Well There's Your Problem | Episode 7: Lac-Megantic

Today @donoteat01, @aliceavizandum, and @oldmananders0n talk about railroading in the age of loneliness: the MMA railroad, and one-man crews.
listen to trashfuture: trashfuturepod...
listen to @donoteat01 on Grubstakers talking about the Irvings: / episode-89-the-irving-...

[@Riganotza]

If I ever die in some horrific engineering disaster I'll probably spend my last moments thinking about what jokes Alice can make about my situation.

[@samparr3368]

I’m just starting the podcast and I’m so excited to learn about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster. Can’t wait.

[@pmcgee003]

Hahahaha

[@sarsmask]

Amazing timing!

[@pmcgee003]

@@owowowdhxbxgakwlcybwxsimcwx Yup. Just like in the Muppet Movie, it's a running gag. 🙂

[@scarylion1roar]

@@owowowdhxbxgakwlcybwxsimcwx 99% Invisible has an audio episode about the Tacoma Narrows bridge with visuals on the 99PI website :)

[@philiproszak1678]

Is the joke that they'll never do the Tacoma Narrows? It would be interesting but, why bother? It's the training level of interested in engineering disasters.

[@jamiekamihachi3135]

Trains good, train companies bad.

[@sosaysthecaptain5580]

Point taken. If I’m ever running a train company I’ll remember that however responsible I am, people like you will hate me anyway.

[@jamiekamihachi3135]

@@sosaysthecaptain5580 Yeah they probably will because you clearly don’t know a joke when you see one and come off as a joyless prick.

[@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062]

@@jamiekamihachi3135 Its a pretty lame joke to be honest. But it sums up how this whole podcast thinks and makes money. Capitalizing on the hate people have for institutions of any kind.

[@beepboop1044]

@@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062 No

[@edgrimm5862]

@@sosaysthecaptain5580 I doubt Jamie was saying that train companies are necessarily bad. It's more likely just a comment that the ones that we heard about in this podcast are bad, and we understand that others that exist are bad in the same sorts of ways. It's theoretically possible for good train companies to exist. It's possible some good train companies have existed. But thinking about the original train companies and the worker exploitation that they engaged in, it clearly wasn't the original companies that I've heard about.

[@ProjectThunderclaw]

"Missing, possibly vaporized" is definitely how I want to go out

[@Jablicek]

Live in a big city and hang about for a few years. It's becoming increasingly likely.

[@vylbird8014]

@@owowowdhxbxgakwlcybwxsimcwx Belford dolphin. Perhaps the only time a coroner's report has included the phrase 'ejection of the thoracic vertebrae.' Someone's own lungs ruptured so hard they *blew his spinal column out of his back.* Now, that's epic.

[@dillonberch243]

@@vylbird8014 Holy shit dude

[@dillonberch243]

The pressure was so high it separated the fat from his blood like a centrifuge

[@ellarevmira]

The Rock (1999, dir. Michael Bay)-ass way to go out fr

[@arievans1723]

Solidarity with the CN Rail strikers trying to prevent disasters like Lac-Megantic again. They're out there not for higher wages, but for better safety standards including more rest time and fewer straight work hours - I heard some operators were routinely working over 10 hours a day and often completely alone. You wouldn't know it from the media around here, though, who are blaming the recent shortage of propane in Quebec (which mostly arrives by rail) on workers and not the government nor CN Rail for making standards as bad as they are (or, y'know, planning for an eventuality like an extended work stoppage, hoping that the public blames seniors and sick people dying in the cold on workers rather than the people with political and economic control).

[@TheZigzagman]

I stand with any union that cares more about securing nap time than pay raises. A man's gotta have his priorities straight.

[@realkamoricks]

Quebec's been fully electrified for decades! Honestly, instead of subsidizing the propane deliveries, we should be putting all of our work on Hydro to work for us in heating. Keep it all in-province, no more need for these imports.

[@nothanks3987]

Two warrior monks and one baffled engineer? I'd read that steampunk novel

[@halfpintrr]

I kinda wanna write that.

[@justinokraski3796]

*that fanfic

[@dr.velious5411]

I think that's the plot of a Discworld novel, "This is for removing the nuts, and this is penetrating oil. "

[@AlanCanon2222]

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke.

[@OddLeah]

It'd make for a fun DnD campaign.

