the subdivision every ten or fifteen minutes, how many trains passed 32N? Never mind the ineffectiveness of emergency services dispatchers passing on details to other jurisdictions or agencies, as noted with the multiple 911 calls in several counties, that not a single person from Norfolk Southern noticed a massive bearing failure and significant fire and smoke is, to put it politely, baffling.
@@jaysmith1408 "not a single person from Norfolk Southern noticed a massive bearing failure and significant fire and smoke"
Wasn't this hearing supposed to get to the bottom of that massive problem? Talk about elephants in the room....
@@jaysmith1408 "hot bearing detection was half the point of cabooses in the first place"
Really? I haven't heard this mentioned in any press coverage of the East Palestine disaster.
Just remember SIDE FRAME KEYS. Google SIDE FRAME KEYS it will show the part that the Carmen are not being installed after every axle/wheel set change out. I guess its cheaper to have a hearing with a good group of people, then (8) SIDE FRAME KEYS (8) bolts and ( 8) nuts on the pedestal jaw base of the truck frame to keep the axle/wheel set dislodging. Safety first.