Win Your Next Pageant
Get Pageant Questions Written By A Miss Universe Judge
An overview of the 2023 Ohio train derailment.
Watch this video ad-free and get a special discount at
Watch Sam’s Prudhoe Bay episode only on Nebula
On the evening of Friday, February 3, 2023, 38 of 149 cars of a Norfolk Southern Railway freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Five of the derailed cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a hazardous material that built up pressure in the resulting fires, eventually leading Norfolk Southern to vent and burn it in a bid to prevent an explosion. The ensuing fireball and cloud brought the normally unseen process of hazardous cargo transportation into a single chilling view, and the event became a lightning rod of controversy over rail industry regulations, federal involvement in chemical spills, and much more.
Signed copies of my book (plus other cool stuff) are available here:
Practical Engineering is a YouTube channel about infrastructure and the human-made world around us. It is hosted, written, and produced by Grady Hillhouse. We have new videos posted regularly, so please subscribe for updates. If you enjoyed the video, hit that ‘like’ button, give us a comment, or watch another of our videos!
CONNECT WITH ME
____________________________________
Website:
Twitter:
Instagram:
Reddit:
Facebook:
Patreon:
SPONSORSHIP INQUIRIES
____________________________________
Please email my agent at practicalengineering@standard.tv
DISCLAIMER
____________________________________
This is not engineering advice. Everything here is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Contact an engineer licensed to practice in your area if you need professional advice or services. All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes.
SPECIAL THANKS
____________________________________
This video is sponsored by Nebula.
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Associated Press, Shutterstock, and Videoblocks.
Music by Epidemic Sound:
Tonic and Energy by Elexive is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Source:
Video by Grady Hillhouse
Edited by Wesley Crump
Written and Produced by Ralph Crewe
Production Assistance from Josh Lorenz
Graphics by Nebula Studios..(read more at source)
ON SALE: Pageant Resale
PRACTICE: Pageant Questions
VIEW MORE: Miss USA Videos
LEARN ABOUT OTHER: Beauty Pageants
Praise to you for not annoying viewers with the sponsor message and for making it in an informative style. Oh, and the video is good too …. O;-)
This is the kind of disaster you would expect to see Thunderbird 2 coming to deal with.
You must not of seen the hundreds of videos of the people there getting sick and stuff just like the rest a government and corporations follower speaking what they tell you not actually looking into it yourself
Thanks!
You should make a video about the destroyed concrete at the starship launch last week
I would like to know more about the railroad braking systems. When this event occurred, there were some statements made that the modern rail car has brakes that were designed prior to 1900, and the lines wont modernize due to cost. How long does a rail car take to stop in emergency scenario? Do 2 cars take twice as far? What can be done (policy/legislation etc) to force retrofit of modern brake systems? Is anyone working on such improvements? How often are the brakes inspected, tested, serviced? Would better, modern brakes likely have prevented the East Palestine accident?
Would be great to see you team up with @PlainlyDifficult on something like this.
5000Tons of dirt is just not that much, but it's hard to know the scale of the cleanup. I heard the train crew is supposed to put eyes on all the cars before the train leaves the yard. On these very long trains, 2 miles or more, that would take time to do the inspection carefully, and the Co's aren't going to want to pay. It will be interesting to hear the arguments that take place for even more tech to be introduced, or better use of manpower. It bares noting that planes are still physically checked several times before flights.
Love your reasonable approach to your subject matter Grady. In NZ we had a series of derailments, not too serious, mostly setting plants along the track alight. The result was an upgrade of the rail warning systems similar to your video. There were so many bearings running hot that there was a shortage of replacement bearings then a shortage of usable wagons.
All these contamination tests are done by groups with an interest in saying "All clean, nothing to see here."
11:12 Hmm Statements such as “ health concern” and “significant contamination” without being quantified IMO always generate a follow up question of “ to whom?” and for “ how long?” to this questioning and untrusting mind. It will eventually interesting to see how this pans out. Follow the money for the cover ups.
I don't want freight rail to go away. But I'd love to see some regulatory action because it could assist passenger rail growth.
Drink the water, raise your kids there now. Who's happy to move there if they could get a house for cheap?
