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Cargo train locomotive derails in Colorado, spilling 100s of gallons of diesel

https://apnews.com/article/train-derailment-colorado-locomotive-77a2805f754ec37974a85cc06bcda7ca

The Great Western Railway locomotive did not tip over when it went off the rails just before 1 a.m. but a fuel tank was punctured.

Cargo train locomotive derails in Colorado, spilling 100s of gallons of diesel

The locomotive of a cargo train derailed in northern Colorado early Wednesday, spilling hundreds of gallons of diesel, authorities said.

The Great Western Railway locomotive did not tip over when it went off the rails at a switch in the tracks just before 1 a.m. but a fuel tank was punctured, the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority said in a Facebook post. The spill was contained and did not get into any waterways, it said.

No one was injured in the derailment, which happened near a sugar factory in an area not far from some homes, Battalion Chief Kevin Hessler said. The other locomotive and three cars carrying sugar did not derail, he said.

57 comments

MinorLaceration

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Not to minimize this, but could have been much worse. 100's of gallons instead of 1000's. Train remained upright. Sounds like they got lucky.

NJSpradlin

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ggppjj

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"Well yes, you see: we contained it in the environment. Fully contained. No chance of it leaving the environment."

NatakuNox

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"we'll just burn off what ever we can't scoop up with a dust pan and then the air will full contain the spill."

sentient_loom

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We should not focus on gratitude that it wasn't worse. Everything could always be worse. The point is to make things better.

Spilled oil is objectively bad, and to be harshly criticized, every time.

Ookami38

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To address this a bit further up, where more eyes can see it: yes, be pissed that this happened at all, but it's absolutely okay to be thankful it wasn't worse. To not be thankful it was hundreds and not thousands, tens of thousands, is psychotic. Don't let that keep you from your anger at these companies, though. The derailment still happened, fuel was still spilled, don't forget it.

sentient_loom

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Don’t let that keep you from your anger at these companies, though. The derailment still happened, fuel was still spilled

The only thing worth saying here.

sentient_loom

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Not to minimize this, but [minimizes this].

MinorLaceration

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Sometimes you've got to appreciate some good luck.

sentient_loom

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Got raped? You're lucky you didn't get raped twice you ungrateful bitch!

Undearius

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Spilt fuel and rape are vastly different things.

sentient_loom

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The same logic applies to any situation where we naturally want to prevent future incidents. We should not focus on gratitude that it wasn't worse. Everything could always be worse. The point is to make things better.

Spilled oil is objectively bad, and to be harshly criticized, every time.

TWeaK

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Spilled fuel (not oil) is objectively bad, but a small spill is objectively less bad than a large spill.

To take your rape analogy, it's more like non-pentrative sexual assault vs full blown rape. Both are sexual assault, both are bad, but one is worse.

The big problem here is that the root cause of a small spill like this is the same as for the large spills: poor maintenance and lack of enforcement in the rail industry. The only reason this was a small spill is pure luck. Thus, this deserves equal criticism, but we can still be thankful for the luck.

sentient_loom

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There's no function or purpose to your false gratitude. Condemn the spill. Full stop.

Ookami38

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What a false dichotomy. You can be thankful things weren't worse, AND be pissed off it happened at all. Two things can exist at the same time it happens every day!

dangblingus

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Right, but the OP of this thread is offering meaningless platitudes in the face of an actual problem.

Ookami38

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They're offering a bit of hope to people, that it isn't as bad as other recent incidents. And that's true. OP also probably doesn't HAVE any meaningful solutions, they're probably about 40 steps removed from anything that could impact this. May as well let people know it's not another MASSIVE spill.

sentient_loom

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You're a goon and a shill.

Ookami38

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And you're an ignoramus and buffoon, I can do that too. Got an actual rebuttal, or just wanna prove yourself as dense as you seem to be?

sentient_loom

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I'd rather have somebody pretend to perceive me as an "ignoramus and buffoon" than to make people feel grateful for an oil spill.