[@reachforthetop9]

As a New Brunswicker, I approve and second what you said about our province's relationship with the Irving companies. I work at the Saint John Free Public Library and the entire staff was agog at the "Thanksgiving Miracle" headline when the T-J slid through the book drop that morning. At least the French language daily (Acadie Nouvelle; NB is Canada's only officially bilingual province) is still proudly independent. In fairness to the Irvings, however, the refinery tends to blow up less that the large scrap metal processor on harbourside within earshot of half the city. Then there's Point Lepreau, the provincially-owned nuclear power plant that must have been the alpha test for the CANDU reactor, considering everything's gone wrong with it short of meltdown. We were also the home of the Bricklin, the "safety vehicle" with doors so heavy they couldn't be opened if the vehicle's electrics failed. And the city's had not one, but two explosions tied to Irving gas stations - in the 1970s, the Irving station just east of the Reversing Falls Bridge went supernova, and a decade later faulty gas tanks at the King Square (City Centre) station leaked into the sewers and led to an underground "boom" at the busy King and Charlotte Street intersection. He/him or they/them, although I joke you can call me anything except late for dinner.

[@artstsym]

"The dynamic here is two warrior monks and one baffled engineer" should be the podcast description.

[@artstsym]

Also, the page for this has a statistic "Trains: 1," and now I want to know what on Earth made this worth keeping track of. What are the incidents involving 20 trains?

[@alexamegiddo2083]

I work in a beer store and Larry R. Parsons’ son comes in ALL THE TIME. He told me his dad used to own a railroad company and it wasn’t until watching this episode and doing research I now know why he doesn’t talk WHY his dad doesn’t own it anymore. Holy fuck this is terrifying.

[@Madhouse_Media]

No wonder he's at the beer store all the time.

[@gusgablaw7375]

As a resident of Quebec, I thank for making this and shedding some light on this much understated tragedy. The victims of Lac-Megantic will never see justice but you at least gave them respect more than any other pieces of media I seen, including local coverage.

[@carmastrikes]

"47 people haven't been killed in martial arts in one go" ok but the boxer rebellion

[@tangledfish]

Technically that was a drugs related incident.

[@DinosawrsAreAwesome]

The best thing about the boxer rebellion is that people assume boxer was a place when in fact it was actually a rebellion of boxers

[@halfpintrr]

They were also wielding box cutter knives, so double meaning

[@rdblk9710]

Also they were a certain breed of dog. So triple

[@jerrahaynes1564]

@@rdblk9710 also they were currently employed in containerization!

[@superjoeyman1]

Speaking of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, y'all should totally look into the Soviet Lighthouse RTGs Basically the UN required every country to post a lighthouse every so often along the coast, but the USSR had a massive coast above the polar circle Coz it was isolated as all hell, they couldn't man every one, and couldn't use diesel generators Because they were arctic circle and this was the 70s, they couldn't use solar panels, so they decided to use RTGs And this was the USSR So they fckn lost them They seriously lost RTGs Some dropped from helicopters, some fell into crevasses Others got stolen, with the copper sheeting stolen and the radioactive heat chunk found abandoned in a bus stop Others got run over by jeeps Some are still sitting abandoned in the tundra Some have apparently been stolen (possibly by terrorists to build dirty bombs) Fun times

[@simonrichard9873]

Also some guy found one in a forest in Georgia. How the hell did it get there?

[@punishedmeridia]

Stealing a lighthouse RTG by terrorists was also in a tom clancy book

[@H4hT53]

@@simonrichard9873 migrating birds?

[@superjoeyman1]

@@simonrichard9873 I did a google, turns out the Georgia RTG was the same design as the lighthouse RTGs, but it was being used to power a radio relay station Okay cool the USSR just used these as one-size-fits-all batteries for weird isolated equipment

[@MeetDannyWilson]

*stolen by mothman to build dirty bombs

[@theryanbard]

Finally, an engineering disaster I as a Canadian can feel patriotic about.

[@allgodsnomasters2822]

whens the episode on Strange Brew

[@theryanbard]

@@allgodsnomasters2822 Right after the episode on Liam's van.

[@zoecarey9274]

Halifax explosion.

[@weatheranddarkness]

@@zoecarey9274 visited Halifax not that long ago, the scale of the area flattened is nonsense

[@bobepinelafleur5799]

As a Quebecor, I gotta say : get your own disasters... Don't appropriate ours! /s

[@jrkirby93]

This is very irregular. For starters, the front's not supposed to fall off.

[@pmcgee003]

"Well that's not very typical. I'd like to make that point." :) RIP John Clarke

[@excitableboy7031]

The front fell off? The front fell off.

