I found this to be a long but fairly informative article. Some unsurprising but also potentially infuriating stuff for anyone affected by this.
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According to federal investigators, the derailment was caused by a mechanical issue with a rail car axle. Ditmeyer and two other experts told The Lever that ECP braking probably would have reduced the damage caused by the derailment by bringing the train to a halt more quickly and stopping all of the cars simultaneously.
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The AAR lobbying group concurred that “the costs of the ECP rule substantially outweigh its benefits,” and claimed the mandate would cost them about $3 billion — or roughly 2 weeks of their operating revenue in a typical year. The FRA estimated the brake requirement would cost about half a billion.
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But instead of investing in the safety feature, the seven largest freight railroad companies in the U.S., including Norfolk Southern, spent $191 billion on stock buybacks and shareholder dividends between 2011 and 2021, far more than the $138 billion those firms spent on capital investments in the same time period
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https://www.levernews.com/rail-compa...io-derailment/
Also, while this interviewer is awful, the guy being interviewed isn't.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1626105538042908674
and
https://twitter.com/user/status/1626218309807927297
and from the town hall event that the Norfolk reps didn't show up to
https://twitter.com/user/status/1626212335244443648