I read many articles about the safety of oil rail cars and the efforts to make them safer in a derailment, but very little mention of what exactly causes the derailment in the first place. Replacing or retrofitting the rail cars is not taking care of the cause of the derailment. As I observed these mile-long trains, up to 100 cars each, of crude oil coming through Vancouver, it led me to remember the song learned long ago in Sunday school about, after three days of troops marching, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. Because of the resonance created when marching in the military, we were also instructed to “route step” when crossing bridges. So, are these rail cars of all the same wheel base having an adverse effect on the rail bed and tracks and eventually leading to track failure and derailment?
Frank Divers
Vancouver
