How would you feel if it got back to you that people were saying you had a “one-track” mind? I suppose you could make the best of it and consider it a compliment. Having a “one-track” mind could mean you are a focused, tenacious person, who sees a job through to the end. Still, you’d have to admit, “one-track” mind isn’t much of a compliment. It would sound better if people just came out and called you “focused and tenacious.”
Think of the image that gave birth to the “one-track” description. One railroad track, stretching off to the horizon. No alternatives for getting from Point A to Point B. There’s one track through the Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland. The tunnel is 1.7 miles long and opened in 1895. The Howard Street tunnel passes right by Orioles Park at Camden Yards and serves an average of 30 trains per day. It’s an important link on the eastern corridor’s rail system, and as I said, it’s one track wide.
On the 18th of July, a CSX freight train derailed in the tunnel and caught fire. Some of the cars carried pulp, others paper, which are flammable enough, but eight cars carried hazardous chemicals, including ethyl hexyl phthalate, propylene glycol and hydrochloric acid. Thanks to the outstanding efforts of Baltimore firefighters and emergency response personnel, no lives were lost.
The fire burned for five days. The wreck occurred in the middle of an Orioles homestand and scheduled games were called on account of toxic cloud, which may be a first for our national pastime.
There are two highway tunnels through downtown Baltimore. It is forbidden to transport hazardous materials through these tunnels. Violators of this law may be subject to a year’s imprisonment. Meanwhile, trains carry hazardous materials through tunnels in Baltimore every day – eight cars full on the wrecked train alone. This is a scenario in which we’re asking for trouble. The accident in Baltimore is a warning we would do well to consider.
A report by the Department of Transportation estimates there are 100,000 shipments of chlorine in the US each year. A worst-case scenario document submitted to EPA by Occidental Chemical shows a chlorine tank failure at their facility in New Castle, Delaware could affect over half a million people.
Could happen, could happen, could happen. It all sounds like paranoia until the accident comes along and suddenly the unheeded warning begins to sound like sage advice. On July 17th, the day before the Baltimore train fire, a sulphuric acid tank burst in Delaware City, Delaware, injuring eight people. You didn’t hear about that accident because there’s no major-league ballpark in Delaware City.
America is blessed with corps after corps of devoted firefighters and hazardous material response experts. We should not take their dedication for granted by forcing them to take unnecessary risks. We should not play games with the lives and health of our urban residents who – unlike firefighters – did not agree to confront toxic hazards and who do not have protective gear.
Finally, we should look to Europe, a continent with population density to match our own and which relies on rail traffic even more than we. European nations are taking strides not just to reduce transport risks of hazardous chemicals, but to find ways to eliminate their use as industrial feedstocks.
We don’t need the hazards, we don’t need the pollution, we don’t need the residual poison in our household goods. It’s time American manufacturers got their train on the right track.
Bhopal on the Chesapeake
How would you feel if it got back to you that people were saying you had a “one-track” mind? I suppose you could make the best of it and consider it a compliment. Having a “one-track” mind could mean you are a focused, tenacious person, who sees a job through to the end. Still, you’d have to admit, “one-track” mind isn’t much of a compliment. It would sound better if people just came out and called you “focused and tenacious.”
Think of the image that gave birth to the “one-track” description. One railroad track, stretching off to the horizon. No alternatives for getting from Point A to Point B. There’s one track through the Howard Street tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland. The tunnel is 1.7 miles long and opened in 1895. The Howard Street tunnel passes right by Orioles Park at Camden Yards and serves an average of 30 trains per day. It’s an important link on the eastern corridor’s rail system, and as I said, it’s one track wide.
On the 18th of July, a CSX freight train derailed in the tunnel and caught fire. Some of the cars carried pulp, others paper, which are flammable enough, but eight cars carried hazardous chemicals, including ethyl hexyl phthalate, propylene glycol and hydrochloric acid. Thanks to the outstanding efforts of Baltimore firefighters and emergency response personnel, no lives were lost.
The fire burned for five days. The wreck occurred in the middle of an Orioles homestand and scheduled games were called on account of toxic cloud, which may be a first for our national pastime.
There are two highway tunnels through downtown Baltimore. It is forbidden to transport hazardous materials through these tunnels. Violators of this law may be subject to a year’s imprisonment. Meanwhile, trains carry hazardous materials through tunnels in Baltimore every day – eight cars full on the wrecked train alone. This is a scenario in which we’re asking for trouble. The accident in Baltimore is a warning we would do well to consider.
A report by the Department of Transportation estimates there are 100,000 shipments of chlorine in the US each year. A worst-case scenario document submitted to EPA by Occidental Chemical shows a chlorine tank failure at their facility in New Castle, Delaware could affect over half a million people.
Could happen, could happen, could happen. It all sounds like paranoia until the accident comes along and suddenly the unheeded warning begins to sound like sage advice. On July 17th, the day before the Baltimore train fire, a sulphuric acid tank burst in Delaware City, Delaware, injuring eight people. You didn’t hear about that accident because there’s no major-league ballpark in Delaware City.
America is blessed with corps after corps of devoted firefighters and hazardous material response experts. We should not take their dedication for granted by forcing them to take unnecessary risks. We should not play games with the lives and health of our urban residents who – unlike firefighters – did not agree to confront toxic hazards and who do not have protective gear.
Finally, we should look to Europe, a continent with population density to match our own and which relies on rail traffic even more than we. European nations are taking strides not just to reduce transport risks of hazardous chemicals, but to find ways to eliminate their use as industrial feedstocks.
We don’t need the hazards, we don’t need the pollution, we don’t need the residual poison in our household goods. It’s time American manufacturers got their train on the right track.