10 ms·

> For myself: I believe it is Wall Street greed and investor demands. 16,450-foot trains weighing more than 42 million pounds are gratifying someone with power.

by kodah 4y ago

> For myself: I believe it is Wall Street greed and investor demands. 16,450-foot trains weighing more than 42 million pounds are gratifying someone with power. Someone who wants it all and more. I believe it is those few, who live nowhere near here, who own their own private islands and jets. This is far removed from laissez faire economics, or the neo liberal model, coming out of the 1980s. This was an incredibly common economic outlook coming from the Midwest and South. It's both tickling and sad to hear. I do love the way this was written, and those PSR trains sound like a nightmare. When I worked the network engineering desk for a Class I railroad we took derails seriously to the extent of pulling anyone who made changes to infra to the dispatchers themselves. That wasn't that long ago either but it sounds like a lot has changed.

mwint 4y ago
> pulling anyone who made changes to infra to the dispatchers themselves. I’m not up on railway lingo, can you expand on this?
- kodah 4y ago
  Yeah, tracks have little huts every so often next to the track. These huts provide an uplink and various routing equipment that connects to track side safety equipment eg: there's big microphone arrays that listen to the wheels and brakes for deformities, automated switches will generally link into these if there's a switch nearby. Any change could influence a derailment, for instance if the track didn't switch and the train was going too fast for it's new destination. Therefore, anyone with their name on a change within a radius of the crash site gets interviewed, the dispatcher is removed and interviewed immediately.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
Help me understand why Wall Street greed would prefer trains that derail to ones that don’t? (The machismo argument, sure, I get, though it’s unsubstantiated; one could just as easily try to pin it on urban environmentalists.)
- tmp_anon_22 4y ago
  Its just "outsiders evil insiders good" where local politics can finger point to external politics as the source of all their woes.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  > why Wall Street greed would prefer trains that derail to ones that don’t? Because they can offload most of the costs of the derailments as externalities while pocketing the money from larger trains.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > they can offload most of the costs of the derailments as externalities while pocketing the money from larger trains Are derailments cash-flow neutral? (Honest question. Could be, if the public foots clean-up and insurance the train and lost revenue.)
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      Even if not "cash-flow neutral", if any significant portion of the cost of a derailment is externalized, then carrier's appetite for derailment risk will be higher and there will be larger trains. The solution here would seem to be penalizing derailments using a large fine that is proportional or progressive to weight or length.
      - throwawayboise 4y ago
        I'm not sure what portion of derailment costs are externalized. I've seen a few in town, none that involved hazmat spills thankfully, mostly coal trains. But the repair of the rail and track bed, hiring of services to lift the derailed cars back onto the track, repair of damaged cars, etc. is all going to be on the railroad. Loss or damage to the cargo would be on the owner of the cargo as in any shipping scenario, but they should be insured for that. If there was damage to private property, a hazmat spill contaminating private land, or injury or loss of life, the railroad is going to get sued.
next_xibalba 4y ago
This part stood out to me also, but mostly for the fact that it seemed poorly substantiated. The fact of the matter is BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific are majority owned by institutional investors (Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, Capital World Investors, etc.) Those institutions are managing these investments on behalf of large capital pools–insurance company float, pension funds, 401ks, etc. Who does all that capital belong to (or who are its beneficiaries)? Regular Americans. Very likely included? The author himself! While I have no particular interest or knowledge of the rail industry, I am moved by the issues highlighted by the author. However, I think his call to conspiratorial instincts ("a few rich people are working us to death to fund their nth private island") is bad, dangerous logic.
- bombcar 4y ago
  It's even worse than that - a single person working you to death for his private island could be sated, could have a change of heart, could reduce the workload. Everything is managed by managers for the same managers - there's literally nobody in charge; the bureaucracy perpetuates the bureaucracy for the sake of the bureaucracy. http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/niri-6-03.pdf http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/n...
  - paulmd 4y ago
    Corporations are a form of memeplex, a living entity that sustains itself with a set of rules and incentives. If you consider a beehive or an ant colony to be a single living entity, then a corporation probably is too, it's a single larger entity with its own homeostasis and agency, even if it incorporates individual organic actors into its being. "profit-seeking" is the goal we have chosen to encode most of them with in their bylaws. Non-profits (in principle) have different pro-social goals (I'm ignoring the Komen Foundation-type "mimics"" here). And that's what they do.
- VictorPath 4y ago
  > Those institutions are managing these investments on behalf of large capital pools–insurance company float, pension funds, 401ks, etc. Who does all that capital belong to (or who are its beneficiaries)? Regular Americans. Very likely included? The author himself! The Federal Reserve survey of consumer finances shows that the majority of equity is held by a small percent of people. Various shifts by corporations and government over the years have happened to raise the social security age, disrupt job security, unions and pensions, and shift middle class retirement funds into the stock market. None of this have had much impact other than that ownership of equity on the minority side of the equation may now be more widely distributed.
dylan604 4y ago
> and those PSR trains sound like a nightmare. They are especially a nightmare when you get stuck at a crossing with no other way around them (no bridges). I sat at a crossing for over 15 minutes waiting for a extremely long train to pass. It gets even worse when you live near a place that has the train come to a compelete stop so that cars can be unhitched, taken off to a side rail, then have the engine reverse to connect back to the rest of the cars, for it to finally slowly pull away. The small town I lived it was forced to build a second fire department as the only one would get stuck behind trains delaying help. They evenutally built a new access road with a bridge over the tracks.
- euroderf 4y ago
  Let me guess. They did not send the railroad a bill.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    For what? Their poor city planning?
- brewdad 4y ago
  There's an area in SE Portland where trains regularly take an hour or more to pass. Many of the streets that get blocked are one-way or really have no alternate once you are on them. It takes the cooperation and coordination of a lots of drivers and vehicles to prevent the effective shutdown of 40+ square blocks when these crossings happen a few times a day.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    After 15mins, I turn the car around and go back home for an hour. I'm not sitting in my car stationary for an hour for the train to pass. Trains aren't allowed to stop during commute hours. They have to do that in certain windows.
- _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
  Didn't think I'd see another PoCo resident on HN!

