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it appears that NSC violated an agreement with the NTSB not to disclose information discovered during the investigation ..
AAR cleared the coil cars on April 10th after NS scape-goated the NSC cars to deflect from the poor make up of the train. What evidence do you have that NSC disclosed any info prematurely?https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/national-steel-car-steel-coil-car-wheelsets-didnt-play-role-in-norfolk-southern-derailment/
The NTSB came out and stated NSC violated some form of coordinating partners agreement in which all announcements would go through the NTSB. If I were the CEO of NSC and NS had scapegoated my business, I'd probably tell the NTSB to pound sand as well. NSC in its statement was more than polite to NS given the circumstances, NS still being a customer.
”In a statement [April 14], National Steel Car claimed its steel coil wheelsets were cleared from involvement in the derailment,” the agency said. “However, the NTSB has not ruled out the role that the wheelsets may or may not have played in the derailment at this point in the investigation. The constraints placed on the release of information by party members exist to prevent the uncoordinated release of investigative information.
And then the NTSB says not so fast NSC:
Cleared 4 days prior - "the AAR’s Wheels, Axles, Bearings and Lubrication Committee voted in an April 10 emergency meeting to cancel the equipment advisory covering the National Steel Cars"
Point me to the exact wording where the NTSB exonerated NSC. That is who lays blame and they in no way shape or form have said such a thing yet.
On BNSF it falls under SSI item 47, and it runs to about five pages. I’m not going to post it verbatim but it covers things like long car/short car placement, location of empties, location of spine cars, etc. It breaks things down in great detail and has different rules by train type, subdivision, distributed power etc. I would say it is one of the big “gotcha” rules for train crews. Usually there is an auto-generated warning on the work order that calls out train makeup exceptions, but we often find ourselves breaking out the calculator (and the rulebook) to double check it. The rules vary by railroad so we have to switch interchange trains out sometimes as well. You can also get yourself in trouble by doing pickups and setouts en route as that changes your consist.
This seems like such an easy problem to solve digitally. I'm sure the only reason it hasn't been yet is because "implementation cost > cleanup costs".
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Topic: Possible cause for Springfield OH derailment (Read 2663 times)