[@mcamp9445]

This was not towed outside the environment, it made the environment deceased

[@SportyMabamba]

@@mcamp9445 there’s nothing out there except snow.. and 200,000L of crude oil.. and a fire

[@Uncleanus]

IDK shit about engineering but this might be my favorite podcast.

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

"My favorite podcast!" - Uncle Anus

[@toxicfem69]

if this was your favorite podcast you'd state pronouns in your comment she/her

[@MainTopmastStaysail]

Everything they're saying about New Brunswick and the Irvings is the truth. When our longest serving premier, Richard Hatfield, first started running, he got called into K.C. Irving's office and given the "you're as big as I let you be" speech from Miller's Crossing. Same deal today with the Irving heirs.

[@alaeriia01]

Hang on, you're not OwO. You're a birb!

[@MainTopmastStaysail]

@@alaeriia01 Hoot

[@scarylion1roar]

OFC the engines didn't get derailed. My Job It’s not my place to run the train. The whistle I can't blow. It's not my place to say how far the train's allowed to go. It's not my place to shoot off steam nor even clang the bell. BUT let the damn thing jump the track... And see who catches hell!

[@Zephyrbal]

Get Jon Bois on the show. He strikes me as a fan of engineering disasters.

[@zi7252]

and he just kinda seems lefty

[@scullystie4389]

A Jon Bois shout out in my donoteat content is Christmas come early

[@Personal_Chizo]

@@zi7252 I honestly can't tell if that was a sincere comment or just a joke, lol.

[@artstsym]

@@Personal_Chizo What would the joke be?

[@zi7252]

@@Personal_Chizo i mean he supported unions, talks about how management has screwed players, and is generally kinda pc.

[@nsytr06]

Feet pics: 🛌 Van Pics: 💯

[@beedubree2550]

having only started this podcast a couple months ago i feel like an archaeologist having found the origin of the pen and laser pointer

[@garlandward4372]

FINALLY someone else who says "cabeese"

[@garlandward4372]

@CommandoDude not in this house

[@futurepastnow]

Caboosii

[@jimmycrackedcorn226]

It's cabooses! And if you've got a problem with Canadian Cabooses you got a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate!

[@garlandward4372]

@@jimmycrackedcorn226 no

[@QwertyByte]

They put the kibosh on cabeese

[@CODMarioWarfare]

You left a podcast running without a presenter?

[@alicecaldwell-kelly9530]

oh god oh god oh god

[@maglorian]

@CommandoDude are you kidding? Alice's Ranking of the Slurs was so enlightening! (oh, and also: She/Her)

[@Reddsoldier]

It's a GE podcast.

[@pmcgee003]

@CommandoDude As did the train 😜

[@EnraEnerato]

00:24:00 "There's technically no regulation against having a one man crew, this is something that unions have kept in place and only unions." You have no idea how happy I currently am to live in Germany where we have an organization that's called "Berufsgenossenschaft" or BG in short it's a professional association that forbids oneman crews to happen, that makes employers pay fines and fees etc. to pay insurance like sums to injured if they are longer sick due to a work related accident then 6 weeks. They do regulate work safety and quite often try to bail themselves out of having to pay, but if they find the workplace injury to be something that is out of your hand, by any means, as you followed all safety regulations etc. they pay without a fight (usually that is). This means that a lot of those horrible things that could happen if you work alone don't happen because they are not suposed to, since you're not supposed to work completely alone. There are ways to circumvent this, for example by the employer trying to get out of other associations, usually lawyers think that's a baaaaaad idea, there are some loopholes though, i.e. the lonely student working at a gasstation at night etc. Still I'm so happy to know that someone I never really apreciated has my back on this, perhaps I should keep this on my mind for the future?

[@egemensentin]

Bee Gees’ all about stayin’ alive

[@sh0gun___]

Thanks for the consistent upload schedule! I'm sure it's a headache to find time to get everyone together at once to record, but I and many others truly appreciate it.

[@DaniTheDeer]

What they didnt say is that Mothman was working as a volunteer firefighter at the time, Mothman is the one who turned off the trains engine and caused all of this Excited to see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge episode! He/him

[@MatthewWenzel31]

Hey! Give the Leafs a break! It wasn't the '90s when they last won a Cup! ...It was the '60s.

[@LarsBlitzer]

Considering they just fired their head coach yesterday I think we can expect that to extend for a few more years.