by kodah 4y ago

mwint 4y ago

> pulling anyone who made changes to infra to the dispatchers themselves. I’m not up on railway lingo, can you expand on this?

kodah 4y ago
Yeah, tracks have little huts every so often next to the track. These huts provide an uplink and various routing equipment that connects to track side safety equipment eg: there's big microphone arrays that listen to the wheels and brakes for deformities, automated switches will generally link into these if there's a switch nearby. Any change could influence a derailment, for instance if the track didn't switch and the train was going too fast for it's new destination. Therefore, anyone with their name on a change within a radius of the crash site gets interviewed, the dispatcher is removed and interviewed immediately.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

Help me understand why Wall Street greed would prefer trains that derail to ones that don’t? (The machismo argument, sure, I get, though it’s unsubstantiated; one could just as easily try to pin it on urban environmentalists.)

tmp_anon_22 4y ago
Its just "outsiders evil insiders good" where local politics can finger point to external politics as the source of all their woes.
shkkmo 4y ago
> why Wall Street greed would prefer trains that derail to ones that don’t? Because they can offload most of the costs of the derailments as externalities while pocketing the money from larger trains.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > they can offload most of the costs of the derailments as externalities while pocketing the money from larger trains Are derailments cash-flow neutral? (Honest question. Could be, if the public foots clean-up and insurance the train and lost revenue.)
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    Even if not "cash-flow neutral", if any significant portion of the cost of a derailment is externalized, then carrier's appetite for derailment risk will be higher and there will be larger trains. The solution here would seem to be penalizing derailments using a large fine that is proportional or progressive to weight or length.
    - throwawayboise 4y ago
      I'm not sure what portion of derailment costs are externalized. I've seen a few in town, none that involved hazmat spills thankfully, mostly coal trains. But the repair of the rail and track bed, hiring of services to lift the derailed cars back onto the track, repair of damaged cars, etc. is all going to be on the railroad. Loss or damage to the cargo would be on the owner of the cargo as in any shipping scenario, but they should be insured for that. If there was damage to private property, a hazmat spill contaminating private land, or injury or loss of life, the railroad is going to get sued.

