HomeMy WebLinkAboutRail tie maintenance is bad 1979 opinion page
Page 8A The Eagle/ Bryan College Station, Texas — Tuesday, February 20, 19;
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The tie t at does not bind
Rail maintenance is bad
, I t appears' as though In the last 13 months there a theory of his own. He told t
° America's railroads are have been 10 major derailments Eagle in confidence a number
engrossed in a battle they're in the Brazos Valley, most of ties were in poor condition ai
doomed to lose — rapidly in- them on Missouri - Pacific track. should have been replaced. 1
creasing cost of operation and The incident in the City of Bryan theorized they could have be
maintenance which often last month,forced more than 200 the cause of the derailment.
` overwhelms income. people out of their homes Why, then, do railroads see
Even though we're aware of because of the possibility of to take maintenance so lightly.
the phenomenal price tag on escaping gas. seems to us that no money can 1
constant rail maintenance, we saved by holding up track al
must fault the in d u s t r y for The derailment Sunday af- railbed maintenance only to sl
failures in that regard. ternoon in northwest Brazos it fly out the window on track al
Proof? County brings the situation into railbed repairs, damag(
The photograph above depicts even sharper focus. equipment and the ever -prese
railroad spikes which were possibility of personal liabili
pulled out of ties by hand — and Some 52 cars were derailed, after a derailment.
only a few months after a repair tearing up 750 feet of track in the That's false economy.
crew had improved that railbed process. Fortunately, no one was A dollar's worth of preventic
in downtown Bryan. injured. is worth much more than hu
More proof? But one railroad employee had dreds of dollars worth of repair
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