East Palestine Train Derailment Explained

An overview of the 2023 Ohio train derailment.

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.

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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.

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This video is sponsored by Nebula.
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Associated Press, Shutterstock, and Videoblocks.
Tonic and Energy by Elexive is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Video by Grady Hillhouse
Edited by Wesley Crump
Written and Produced by Ralph Crewe
Production Assistance from Josh Lorenz
Graphics by Nebula Studios

[sethtrey]

"If a car was as efficient as a train, its engine could fit in your pocket" is the single greatest argument for rail infrastructure I have ever heard.

[caelumvaldovinos]

Hi! Railroader here! A few notes about defect detectors

1. Defect detectors do not tell you the temperature of your axles. If the temperatures are within accepted boundaries, you get this message: "Train _, Milepost _. Axles_. No defect. No defect." If you do have an overheated bearing, you do get this message: "Train _. Milepost _. Axles _. Defect axle _. Defect axle _. Stop your train. Stop your train." Again, you're not given the specifics of the nature of the defect just that you do have an issue that requires visual inspection. Some do also note speed, but it's up to the railroad.

2. Defect detectors are self-isolated. They do not transmit data from one detector to another nor do they transmit it to a centralized computer system. The stored information is usually self-wiped up and until an issue arises like an overheated bearing or dragged axle. At that point, MOW crews will come in and grab the data.

3. When I mentioned a train requiring a visual inspection, that duty falls squarely on the conductor. Since the 1990's, America's railroads have been operated solely by two guys: the engineer and conductor. By law, the engineer has to stay with his train to monitor the air brakes to make sure they don't accidentally release which has happened more often than you think. This means that the conductor has to walk the length of the train alone until he finds the problem and find a way to solve it by themself.

[PsRohrbaugh]

I worked for Frito-Lay for years. Every single day we got two rail cars of corn products and three rail cars of oil. For comparison, potatos took 10 - 15 full trucks per day.

I can't exactly quantity the benefits of rail, but it took hundreds of trucks off the road, and was a huge cost savings.

[RCAvhstape]

You can always do more railroad-related vids now, Grady. No need to wait for another accident. Railroads are fascinating pieces of engineering.

[TheBookDoctor]

I would appreciate a video on what happens to the contaminated material that is removed from sites like this. It's all well and good to say that so-many thousands of tons of contaminated soil were removed, etc., but all that stuff has to go *somewhere*. It doesn't just vanish. So where does it go? How is it dealt with? What's the long-term fate of that contaminated material?

[chrislangstaff]

The problem isn't the concept of freight rail, or the engineering that went into it. The problem is the duopoly you described, and that it runs on a philosophy of infinitely increasing profits. And these corps have huge influence over their regulators. I think it is extremely naïve to believe that this system will produce different results, even after high profile failures.

[benjaminmatheny]

Really would have liked you to point out when discussing the breaking of the train and the defect detectors that the train passed 5 detectors immediately before derailment. Only the first and last where operating properly. The company had dramatically reduced the number of maintenance technicians in the area. Maybe if those had been working, the train could have been stopped earlier and prevented the derailment.

[jurrasicore]

lets not forget that his happened soon after the railway unions strike was stopped by executive authority. The 2-3 people who are responsible for the safety of all 149 cars on the train don’t even have sick days. Over the past 20 years the rail industry has been actively cutting down on workers on each train while ballooning the amount of cars, leading to problems with oversight and potentially, safety.

[robertcampomizzi]

There was a Chlorine gas spill from a derailment when I was 6 months old.
But my Chemical Engineer Dad and I talked a lot about safety/accidents, etc.
He once had to develop a railcar to transport "a nasty chemical" that they were considering using.
I wanted to ask him a couple of things about this derailment but sadly cant anymore. Thanks for confirming what I suspected and adding a couple of specifics on top.
P.s he liked your vids too.

[lukekvas]

A better explanation than any news report that I saw while this was happening. We need more of this. Simple facts and explanation of what happened.

[Radioactive_Slime]

Reminds me of the Lac-Megantic derailment in Quebec, Canada back in 2013. Over 40 lives lost and a huge swath of real estate was obliterated. Very sad.
It’s an interesting read for anyone into in disaster forensics.