next_xibalba 4y ago

This part stood out to me also, but mostly for the fact that it seemed poorly substantiated. The fact of the matter is BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific are majority owned by institutional investors (Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, Capital World Investors, etc.) Those institutions are managing these investments on behalf of large capital pools–insurance company float, pension funds, 401ks, etc. Who does all that capital belong to (or who are its beneficiaries)? Regular Americans. Very likely included? The author himself! While I have no particular interest or knowledge of the rail industry, I am moved by the issues highlighted by the author. However, I think his call to conspiratorial instincts ("a few rich people are working us to death to fund their nth private island") is bad, dangerous logic.

bombcar 4y ago
It's even worse than that - a single person working you to death for his private island could be sated, could have a change of heart, could reduce the workload. Everything is managed by managers for the same managers - there's literally nobody in charge; the bureaucracy perpetuates the bureaucracy for the sake of the bureaucracy. http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/niri-6-03.pdf http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/n...
- paulmd 4y ago
  Corporations are a form of memeplex, a living entity that sustains itself with a set of rules and incentives. If you consider a beehive or an ant colony to be a single living entity, then a corporation probably is too, it's a single larger entity with its own homeostasis and agency, even if it incorporates individual organic actors into its being. "profit-seeking" is the goal we have chosen to encode most of them with in their bylaws. Non-profits (in principle) have different pro-social goals (I'm ignoring the Komen Foundation-type "mimics"" here). And that's what they do.
VictorPath 4y ago
> Those institutions are managing these investments on behalf of large capital pools–insurance company float, pension funds, 401ks, etc. Who does all that capital belong to (or who are its beneficiaries)? Regular Americans. Very likely included? The author himself! The Federal Reserve survey of consumer finances shows that the majority of equity is held by a small percent of people. Various shifts by corporations and government over the years have happened to raise the social security age, disrupt job security, unions and pensions, and shift middle class retirement funds into the stock market. None of this have had much impact other than that ownership of equity on the minority side of the equation may now be more widely distributed.

dylan604 4y ago

> and those PSR trains sound like a nightmare. They are especially a nightmare when you get stuck at a crossing with no other way around them (no bridges). I sat at a crossing for over 15 minutes waiting for a extremely long train to pass. It gets even worse when you live near a place that has the train come to a compelete stop so that cars can be unhitched, taken off to a side rail, then have the engine reverse to connect back to the rest of the cars, for it to finally slowly pull away. The small town I lived it was forced to build a second fire department as the only one would get stuck behind trains delaying help. They evenutally built a new access road with a bridge over the tracks.

euroderf 4y ago
Let me guess. They did not send the railroad a bill.
- dylan604 4y ago
  For what? Their poor city planning?
brewdad 4y ago
There's an area in SE Portland where trains regularly take an hour or more to pass. Many of the streets that get blocked are one-way or really have no alternate once you are on them. It takes the cooperation and coordination of a lots of drivers and vehicles to prevent the effective shutdown of 40+ square blocks when these crossings happen a few times a day.
- dylan604 4y ago
  After 15mins, I turn the car around and go back home for an hour. I'm not sitting in my car stationary for an hour for the train to pass. Trains aren't allowed to stop during commute hours. They have to do that in certain windows.
_whiteCaps_ 4y ago
Didn't think I'd see another PoCo resident on HN!