Re: Peter Puffer Buttigieg throws hissy fit when asked about East Palestine

[Homer Bedlow]

Molly Bolt <mollyth...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:4cf8382d-482b-4076...@googlegroups.com:

> On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 9:09:04 PM UTC-6, bigdog wrote:
>> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/buttigieg-snaps-at-reporter-when-
>> ask
> ed-about-going-to-east-palestine/vi-AA17ONdi?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid
> =c2698899116b4fe3ba3603965c3d9712
>>
>> Apparently, it's a sore subject with Buttigieg, who seems to prefer
>> to st
> ay
>> home and be a housewife rather than doing his job.
>
> but bigdog is proud of his master who made toxic train disasters more
> likely...
>
> "The Department of Transportation (DOT) repealed a train safety rule
> in 2018 that required installing electronically controlled pneumatic
> (ECP) brakes on trains that carried highly flammable hazardous
> materials, including crude oil."


TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!
Lol, Trump owns you.


ECP Brakes Have High Failure Rates
U.S. railroads have engaged in extensive real-world tests of ECP brakes
and found that the failure rate of ECP systems is significant, and the
repair time is much too long to make them practical. Worse, ECP-equipped
trains that became unmovable due to ECP failures blocked the track for
other trains and caused far-reaching disruptions. Instead, railroads have
often used distributed power (locomotives placed strategically throughout
a train) and end-of-train devices that allow the brake signal to reach all
cars of a train more quickly than when a brake signal is sent only from
the lead locomotive of a train.

ECP Brakes Would Not Provide a Meaningful Safety Benefit
In justifying its original ECP mandate, the U.S. Department of
Transportation (USDOT) speculated that ECP brakes would reduce the
severity of accidents by reducing the kinetic energy. MxV Rail (formerly
The Transportation Technology Center, Inc. or TTCI), the world’s premier
rail research organization, analyzed this claim. The researchers found
that, on representative 100-car trains, ECP brakes would result, on
average, in 1.2 to 1.6 fewer railcars derailing. In the case of tank cars,
the probability of a significant (more than 100 gallons) release of hazmat
from these 1.2 to 1.6 railcars is less than 5% for tank cars meeting the
latest USDOT specifications.

ECP Mandate Repealed after Independent Analysis
After USDOT released a final rule mandating the use of ECP on certain
crude oil, ethanol and hazmat trains, the Fixing America’s Surface
Transportation Act required an evaluation of the USDOT ECP brake
requirement to study the efficacy and costs of the ECP brake systems.
Additionally, an independent, evidence-based evaluation of ECP brake
systems was unable to make conclusive findings on ECP emergency brake
performance relative to other braking systems on the basis of the results
provided by DOT’s modeling of train derailment scenarios.

An October 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
(NAS) report found that the DOT’s approach to mandating ECP brakes over
other technologies was “incomplete and unconvincing.”

An October 2016 GAO study determined the DOT’s justification for the ECP
rule “lacked transparency” and was insufficient to enable third-party
validation.
In September 2018, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration (PHMSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
rescinded the ECP brake mandate because the expected costs of ECP brakes
are significantly higher than the expected benefits.

<https://www.aar.org/article/ecp-brakes/>