[@gfox5237]

@@LarsBlitzer THE 'COCK HAS BEEN ROCKED

[@imsmolandangery4274]

Are they the team that lost to their own zimboni driver

[@Brockleigh35]

@@imsmolandangery4274 Yes. Yes they are.

[@FizzyBep]

I almost died laughing when I saw that this wasn't the Tacoma narrows episode. I really hope this joke continues and you get 100 episodes in before actually doing it. Keep up the good work, this episode was amazing

[@Rand0m0bs3ss10ns]

it wasn't episode 100 sadly :(

[@gloverelaxis]

the tacoma bit is such a perfect bit. if you ever actually make the ep i'll be furious. totally apoplectic

[@Actual-Knight]

bad news my friend

[@gordieparenteau6555]

I just watched the Grenfell Tower episode. I learned more than I ever wanted to learn about flammable cladding and Britain's non-existent fire codes. It left me feeling so enraged that I wanted to punch something. You're doing good work. Keep it up. Please do an episode on the Second Narrows Bridge Collapse in 1958 here in Vancouver. It even had a song written about it by Stompin' Tom Connors. (When The Bridge Came Tumblin Down)

[@Capopoi]

Can't wait for donoteat peeing to be the newest donoteat related top google search

[@gNatflaps]

25:50 interesting example of homophones because Alice is talking about breaks and Justin is taking about brakes

[@edavenport93]

That's 7 episodes on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, eventually they'll talk about something else. Like the King Dome.

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

To be fair The King Dome was blown up on purpose.

[@booti_boi6927]

The true forever bit

[@readwrecks]

I wonder if we say “when are you going to do the Tacoma Narrows Bridge episode” often enough for long enough in the comments section, will it trick the algorithm into placing episodes of this show at the top of the list of recommended videos whenever someone watches a video on another channel that actually is about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?

[@GyroCoder]

It's awesome that the people from the town wanted to hold the company responsible.

[@YoungZibzy]

yay for the laser pointer and John Madden powers

[@o-kay368]

I love the intermittent snaps of beer cans opening. Cheers gentleman.

[@toxicfem69]

um and a gentlewoman?? im she/her btw

[@greynolds17]

@@toxicfem69 thats cool, I don't remember asking tho.

[@reinatakagawa]

Apropos of one-man crews: the Belorusian section of the Soviet Railways experimented with this in 1978 as a means of saving on labour costs (previously standard two-man crews). Together with certain other issues, it contributed to a severe and deadly accident a few months later, after which the one-man crew experiment was quietly cancelled and forgotten.

[@kensurrency2564]

Reina Takagawa Gee, it’s almost like soviet Russia might have been state capitalism huh? Things that make you go, hmm...

[@misham6547]

@@kensurrency2564 no everybody just hates spending money, no matter the system

[@acassiopeia6439]

I've only just heard of the Irving's and I already hate them

[@nickdevost]

Good. They need to be dealt with. They're smothering the atlantic provinces.

[@BicyclesMayUseFullLane]

It's amazing how much of a stranglehold Irvings has on the Atlantic provinces. In Ontario or Quebec, it's mostly Petro-Canada, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, you know, the usual scumbags. But as soon as you cross the QC-NB border, it's all fking Irvings. Didn't realize that was a thing until I've seen it with my very own two eyes.

[@NickleBackIsAwful]

"The Leaf, who havent won a stanley cup since the 90s" buddy, it's a lot longer than that.

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

Well what did they win in the 90s?

[@frozenbean]

@@PanAndScanBuddy Some playoff games. They haven't won the cup since '67.

[@TuckerWhite94]

@@frozenbean The biggest win in the 90s for the Maple Leafs was the death of Harold Ballard.

[@roughestgunark845]

@@PanAndScanBuddygolf

[@whoever6458]

My best friend and I used to sit by the train track to get drunk and stoned and we were always really happy on the rare occasion that we would see a caboose. I read somewhere that you can buy them and they'll let you hook them to the back of a train if you want to go somewhere. I wish I had money.

[@twothreebravo]

One of the interesting things that this disaster brought to light (and you kind of touched on) is there is this misconception that "crude oil" is this gloopy, black, tar-like substance that is relatively benign (environmental impact from a spill aside), this is clearly not the case. It is this continued misconception that had put all crude oils under one regulatory category for shipping hazardous materials, this has lead to recommendations by Transport Canada and the NTSB to break out the various grades of crude into separate categories of hazardous goods based upon the comparable hazard factors because communities like Lac Megantic would never have allowed a unit train of Crude Oil to pass through town knowing it was actually carrying the equivalent of low grade kerosene. But that is what the railroads relied on. Trains good, train companies bad.

