Here are two articles dealing with problems associated to the American infrastructure. I note the rail derailment because for over 150 years railroads have been run to and through civilian population areas, while toxic wastes these trains carry has risen dramatically. It is my feeling a federal law should be enacted to move train rails out of city limits, and have them follow roadways for the most part. There should also be a minimal easement placed around rail tracks (discounting roadways). Depots should be set up outside cities where trains can unload and where city commerical can pick up.


===========Articles
(CBS/AP) Two rail cars jumped the track and overturned, leaking hydrochloric acid and ethylene oxide, forcing police to evacuate thousands of residents within a 1-mile radius of the accident.

The cars jumped the track around 2:20 a.m. Saturday. Lafayette Corporal Paul Mouton says a total of six cars derailed, and two of them began to leak.

CBS affiliate KLFY correspondent Hubert Tate reports that officers have blocked off the area within a one-mile radius of the scene, and local firefighters and state police are advising everyone within the area to leave.

Mouton says the area is mostly businesses, but there are also a few apartment complexes and a nursing home. He estimates thousands will have to be evacuated.

Acadian Ambulance official Clay Henry 20 bedbound residents of the Our Lady of the Oaks nursing home were being taken to a hospital.

He also says that two railroad employees had earlier been taken to a hospital for possible exposure and for observation.

Derailed Train Cars Spew Toxic Fumes, Police Evacuate Residents From Lafayette, La., After Rail Accident - CBS News



In the aftermath of last night's bridge collapse in Minneapolis, a lot of Americans may well have driven to work today wondering how things are where they live.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has raised the question in regular "report cards," the latest of them in 2005. They gave America's bridges a grade of C, saying it would cost "$9.4 billion a year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies." There's more HERE.

The ASCE says there are 590,750 bridges in the country, and as of their last summary, 27.1 percent of them were "structurally deficient or functionally obsolete."

They worried more, though, about other parts of America's infrastructure--they gave grades of D-minus to drinking water, navigable waterways, and wastewater treatment systems.

Science and Society

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One Tin Soldier Walked Away...............


Vote like your life and your families life depends on it - because it does.

Vote like you want peace & prosparity for America - because the right wants more wars, more casualities, more VA hospitals.

Vote like you want a secured border from terrorists, illegal aliens, drugs, and gun runners - because the right offerred you a few miles of wire fence.

Great post Shintao.
Like oil companies the need to maintain their business infrastructure should be first and formost in the minds of the boards and CEO's, no tthe bottom line.

But lik eI posted a while back form th ebook Free Lunch, Mr. Johnston points out that RR are not held responsible for losts and even life as should be.

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Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

What makes industrial nations prosper is their transportation and ability to move rapidly. I guess we haven't learned that lesson yet. You think we would get the hint with rising gas & food prices. Years ago I worked on the Tehacapi mt. water line running into LA. I wonder why they didn't burrow a tunnel straight through the mountain to include a means for the freeway to avoid the Grapevine hill. Instead we installed pumping stations, dug verticle tunnels upward to the top of the mt. and pumped the water over the top.

Now in th past years, billions of wasted fuel have been used to transport stuff over the Grapevine, and to this day, like 100 years ago, anything weighing over 100 ton (like nuclear vessel head), has to be taken to San Francisco, loaded on a barg and shipped down to LA. Stupidity at its finest. You would think we could learn from the European countrys about transportation through tunnels, but I guess we are so arrogant we wouldn't consider it.

The miners for the tunnels came from Canada. When a large gold nugget was found in the Kern river there, the miners quit. The whole town emptied out, like a ghost town. They were all down there panning & having a good time. Not sure how much they made, or still make. It was weird to go to the malls and they were near empty like you see in some of those movies.

__________________
One Tin Soldier Walked Away...............


Vote like your life and your families life depends on it - because it does.

Vote like you want peace & prosparity for America - because the right wants more wars, more casualities, more VA hospitals.

Vote like you want a secured border from terrorists, illegal aliens, drugs, and gun runners - because the right offerred you a few miles of wire fence.