It derailed because it was left with insufficient handbrakes and no one to keep an eye on it. After it caught fire, the the fireman turned the engine off, loosing the air brakes and it coasted downhill until it couldn't make a turn.
The cause wasn't the condition of the rails, but the lack of care given in handling hazardous cargo.s
The locomotives made it around the curves. The loaded tank cars didn’t. Some got ruptured and others bleved.
Right. It was a procedural problem the railroad had.
My point in all of that was basically, that absent malice, which has not yet been indicated, either practices or roadbed conditions appear to be the major problems. Without failures on the part of warning and other systems, and without apparent track issues, an incredible amount of oil gets shipped safely every day.
The media don't focus on that, because it isn't sensational enough to be news.
Similarly, we hear about the relatively few plane crashes that happen, not the safe landings.