Tech: Endorsing Kamala Harris; Report on long freight trains

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September 17—This week, Scientific American endorses Kamala Harris. That's in part due to the Biden-Harris administration's approach to AI safety and the White House's support for the chipmaking industry. Plus, the first spacewalk from a private craft and how to make sense of data breaches. And more below!  —Ben Guarino, Associate Editor, Technology

A Long-Awaited Report on Long Freight Trains Freight trains are getting longer in the U.S. as railroad companies seek lower costs and more efficiency. But are long trains disruptive? Unsafe? These are the questions at the heart of a new 90-page report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). Congress asked NASEM to investigate trains longer than 1.4 miles after the 2023 derailment of a 1.75-mile-long train ferrying chemicals through Ohio. The NASEM report notes that as a vehicle gets longer, especially if its railcars are loaded with a mix of cargo, it must be assembled properly—which may include adding more than one locomotive to the train. The report could not, however, conclude whether longer trains chronically block traffic where roads meet rails. Why it matters: Earlier this year, I wrote about a study that showed that the odds of a train derailing increase as the vehicle increases in length. Peter Madsen, a Brigham Young University professor of organizational behavior and a co-author of that study, told me this was one of the few attempts to statistically evaluate the risks of long freight trains. Tuesday's report also describes a "positive relationship" between derailment rates and average number of cars per train. What's next: The Federal Railroad Administration, an agency of the Transportation Department, should be given more power and resources to address the risks of long trains, the NASEM report argues. "The time is right for Congress, regulatory bodies and the industry itself to take a closer look at railroad practices and regulations to ensure the safest operations going forward," Debra Miller, chair of the Kansas Turnpike Authority and an author of the NASEM report, said in a statement. --Ben

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