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Yes indeedy. I still say that this accident in Ohio might have been caught if the train had a caboose on it, even as long as it was, if they couldn't have seen that fireball, we've all smelled a burning off roller bearing or sticking brakes.

The bearing problem was said to be on the 23rd car. My experience was that if there are any kind of curves on the line, if the crew looks back over their train occasionally, you can see back 23 cars, and especially see a flaming wheel bearing at night from that distance. I'm not that familiar with the Ft. Wayne line between Salem and East Palestine, so I don't know it's profile. I'm told by someone who was a qualified engineer there that East Palestine has a descending eastbound grade, so buff forces would have been involved in slowing the train down at that point, which would have contributed to the pile-up of the cars. I don't think a caboose on a 151 car train with the problem on the 23rd car would have made a difference. I've been told that since this wreck, and the one in Springfield, Ohio shortly after that with a 212 car train, that NS has quietly started limiting train lengths to no more than 10,000 ft., which was the pretty much the upper limit for freight trains on CSX 15 years ago.

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I'm guessing a 100 year of head start on regulatory capture is to thank here.

A change to Hotbox detectors every ten miles is better than no changes. However, a bearing can fail and gnaw off the end of an axle in a much shorter distance. But you have to play the percentages so I can go with ten miles.

The ICC was regulating the OTR industry at the same time as the railroads up to the Staggers act and then interstate trucking acts of 1980. Then safety regulations were ceded to the US DOT and FMCSA. The FMCSA actually has been around since the 30s itself. It's just before 1980 as regulated as the industry was safety wasn't a problem except for the 121 standard brake system that was rescinded and then figuring out how to allow trucking to go all 48 states with the states not really respecting each other's regulations or even vehicle registration. Back in the 70s to run all 48 states it literally took 8 different plates 15 sets of permits and 48 different fuel stickers. Nowadays it's one plate one IFTA sticker a NY HUT sticker and if you get there an Oregon plate.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) was formed on January 1, 2000.

In the case of the two hotbox detectors preceding the detector at East Palestine: The temperatures reported by the two detectors were found to be 40 degrees above ambient temperature first; and 103 degrees above ambient temperature second.

Had it not been for the judgement of the help desk, what, if any, action would these two temperature readings have required? Would the temperatures of the first two detectors have required stopping to inspect the train or would it not have required any action?

If the temperatures would have required stopping to inspect, on what basis did the help disk overrule the hotbox detectors’ last two readings prior to reaching the detector at East Palestine?

Basically I am trying to understand the intended purpose of the help desk. They have nothing to go by other than the temperatures reported by the detectors. This leads me to believe that the function of help desk is to allow human judgement to question and dismiss the detector warnings. But what would be the criteria for that human intervention in the decision made by the detectors? Can the decision of the help desk be based on nothing more than a hunch?

So I would like to know what the first two detector readings were intended to require if the system had been operating without the help desk judgement.

Ron, you want to start a new thread on this, rather than hijack this one, which is about preservation organization planning for emergencies.

I would suspect, though, that it would quickly be moved to 'railfanning' because discussion of East Palestine other than as cautionary tale for excursions is not really "preservation".