I took the video above Saturday afternoon. It’s of the scene of the Metro North derailment that took four lives early on the morning of December 1, 2013. At 10 seconds in, you can see the brush in which the train’s first four cars derailed (scheme below). At 20 seconds you can see the river. Do you notice all the garbage in the crash site? The heaped railroad ties, the downed trees and wreckage? Four people died there. One victim was a friend of mine. Dozens of others were seriously injured. I ride this train all the time, and every time we pass this mess I think it’s a disgrace. I can’t imagine how the families feel. Metro North should clean it up.
That’s truly sad.
I can understand that winter interfered with the cleanup (not really, just a benefit of the doubt thing) it’s now well into spring. What a sad and cruel reminder to everyone. Budgets may be tight but they can’t be that tight.
My condolences on your loss.
I am sorry for your loss, Phil. It is disgraceful, indeed. I’ve traveled on Metro North and Amtrak countless times– looking out the windows is always depressing and disgraceful b/c of the trash, neglect, disrepair and destruction of the landscape.
The scene is much different in Europe and Japan– @- least in my experience. I suppose it is because those folks actually value train travel and their investment in same.
This is a microcosm of the complete and abject failure to fund infrastructure suffienctly across the nation. The American engineering society has said that there are hundreds of bridges across the nation that could collapse any moment since they are in such a bad shape.
This is supposed to be the richest country on Earth. The American middle class is not even the richest in the world anymore. All the money goes to the top 1%.
The result is that we can’t even fund basic stuff anymore. It’s really quite sad.
Sadly, very sadly to me at least, coming back to the US from Japan is, regarding almost any type of technological convenience or infrastructure – especially public, effectively getting into a time machine going backwards.
After Fukushima there were before and one week after pictures circulating the net in disbelief about the speed of clean up and rebuilding.
Metro North between NYC and NY is slower now than it was in the early 20th century (there were less stops then but still) which I remember was one of Ned Lamont’s promises in his short CT gubernatorial campaign – to improve the trains at least to the standard of the 1930’s.
And btw (perhaps just my own series of unlucky trips where I have been delayed even an hour) the lateness of one such trip between those cities often more than the average deviation for all of the trains in Japan including earthquakes and typhoon, a number of less than 15 minutes if you can believe it.
Disasters and accidents happen everywhere but I agree with your implication that this is a symbol of a larger problem.
House Approves Another $600 Million in Israel Military Aid
New Subsidies Are Part of ‘Qualitative Military Edge’ Move
by Jason Ditz, May 25, 2014
In addition to the billions in annual military aid the US already throws at Israel as a matter of course, the House of Representatives has added another $600 million in the pot, this time for missile defense subsidies.
The amount approved by Congress is over double the $270 million sought by the Missile Defense Agency for funding to Israel, and is in keeping with long-standing Congressional efforts to paint themselves as pro-Israel by giving them ridiculous amounts of money”