Mark Burrows, a retired locomotive engineer for Canadian Pacific Railway, believes the cause of the Ohio train derailment — a 50-car accident that ended with a large, fiery explosion and potentially brought short- and long-term damage to fish and animals in the region along with the drinking water for area residents — cannot be described as a "political partisan issue," since the railway regulations have been in place with Republicans and Democrats occupying the White House.
The response to such a tragedy, however, could have partisan overtones.
"While we're waiting" for the National Transportation Safety Board report, "there's still enough doubts out there to be able to put them together and make ... an 'educated speculation'" about what happened, Burrows told Newsmax Friday evening while appearing on "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
For starters, after seeing video of a long train — perhaps carrying as much as 20,000 tons of payload — moving on a rickety, dilapidated track, Burrows said it's "outrageous" that any federal transportation agency could possibly permit desecrated tracks to carry volatile chemicals across the country.
"That train," in the Newsmax footage, "shouldn't even be operating on that track. It's the profit motive, pure and simple," said Burrows, editor of the Railroad Workers United newsletter.
Burrows noted how the Ohio train derailment had a cart wheel that caught fire early in its voyage.
That should never happen in today's high-tech world, said Burrows.
"The wheel that caught fire, that should have been detected long before" it got to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of the train derailment and subsequent mass explosion.
When Burrows laments "profit motive," he's referring to 2-mile-long trains being tasked with transporting important and sometimes dangerous materials throughout North America — while often carrying a "disproportionate amount of heavyload in the rear."
In a nutshell, Burrows agreed with Schmitt's assertion of today's train system — with an average of three derailments per day in America — being set up to fail.
The load companies and federal agencies are "simply pushing the envelope" of risk management, added Burrows.
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