[@icedragon769]

Fun fact about Lac Megantic: while I was doing my linguistics masters, I was reading John Peabody Harrington (19th century linguistic anthropologist)'s field notes from his time in Quebec among the natives. He wrote that Lac Megantic's name derives from some Scottish hunters who were making fun of Algonquian speech patterns when telling a story about their recent trip, "moose-look-me-gun-tick lake", meaning that they didn't get their moose.

[@Summer-it3wh]

In the UK we call one man crews "driver only operation" and it's also a feature of pacers! Love too depend on terrible grainy camera footage so the driver doesn't move off with a door open or someone half on the train lol.

[@themroc8231]

Fun fact: Herk Harvey, the movie director who was commissioned to film "Shake hands with danger" has also filmed a weird indie horror masterpiece in 1962 called Carnival of souls which I strongly recommend to everyone.

[@tangledfish]

Fred is red See red Fred Now Fred is Dead Along with 47 people

[@kaledmondson1353]

donoteat's singing at the end was captivating and i demand a full album

[@YourRealBestFriend]

you should have an intern with no mike to which you mail a powerpoint so Justin can go: 'next slide, please'. also raise the patreon to 2,67- because social equality.

[@flemishdog]

SHAKE HANDS WITH DANGER *shake hands with danger riff*

[@Enderspartan911]

Yeah, the Bakken oil fields are kind of like what would happen if you built an oil boom on top of ancient Indian burial grounds.

[@sethread8978]

The video glitched for me around 1:41, all I heard was “-tler did northing wrong,” and I had to desperately rewind

[@patrickscottwalsh]

I read about it in trains magazine that kept on being delivered to my house despite me never subscribing. Whoever used to live at my address - thanks. this story blew me away.

[@opijfdgrty]

"did some hokey pokey with remote control locomotives for local" is an incredibly good tongue twister

[@admydragon]

hokey pokey with remote controlley loco-motey

[@TransItAuthority]

17:53 big mood Alice that's exactly what I saw first too. A girl can dream *sigh* also hi I use she/her/hers pronouns

[@blueshark4926]

same. also i use she/her/hers pronouns too

[@auberry8613]

Wow same I use she/her/hers pronouns too

[@jubeldoktor]

Air brakes and hand brakes have a level of fail safety to them, but they don't combine to even more safety per se. The first air brakes relied on pressure in the brake line to be applied. So when a train split due to a failure of the couplers, the brake line remained depressurised and the brakes would not apply. This changed when the automatic air brake came along, that was invented for this purpose: To bring all waggons to a halt when couplers fail and the train is split in two. It's automatic because it needs a pressurised brake line for the brakes to be released. But this system works indirect. Depressurisation of the brake line leads to pressurisation of the brake cylinders that ultimately press the brake elements against the wheel. This means even the automatic air brake only works when there's air in the system. That's not ideal but it deals with the sudden separation of trains pretty well. It is, however, not built for keeping the brakes applied for eternity. That's what handbrakes are for. But it's much easier and much safer to apply hand brakes when the air brakes are applied, because you don't have to physically move the brake elements but rotate the wheel freely until it holds the brake in place. There is a technology available that loosely translates to "air line controlled spring-loaded brake", which has a spring in place that constantly keeps the brake applied if air pressure doesn't work against it. It is, however, not implemented in freight waggons, as far as I know.

[@livefree223]

Locomotive engineer for one of the major class 1's here. GREAT info here. I am actually going to link this video to a group on Facebook dedicated to preserving two man crews. Also, we call the front end device Mary where I work. Not sure if it's different jargon in other areas. Very well may be as we have dialects of railroadese in different places.

[@sparkpenguin]

who the hell are fred and mary

[@joachimmacdonald2702]

Ok but whenever I hear ‘the grand trunk’ I think about the Clacks

[@samparr3368]

Joachim Macdonald yes! Another one of the enlightened. GNU Terry Pratchett.

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

I would love an episode on some telegraph pole disasters. Although the collapse of the clacks in Going Postal would also be a great episode albeit one about fictional gear mechanisms

[@ArninoStorm]

The disaster was caused by the Monster of Lake Pohenegamook.

