The locomotive of a cargo train derailed in northern Colorado early Wednesday, spilling hundreds of gallons of diesel, authorities said.
The Great Western Railway locomotive did not tip over when it went off the rails at a switch in the tracks just before 1 a.m. but a fuel tank was punctured, the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority said in a Facebook post. The spill was contained and did not get into any waterways, it said.
No one was injured in the derailment, which happened near a sugar factory in an area not far from some homes, Battalion Chief Kevin Hessler said. The other locomotive and three cars carrying sugar did not derail, he said.
Focusing on being grateful that the problem wasn’t worse doesn’t address the root cause of the issue. It’s essentially copium.
Sure. People need some cope in their lives, that’s not a bad thing. Mental health is precarious enough without catastrophizing everything, and instead seeing what’s happening as it really is.
Focusing on making big problems into smaller problems, though, is a real thing. Why did this one only spill 100 gallons, what’s different between this spill and the 1000+ gallon spills, and how can we get more of the former, instead of the latter?
If you cannot differentiate between a small catastrophe and a large one, you can’t adequately examine them to figure out how to make more of the bigger catastrophes into smaller ones. It’s not all or nothing. It’s not any spill or no spill. Spills will happen, it happens here, it happens in other countries, and it’ll keep happening as long as industry exists. Learn, so as to minimize future catastrophes.
Of note, though. I have not once attempted to absolve the company of their wrongs. They still fucked up. It could have been a much more massive fuck up, though, and I for one am happier that it’s a (relatively speaking) small incident than I would be if we had another, say, East Palestine.