The article wasn't taking issue with the conceptual idea of derailments— people operate freight trains; they carry huge loads of toxic chemicals through populated areas; the environment can be impacted.
However, the author didn't definitely show that insanely long trains increase these dangers. They seemed frustrated that driving these trains sucks and talked about how frequently derailments occur and seems to believe the two things are related. The NHSTA numbers seem to indicate the trend for derailments is going down? Perhaps as train size increases, the number of trains decrease and the risk to the individual conductor goes up? Don't know enough about the subject matter to knowledgeably infer an answer, so I won't.
Read it again more carefully. They were suggesting, perhaps not directly enough for some, that these long trains are too long, and increase derailments. Because:
- they are harder to start and stop, because size. One mistake.. Shorter trains are easier to control, physically
- Crews are exhausted by these trains because they take too long in infrastructure not built for them (1940s yards), and adding to waiting time, making it much slower to add / move carriages / trucks around, and other logistically disproportional wastes of time
- The trains are too long for communication purposes too. radios don't have the distance. Safety and important messages get missed
However, the author didn't definitely show that insanely long trains increase these dangers. They seemed frustrated that driving these trains sucks and talked about how frequently derailments occur and seems to believe the two things are related. The NHSTA numbers seem to indicate the trend for derailments is going down? Perhaps as train size increases, the number of trains decrease and the risk to the individual conductor goes up? Don't know enough about the subject matter to knowledgeably infer an answer, so I won't.