[@otaconzeppeli7273]

Late to the party, but what Alice said about the surprising solidarity is interesting. Quebec's history is complicated, but the province is generally more left-leaning than the rest of Canada, especially with labour. Quebec has a lot of consumer protection laws that the rest of Canada doesn't, and separatist parties tend to be a lot less pro-corporation. The issues with racism and xenophobia here are valid, but there's an interesting and encouraging split in Quebec separatism lately - the more liberal/centrist types who are very focused on francophone nationalism and protectionism (like the Parti Quebecoise), and the leftish ones who actually acknowledge racism and reparations more than a lot of the anglos (Quebec Solidaire - the only party in the last election to acknowledge the racism problem in Quebec and promote an investigation!) QS-type separatists want to separate in part to get away from Canada's imperialism and their restrictive immigration laws. Meanwhile, a lot of liberal-voting white anglos in Quebec (mostly Montreal, honestly) are a lot more neoliberal and want Quebec to be just like the rest of Canada and the US. All this to say - quebecoise class solidarity isn't all that surprising and has a fascinating history. Far from saying all quebecoise are Pure Communists, but there's a lot of potential here. I'm a neurodivergent trans (he/him btw) anglophone from Montreal, and there's a lot of cool stuff going on here. If you read all this, thanks! Love the podcast. Engineering shit is fascinating.

[@bobepinelafleur5799]

As a Separatist Quebecor, I gotta add that there's an historical reason for the fear of Quebecors towards immigration. The Durham report recommended a mass immigration of English speaking people to "Low-Canada" ( yeah... they considered us lower people) in order to assimilate the french canadians and make them proper English folks since we were "uncivilized". Even if I think that the context of immigration has changed drastically and I really don't agree with that conclusion AT ALL, I understand the residual fear of loosing our culture and being assimilated stemming from historical reasons. Also, Quebec Bashing is still very common even in progressive circles which sucks.

[@sideways5153]

Important moments in WTYP history: Justin/Roz figures out how to John Madden the slides

[@halfpintrr]

I love all three of you lovely people. Thank you for making my work life less hell. (She/her) Edit: Let’s get the black goo that kills people, yeah.

[@phuturephunk]

The sad thing is their little downtown really was just utterly erased. Most of the buildings were multi purpose and they were classic. It was also very well kept. You can see it on google maps using the 2013 date.

[@sirrliv]

Request for future episode: Penn Central; What a Way to Run a Railroad, or The Railroad That Was Born To Die.

[@ClaudiaNW]

Glad they finally did this, and it took 3 episodes

[@cfredrics]

I’m glad you got the pronoun check started within the first minute, but I think that every fifteen minutes there should be a repeat because sometimes people forget. He/him

[@cfredrics]

Thank you for including a pronoun check at the end, but we need more. He/him.

[@uwuowo4830]

pronoun checks are praxis they them

[@cfredrics]

@@uwuowo4830 Anything that annoys the gamers is praxis. He/him

[@MeetDannyWilson]

Can we mandate that everybody buys a FRED and WILMA device to automatically check our pronouns for us? While all the while making a whirling sound? That way everybody gets a equal chance to be misgendered and we can blame it on "the technology", without anybody actually having to take responsibility, but corporations still being able to make a profit from our misery?

[@toxicfem69]

i tune in for the mandatory frequent pronoun checks so i can always use more she/her

[@uckfayooglegay9982]

Based upon a density of 816 kg/m^3 and an energy density of 42 MJ/kg (Both the more conservative numbers for crude oil) the energy released by 2M gallons of crude oil is 62 Kilotons of TNT. The energy output for Little Boy was somewhere in the 13-18 Kilotons range so you're looking at the 4 nuke range. Edit: Assuming it all burnt.

[@thorsteinj]

They seemingly pulled away some cars so possibly not and definitely not all at once, maybe? They must have heard of the "drive out" strategy from the Channel Tunnel.

[@Ingestedbanjo]

54:38 "This was the day after the accident" Yes, lots of widespread destruction, but also a large building seems to have materialised out of thin air in the forest.

[@myckeli]

I don't think the before picture was taken the day before, but a lot earlier

[@Spaceman33393]

This podcast showed up in my suggested feed, thought what the hell why not, I will now be watching every previous podcast.

[@effluviah7544]

So I'm just now finding out about this podcast, and it has immediately become my favourite podcast. Real good shit!

