Comment Railroads run cheap (Score 1) 199
The main problem is that the railways are now run as profit. Many companies have been bought out by a few large companies (similar to the banks), and when that happened, a LOT of experienced railroad employees were fired. They were replaced with inexperienced people who get paid a lot less, but also make dumb mistakes. The fact that this was an oil shipment means little. They are actually pretty lucky, because a lot of rail cars carry industrial amounts of poison gases. THAT would have caused a lot more problems than an oil spill.