[akjarni]

Not too long after this incident, another train derailed right behind my uncle's house here in Detroit. He's safe and the tankers carrying hazardous materials didn't spill, but he said the sound itself scared the hell out of him.

I grew up watching the same train every time it passed, and me and my mum would sometimes put pennies on the tracks to squish them, so I have a deep seated appreciation for our trains here. They have an awesome impact and I hate seeing people demonize them. I'd much rather our transport be in trains than on the road, and I hope it stays that way for safety and price. Train derailment is bad, and I hope things will get updated, but I still fully support our rails.

Still to this day, whenever I get the chance, I always wave at the train drivers. Most of the times they'll wave back or honk the horn, but they still look confused as to why some random dude is waving.

Thanks for this video, I really appreciate your down to earth take on it, and hopefully this impacts people's opinions of our rails positively. All the news ever does is fear mongering and finger pointing, yours is so much better, too bad you can't be broadcasted!

[christhorney]

its safer by 8x, but what makes it look worse on the surface is that the accidents are so huge, its like 15 truck accidents all at once in the same spot. so at surface level it seems worse when an accident does happen here and there, but you just cannot ignore just how much gets moved everyday without incident

[MsCopydark]

What is kind of funny is that the PRD (Pressure Relief Device) actually means FART in my language (czech). What an accurate naming.

[prerunnerwannabe]

Thanks for the video! Something to keep in mind is while Norfolk Southern is "meeting regulations" for cleanup and general operations, they have been dismantling regulation for years, so the actual requirements are much weaker than they probably should be.
It's all about profits. And for companies like Norfolk Southern, paying for accidents and dealing with potential fatalities is better for their bottom line than trying to make sure those accidents don't happen in the first place.

[douglasiram]

Thanks! Great to see coverage that goes beyond news headlines.

[kjgaming]

There was a large railroad tanker explosion in my Hometown of Kingman, Arizona in 1973 claiming the lives of 11 firefighters, one rail worker, and one Arizona State Trooper. This massive propane explosion ushered in many safety changes for the railroad industry and the propane industry. I agree that this event will also help to create new policies and procedures. Great video Grady!

[AB-]

Hi! A railway signalling engineer from EUrope here.

This is very interesting. The USA is a country that pioneered hot box detectors over 70 years ago. And now... I see we have much MUCH more advanced systems here in the EU, specifically in the Czech Republic.

Our ASDEK defect sensors consist of several systems. There are flat wheel detectors on rails. These are important in Europe, as our trains are more braked, and freight cars are not yet widely equipped with anti-slip brake units. Temperature sensors are much more important. We use 8 sensors that measure bearing temperatures, but also wheel rim temperature sensor (the rim may occasionally unstick from the remainder of a wheelset. It usually gets very hot before destructive failure), brake-block temperature sensor (as few passenger carriages and a significant amount of freight cars are still not equipped by disc brakes), disc brakes temperature sensors (two or three brake discs mounted between wheels).

But the most important thing is how we deal with data. All results - positive or negative - are immediately sent to a centralised diagnostic system. The system reads the consist (including carriage numbers) from the central train consist register and sends all data - including normal values. A dispatcher gets various levels of alert. If the box temperature is more than 48 degrees Celsius above a whole train average - the alert is issued to the dispatcher, and a train must be stopped at the closest possible location where the train would not block traffic. The same measure is followed when the temperature is more than 60 degrees Celsius above ambient temperature. When the temperature is more than 90 degrees Celsius above ambient, an immediate stop is mandatory. The dispatcher clicks on a train of concern, and sees the results of every single axle of a train, so he can direct the driver or conductor to the axle of concern.

Well, I thought this is a standard practice all around the world, even in the USA.

[BOBTHEBERT]

There definitely is something that can be done politically about the safety culture for the US Class 1 Railroads, and something was attempted about half a year ago, the big rail union strikes, while also being about draconian working conditions, were about safety on the line. These things were raised to the rail operators and of course they were soundly ignored because re-investing in rail infrastructure takes away from the scheme of pumping stock prices with stock buybacks and creating a circlejerk of money for the board members of companies like Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.

[purdyboi]

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!!