[@Theoddert]

The eventual live show will be the Tacoma Narrows Bridge one

[@PFMediaServices]

You should get a prize for guessing. 😂

[@werta5000]

The radio caboose is a function of that the radio equipment is expensive that in most railways put into locomotives. if you are trying to do it on the cheep you make one platform that you can plug up to any locomotive. this way any locomotive can be be radio controlled instead of a select few units that get selected to receive expensive radios. they use a belt pack that has all the controls on a belt. Canadian Pacific uses them in flat switching, they use 2 so they only need 2 yard operators and not 3, they call this Throw and Catch. They ping the control of the unit back and forth based on direction to comply with regulation

[@kenkoopa7903]

The captions are exceptional, holy shit

[@Gungnir111]

I appreciate the closed captioning. Useful when speedlistening at 2x speed for maximum productivity

[@massimocole9689]

Props to the person who closed captioned this.

[@scarylion1roar]

The Lac Megantic disaster (yes, as a concept) drew inspiration from the movie Unstoppable, which itself was based on the Crazy Eights incident.

[@computerentity]

Man, Justin's voice is great. You should make a Well There's Your Problem book, just for him to voice the audioboook.

[@jtatum87]

This is the kind of podcast I can listen to in the parking lot of a elementary school with the windows down.

[@nickdevost]

So happy to see the Irvings the coverage they deserve...

[@kensurrency2564]

I’m gonna start playing a little game of ‘how early in the episode can I identify the root cause’ so I can say “Well, there’s your problem” out loud.

[@Fenrakk101]

he/him record a live episode in Denmark, Oxford County, Maine

[@Poetessa2]

Hey guys, as a Montrealer I was and still am beyond horrified by this disaster. If memory serves Harding knew about the initial fire and offered to go check on the train but was told it was handled so he went to bed as instructed. He seemed to do whatever was in his power but there was a question of overtime an turn around time or money over safety. The safety measures at every stage failed miserably and could never have been the fault of one person. I don't know if you've heard the recording on him getting the call that it was his train that caused the disaster but my heart went out to him. I can't imagine what he endured. The guilt he must have felt and then be treated like a criminal charged with over 40 counts of manslaughter. The town wasn't being pathetically"too polite," they KNEW he wasn't to blame and didn't want to seem him and the others conveniently used as scapegoats, so those bastards could walk away unscathed, coffers untouched. Having one man operating these moving death traps through rural towns and cities was an accident waiting to happen. It NEVER should happened there or anywhere. It's pure insanity and the safety board should also hang their head for permitting to to happen. Not enough people gave as shit until the unthinkable happened!!! The town has been damaged forever, the families of the victims had US based sleazy, opportunistic ambulance chaser attorneys pressuring them to sign away their rights and most of any kind of settlement within days. They were in shock and grief--stricken with no one protecting them from these assholes. You may think Canadians are ridiculously polite but trust me, if those men had truly been at fault, they would have paid dearly. Quebecers are a different breed than the rest of Canada and don't put up with any shit. Have you ever driven in Quebec?? Bonne chance!! lol But because the undeniable fault lies in the corrupt big oil industry and corruption within the federal and provincial government to turn a blind eye and permit unsafe practices to continue, the wonderful people of Lac Megantic will never receive the money to properly rebuild which can't happen until the costly clean up of the toxic waste in the soil, the contaminated lake and all the rivers connected to it in the entire region. The effects of that disaster will continue to plague a huge area around the impact zone for decades to come. They found oil hundreds of miles away in the river systems. In all honesty I found it a bit hard to stomach listening to the laughter and jokes about how cool it would be to be incinerated alive. There was nothing remotely cool about it. One family lost generations of relatives who were celebrating a birthday party at Cafe Musi. Everyone loved that place and the owner, who wasn't there at the time lost many dear friends and is plagued with guilt to this day and contemplated suicide many times. Parents and young children living above the stores never had a chance of escaping and were incinerated in their beds, not cool. At least one firefighter I know of committed suicide right afterwards because he lost friends and couldn't deal with what he witnessed. The list of casualties far exceeds the number of initial victims I'm sure. And the entire town and everyone involved lives with a type of PTSD most of us could never imagine. Just a little reminder that these disasters have real casualties and devastated survivors. But I want to also thank you for covering it and explaining in detail how it happened. More people should know about it and learn from it. I just hope they didn't all die in vain and at least the vital lessons were learned which will translate to stricter laws and safer regulations but I fear that as the world is needlessly dependant on fossil fuel which continues to ravage the planet and as long as mega corporations devoid of a moral compass and a soul continue buying law makers and are blatantly more concerned with share holders and the bottom line, the public at large will be put in harms way and will suffer the consequences. My heart goes out the victims of this horrific tragedy, their loved ones and the whole town of Lac-Megantic, mon coeur est toujours avec nous.

