Lynchburg Train Derailment Lit James River On Fire [Video]
Above: Drone-captured video of the April 30, 2014 train derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia. Via WSET.com - ABC13. Yesterday's multi-car train derailment in Lynchburg underscores what Dan Baum wrote last year in Popular Science: The railroad that keeps our 21st century economy on the move is still running on 19th century technology. “Trains carry 40 percent of America's freight as well as 650 million passengers a year, and in general, their safety record is good and getting better. Most of the 2,000 accidents a year are minor, ” Baum wrote in January 2013. But... Rail operators have known for decades that technological fixes could prevent rail disasters caused by the kind of human errors committed at Macdona [Texas] and Graniteville [South Carolina], but they have been dragging their feet because those fixes are expensive and complicated. Congress is now making them get it done. But the railroads could also cheaply and humanely achieve...