Trains This Day/Month in the Past

[Charlie B]

Charlie: There was a story about East Palestine in the New York Times in (I think) Tuesday. Large spread, about people coping.

David, I live 1.2 miles from the derailment and have grand kids even closer.  The folks in town would like you to think it was another  Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. It wasn't. No one was hurt physically and most of the initial fire was from a fuel storage tank located next to the tracks.  Several business' in that area were forced to close for the clean up and the explosion/burn was done to prevent a car from blowing on it's own.  A couple of these business places closed permanently. NS has done a great job cleaning pollution from a ceramics plant that has been dumping in the creek for over a century in addition to what they spilled. They removed 28 feet of dirt under the track for about 600 feet and millions of gallons of contaminated water. They gave the schools 50 million, the park 25 million and renovated the freight station for over a million for board and baton repair and new shingles and have given it to the city along with $100,000 to remodel the interior for whatever wants to move in, and to settle the class action suit they have 800 million in an account to distribute to folks according to the location around the wreck 
     Property values have not been adversely affected yet some folks scream they are. My property taxes went up 35% this year. 

     It was a shame it happened but the media has blown this way out of proportion, in fact they have killed the town by telling people how bad things are when that in fact just isn't so.  Frankly it is better for me if the politicians of East Palestine would just move away.  A lot of stores have closed because folks won't shop in town. The stores that are open tend to be overpriced on their goods. 

     The people they interview that are "coping" for the most part are not even home owners.  One of the folks that the tv interviewed several times did not live in town, nor was he here when it happened, was the biggest doper around. 

Charlie