[@devinfaux6987]

Now I gotta look up these fanfics.

[@wodthehunter8145]

I did look it up, steam powered vibes were a thing. That's hysterical.

[@MHArcadia]

In the grand scheme of things, being vaporized by massive train explosion is pretty metal. I wouldn't mind going out that way. I live a block from some train tracks, too. It's not outside the realms of possibility!

[@Alevuss92]

I just want to say that, while the Loyalists may have taken Massachusetts' colonial mace, the state does have the mayoral mace from Boston, Lincolnshire. It balanced out.

[@thomasgray4188]

What happened to the street? *wElL WEre gOnNa leArN aBOuT THat* This does not sound suspicious at all.

[@FrancescoLogozzo]

25:56 "They did some hokey-pokey with remote-control locomotives for local freights" is a genius sentence

[@raoulduke6464]

captions on point

[@suicidalmemester23]

Holy shit, people on the internet talked about my hometown! Irving is empire! Circle K (in Atlantic Canada at least) represents the world revolving around Kennith Irving

[@AlanCanon2222]

The pacing of this one is nice, with the early explanation of FRED. If the listener pays attention to the explanation of its theory of operation, the suspense clock starts then, and, like the bomb in Hitchcock's Sabotage, you know what's coming (Chekhov's gun)... you imagine the air slowly bleeding out of the brake primary during the whole discussion that follows the engine being stopped by the fire crew.

[@keelhauling]

100% here for the Stan Rogers call out.

[@allgodsnomasters2822]

120% here save my missing limbs here for it

[@MatthewOstergren]

Thanks to you all for making this wonderful podcast work. It's always good to be able to relate stories to people of very dramatic ways capitalism has created disasters. They/Them

[@TuckerWhite94]

At 10:45, you get the first cracking of a can. A time-honored staple of WTYP.

[@johningles1098]

Thanks for the captions. I can watch the video AND munch on chips like a cow.

[@LonelyLilPetunia]

Thank you for including captions.

[@collinbarker]

Just found these, and am currently going through them if you want another Canadian disaster, look up the Elliot Lake Mall collapse. Mall had rooftop parking. In Northern Ontario. Where it snows. Flat roofs are only built on schools around there, where they have to be annually tarred. Building structure was steel beams. Salt was used to melt ice on the roof. As soon as the mall was opened, people were saying it was going to collapse. Guess what happened? It was inspected 2 weeks prior. 2 deaths, many close calls, sat abandoned for a long time. Old arena or gym was converted into grocery store. Community still has not recovered. Sault Ste Marie mall had to do major roof renovations due to same guy designing flat roofs in snowland.

[@thehaprust6312]

Hey, "Iron Road" is a pretty common railway name. Including Iarnród Éireann, which really missed a step by not using ie.ie as their website.

[@maxwellsmith9988]

There's a really nice memorial park now at the site of the explosion, and it looks like the roads have been upgraded and been given nice new sidewalks so I think they are planning on redeveloping the area into a new downtown

[@matthewpicchu8232]

I can confirm the nature of the railroad going through Maine is cursed. There is nothing in those woods but moose, old gods, and old moose gods. Source: I am one of these three things. Guess which one.

[@davidhoran7116]

Meese

[@lucasl2791]

Note on the boxcars in the siding: I don't know if this was the case on the MMA, but it's super common for railroads, particularly ones that are strapped for cash, to store railcars on extra track they have as a source of revenue. The MMA likely didn't really use the siding all that much, so someone probably paid the MMA to let them store their railcars on it.

[@senorsoupe]

Just coming across this, the railway line goes through my home town and I know a lot of people from Lac-Megantic. This incident really hit home

[@Jessie-vm6kq]

It seems that the Tacoma narrow bridge is never actually going to be an episode, oh and by the way he/him

[@ecyor0]

Every time someone prefaces a podcast with their preferred pronouns, there's a gamer somewhere that drops dead. (he/him, incidentally)

[@TheImpossiBelle]

Y'know, considering today's political climate, I think we're all allowed a little hope, that perhaps one day, we will see that Tacoma Narrows Bridge episode. They/them or she/her whatever floats your boat, so long as the front stays on.