Comment by whizzter
6 hours ago
I think much manufacturing adheres to the die-young, die-old principle (Often mentioned in the Backblaze reports), manufacturing defects shows up early on, time of stillness and then as it ages it starts to fail.
The tracks were laid in May 2025, that means no winters had passed before now and any defects in the tracks due to temperature differences hadn't had a chance to appear before now.
Railways are neither consumer electronics, nor software. There is a final inspection after construction work, in which the network operator releases the constructor from responsibilities, which should catch any issues. When the network operator later claims, that there was a manufacturing defect, the first question is why didn't it has known earlier, because that is their job.