JackFrostNCola

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Relevent Last Week Tonight episode

ImplyingImplications

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You beat me too it! I was just going to link this since I just watched it.

tl;dw train regulations have been stripped back so much that government regulators inspect just 1% of train operations and have no idea where any trains are or what they're carrying, leaving following regulations up to the corporations. The largest corporation has placed "safety" as #4 in their list of priorities and runs their trains with just 2 overworked employees who regularly state they have no time to check that the train is running properly and warn that a derailment of a train carrying fuel will flatten a major american city some day soon if regulations aren't changed.

aniki

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You know who owns the rails? Fucking Warren Buffet, like that cunt needs any more fucking wealth.

PlasmaDistortion

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It sure is a good thing we didn’t give those train engineers enough vacation time and sick days! /s

ExLisper

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I guess they didn't see John Oliver's episode about this.

psmgx

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Hundreds ain't great but the average train these days has 20000 tons of cargo behind it -- could have been a lot worse.

Derailments are pretty common, actually. Like dozens to hundreds a year depending on the size of the company. I suspect a few incidents last year have made the news extra sensitive.

TWeaK

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Most derailments are basically just the train falling off the track, very slightly. This was a full on train crash.

MinorLaceration

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From the article and video, this seems to be one of those times it slightly came off the track. There doesn't seem to have been collision and the train remained upright.

TWeaK

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I dunno, it's kind of borderline imo. It certainly suffered some damage, rather than a low speed step off that simply needs a crane to put things back into place.

If you do something with your car and it suffers damage, it's hard not to call that a crash. You might be able to drive it afterwards while holding the steering wheel at an odd angle, but you've still suffered crash-level damage.

MinorLaceration

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Sure, there's damage, but the train didn't crash into anything. If I drove into the shoulder of the road and ran over a piece of debris, I could easily damage my car, but I didn't crash the car.

There's not really anything subjective here, the train didn't crash into anything. It derailed and suffered damage.

TWeaK

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If I drove into the shoulder of the road

See that's technically a crash. You collided with the curb. It might not be a crash into another vehicle or into something like a tree or a lamppost, but you're still crashing into something.

In this case, the train collided with the ground, after falling off the rails. A low speed derailment would have no damage - akin to spinning out in an open road or something - but if you hit something and cause damage that breaches some threshold.

PsychedSy

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Roads with shoulders don't typically have curbs.

MinorLaceration

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Driving over the lane lines does not involve hitting a curb. As I said, in this hypothetical scenario I drove into the shoulder and debris damaged my car. I did not crash.

There's nothing subjective about this incident. The train derailed. The train remained upright. The train did not collide with an object. The train was damaged. Honestly, you're really doing some mental gymnastics to rationalize your decision to call it a collision. If you're just going to do whatever you need to do to convince yourself that it was a collision, nothing I'm going to say will change your mind.

Tremble

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Mainly because the corporations won’t invest in safety systems

Semi-Hemi-Demigod

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Or hire enough people for these super-long trains

derpgon

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In the US, maybe. Last derailment we had in Czechia was in 2010. Germany had it last year, but it's still less than once a year.

psmgx

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I don't buy that. Unless you define "derailments" as "giant catastrophe". Trains regularly slip off tracks, fall over, and occasionally catch fire, even in Europe.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1128848/accidents-on-european-rail-networks-by-country/

Ookami38

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I am curious about the amount of rail in those countries vs the US. I know Europe likes their passenger trains a ton more than the US, but the US loves freight trains, and that seems to be where most of the derailments happen.

If the United States has, like, 20x the freight rail/trains, it would make sense for them to have 20x more derailments, essentially adjusting for population of freight trains. Not to give a pass to the States, for sure, but knowing this number would be a bit more helpful.

AnneBonny

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According to wikipedia:

Czechia has 9,567 km.
USA has 220,044 km.

Ookami38

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Wow thanks for the information. I think this pretty well illustrates the point. The states have 22 times the rail as Czechia, so we'd expect Czechia to have 1/22 the incidents the states have. Now we need the number of incidents in each country and we can make a proper comparison.

I don't expect you to provide that, though, you've been more than enough help for a villain of such infamy miss Bonny ;p