Cuz kids still live there
So was the wheel bearing just really old and or just not greased?(im not sure what rail wheel bearings look like) but wow.. just a wheel bearing can cause all that….
In the days of the caboose, and before the automated detectors,the detectors were lighted up boards. The engineer would radio the conductor “SP 8545 to caboose, scanner.” When the caboose passed the scanner the conductor or rear brakeman would look at the board to see if the scanner had been set off. The board would display the axel number that was registering hot if one was. If not, the board displays 3 zeroes. The conductor or rear brakeman would then radio the engineer, “SP8545 highball the scanner.”
The EPA did some scans and said it was safe? This is the same EPA that says numerous pesticides and endocrine disrupting chemicals like atrazine and 2,4D are safe despite the fact they are banned in Europe, China, Brazil, India, and others. Go read Count Down by Dr. Shanna Swan
It's insane that train engineers do not have REAL TIME ON TRAIN monitoring od the status of every brake and bearing!
Shouldn't the brakes be applied starting at the rear of the train? Applying brakes at the front of the train makes a derailment/jacknife even more likely.
Thank god someone is explaining it, the schmucks in charge sure as hell won’t.
This is propaganda video for the government
10:20 there was zero success there. Don’t ever say that again
This is one of a very few channels I can trust to explain this mess.
Thanks for the video.
Grady, I know you're an extremely busy family man,so you probably don't get a lot of spare time to actually read the comments, but in the off-chance you do…I just wanted to exend a great big THANK YOU to you. These are, without a doubt, hands-down, by far, THE BEST videos available on here helping to simplify & explain to the average person, including dummies like myself, how every day life works in this great big, giant world we navigate on a daily basis…yet hardly ever think about or actually even pay much attention to, as far as how it was designed, manufactured & created lust for us & to make our lives a WHOLE LOT easier. So again…THANK YOU!!
I did not understand why the train actually derailed. You told us that the emergency brakes activated, then the crew activated the rest of the brakes and took off with part of the train, and then the train derailed. But why? Did it just hop of the tracks? Was the track ending? Or is it just the different speed of the railcars? If just one bearing was defect and even if the wheel was melting of, it has 7 other – shouldn't they be enough to keep of the tracks?
Pipe lines have been proven to be less hazardous to move fluids. That is an alternative to railway and trucks.
😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮
Hazardous freight trains should not be allowed to go near populated areas. Full stop.
I wonder if you could make a combination rail/road vehicle like the rail workers have and just drive normal cars and trucks to access points. Maybe with exceptionally wide tracks for stability.
"now that the dust is settled" Not nitpicking, but " now that the smoke has cleared" Would have been a great pun
I think it would have been much better to end the video with proposed or past regulations that would make rail more safe, rather than cheerleading the relative safety of rail transport.
Rail can be much safer than road, but still more can be done to make it even safer.
I can't help but think that if freight had to run on passenger networks, instead of passenger trains running on freight networks, then safety might be taken more seriously. But since the frieght companies basically own the entire US rail network, that's never going to happen.
Your little too happy about this shitstorm
It's hardly surprising. Between US rail's obsession with chasing the lowest operating ratio possible at all costs, refusal to invest into infrastructure and upgrades, and decades of deferred maintenance…it's a wonder this doesn't happen more often. And Norfolk Southern is probably the worst of the few rail companies in the US at all of this. For the love of god, nationalize rail. We have had over a century of this to prove that the private rail will cut all corners possible. When will enough be enough? Nationalize. US. Rail.
Should be a law where if an agency and/or business says its 100% safe or tests show no problems. They (the whole agency or company) are required to drink said water for 365 days.
The bill can be called "Put your water where your mouth is."
Maybe any critical fault detection systems should be integrated into each carriage and just use the trackside ones as backup and anything that can't be internally detected.
This is an opportunity to discuss rail from an engineering perspective. Majority of the population have no idea of the weights moved, the infrastructure required or the engineering into modern trains.
But here is something for the commenters to think about; a train can stop within one length of itself, imagine a car doing that. However, modern trains can reach 2.5 miles (4km odd) long. With weights over 10-20 kilotons. (even larger than this exist.)
HOW ITS MADE!!!!