The proximate cause of the derailment was the crew operating the train. There was a dereliction of duty.
We have all seen the video of the flaming wheel barreling down the tracks. In the old days, there would have been a caboose that monitored the train. I checked Wikipedia, and their article on the caboose stated that one of the duties of the crewman in the caboose was to watch for hot wheels.
But cabooses were thought to be obsolete due to new electronic warning devices so are no longer attached to the end of trains. The electronic warning devices must have also been unattached.
bttt
All trains are supposed to have emergency pneumatic brakes but Norfolk Southern must have gotten themselves a watered down law, a repeal or complete exemption. They need to be sued for much more than “negligence.”
But not before being introduced to rail issues in the mid 1980’s. EOTI (end of train indicators) had pretty much replaced cabooses by that time. One state - Nebraska - had a legislature that was in the pocket of the rail unions, and they had a state law requiring trains over a certain length to have a caboose. This meant that a train which was traveling from NY to LA that traversed NE would have to stop and add a caboose before crossing any part of NE. Then they would stop and release the caboose once out of NE. Lawsuits were filed in Federal Court challenging this as an impairment of interstate commerce.
The ICC, which was within shouting distance of sunsetting at the time, got involved and the states all filed briefs. I had to review the briefs and pleadings for my state's DOT Secretary. Those defending the NE law (basically the rail unions) made laughably absurd arguments about how much was added to safety by the presence of the caboose crew. Mind you, we are talking about very long trains, some 2-3 miles in length. If the train hits something, the caboose crew has a long hike to the point where the accident was. And then they are just spectators. They do nothing to improve safety and prevent accidents.
I have not had contact with the industry in a long time, but I can imagine that telemetry is incredibly improved. End of train indicators probably send real time video, and there must be middle of train indicators as well.