Rail steel derailments

Rail steel specifications, developed circa 1900–1920, still lack fracture-toughness requirements; rail companies have not been forced to modernize. Example of code lag.

I've worked on a lot of rail derailments, and one exception is — rail steel has very little fracture toughness in the specs. They don't put it in the spec, so they don't manufacture for it. From the steelmaking side, that's because the rail companies have not been forced to do it, and they don't want to go to the expense of making better-grade steel. A lot of the rail steel specs were developed in 1900 or 1920, and they don't want to modernize them.