6 ms·

AWS for Industry, but Better: The Railroad Investment Case

72 points by mxschumacher 4y ago

secabeen 4y ago
Precision Scheduled Railroading can work, but the changes it entails need to accrue down to the workers, who are still running on a very draining call-based system that produces a lot of burn-out. If the railroads want to run a firm schedule, where trains run without waiting for cars from customers, they need to make the same commitment to their staff; paying them fixed schedules that don't change at the last moment, with overtime if the trains run late or over.
- rektide 4y ago
  I've heard a lot of tension & angst from workers in this industry, growingly so. One question I really don't have any idea about is what kind of headcount it takes. How big is the crew of a train? If you're picking up or dropping off some trains from a factory or warehouse or whatever, are there also on the ground people? They're part of the same union? Are they employed by the people running the train? How many might there be? I have so little knowledge. But I imagine like 2, 3 people tops working on a huge huge train. I understand that it's completely bogus that the company just can't plan ahead, that they're so unprepared when a delay causes the crew to hit their maximum allowed hours for a stretch. But I also have so little idea how many people it takes. If it indeed is like 2-3 people, holy shit, these companies just need to employ standby people at some significant volume, and stop being total cheapasses.
  - secabeen 4y ago
    From what I can gather, the current crew for most trains is 2. There are no cabooses anymore, so it's just what crew can fit in the engine compartment, and there is no provision for crew rest or sleeping on the train. Engineers and crew are swapped out at specific points, when the train arrives at that spot. The workers suspect that the railroads want to go down to 1-man crews on the trains, for cost savings, but they feel (and I agree) that that's probably unsafe. There are on-the-ground people at endpoints, some bridges, critical crossings, etc., and the number of fixed ground staff would go up with 1-man crews, but that doesn't help when you have a problem 60 miles into the cascades. Standby people is a possibility, but trains are often out in rural, or even inaccessible places; it may not be possible to get a supplementary crew member to a train without a helicopter or at least a multi-hour drive.
    - cperciva 4y ago
      Never mind one-person crews; why don't we have zero-person crews? In most cases the crew are just responding to signals anyway; trains accelerate slowly enough that it's very rare that train crew can see a problem in time to do anything about it anyway.
      - colmmacc 4y ago
        How do you find the Skytrain in Vancouver? As an occasional visitor I've found it reliable and friendly, but it is also a fully-isolated track (right?). I'm not sure how well current automation would cope with the semi-open train yards and crossing points that we have in Seattle's Interbay or SODO districts.
        cperciva 4y ago
        Skytrain is awesome. Tracks are isolated for some definition of "isolated"; skytrain doesn't have to interoperate with any other rail traffic (unless you count maintenance vehicles) but there isn't any wall separating the track from the station platform like e.g. the Las Vegas airport has (it has been discussed as a safety measure, but skytrains don't presently park accurately enough to line up the doors) and there are many places where you can hop a fence and get onto the tracks (resulting in trains being stopped and police showing up to escort you away).
        jen20 4y ago
        The DLR in London is another example of how zero-person trains may work.
        secabeen 4y ago
        That's still a significant difference from running traditional trains on unprotected track. Skytrain has no grade crossings.
      - simlevesque 4y ago
        Here's why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster RIP to all 47 victims.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    My buddy is a freight conductor. It’s generally him and an engineer on the train. It’s a shit job that breaks marriages and encourages bad behaviors. You’re basically on call for 24 shifts, and can get called or not anytime from hour 1 to hour 24. You have to chase work, so many guys get “dead headed” having to take jobs hours away. It’s common for guys to have crash apartments or pooled cars to drive 4-5 hours home.
    - secabeen 4y ago
      Sounds about right. Can you imagine if they actually gave him a scheduled time to arrive at work, and paid him regardless of if the train was ready? That's what they should do.
gringoDan 4y ago
Great deep dive. Those that decry the US for not having a rail network comparable to Europe's only consider the passenger side of the equation. We have perhaps the best freight railroad network in the world.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  That’s disturbing. Being familiar with a couple of railroads, they aren’t exactly the best run corporations.
- ericbarrett 4y ago
  The first time I saw this claim was about 15 years ago in libertarian circles, deployed as a talking point against high-speed passenger rail, and justification for lack of investment therein by the U.S. There's no doubt we have an extensive rail system—most of the country was built by rail—but is it modern? Is it safe? Is it serving its purpose? Seems to me there are many scheduling, personnel, automation, safety, and supply-chain issues constantly popping up around the rail industry, though I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert. I wonder how much of its success relies on work done in the 19th and early 20th century that won't scale (or isn't scaling) with modern needs. I'm curious if there are any industry folks hanging around HN who'd care to comment.
  - seibelj 4y ago
    A fairly good rule of thumb for the market test of an industry is how much subsidies they receive as a percentage of their revenue. For example renewable energy is constantly said to be cost competitive with fossil fuels, yet the industry is always demanding (begging) for subsidies and carve outs. In Boston they recently increased everyone’s electric bills by 30% by switching everyone’s supplier to renewable with an opt-out rather than opt-in change. If renewables were so cost effective, why are they always scheming for tax credits and subsidies? For railroads, the story is the same. Passenger rail networks are enormous money losers in every country they are deployed. But they win a lot of votes and get a lot of union make-work jobs so they keep getting subsidized.
bigcat12345678 4y ago
Railroad is to industry what a telco (Verizon att etc) is to IT. They are not AWS. The closest thing to AWS to industry might be flex port, but it's still on the international trade.
NHQ 4y ago
Big internet and railroads both began with loaded capitalists granting themselves first pick of pristine territory all over a new map. Same start, same result. All other info "business-wise" is beans compared to this primary detail.

72 points by mxschumacher 4y ago

Precision Scheduled Railroading can work, but the changes it entails need to accrue down to the workers, who are still running on a very draining call-based system that produces a lot of burn-out. If the railroads want to run a firm schedule, where trains run without waiting for cars from customers, they need to make the same commitment to their staff; paying them fixed schedules that don't change at the last moment, with overtime if the trains run late or over.

rektide 4y ago
I've heard a lot of tension & angst from workers in this industry, growingly so. One question I really don't have any idea about is what kind of headcount it takes. How big is the crew of a train? If you're picking up or dropping off some trains from a factory or warehouse or whatever, are there also on the ground people? They're part of the same union? Are they employed by the people running the train? How many might there be? I have so little knowledge. But I imagine like 2, 3 people tops working on a huge huge train. I understand that it's completely bogus that the company just can't plan ahead, that they're so unprepared when a delay causes the crew to hit their maximum allowed hours for a stretch. But I also have so little idea how many people it takes. If it indeed is like 2-3 people, holy shit, these companies just need to employ standby people at some significant volume, and stop being total cheapasses.
- secabeen 4y ago
  From what I can gather, the current crew for most trains is 2. There are no cabooses anymore, so it's just what crew can fit in the engine compartment, and there is no provision for crew rest or sleeping on the train. Engineers and crew are swapped out at specific points, when the train arrives at that spot. The workers suspect that the railroads want to go down to 1-man crews on the trains, for cost savings, but they feel (and I agree) that that's probably unsafe. There are on-the-ground people at endpoints, some bridges, critical crossings, etc., and the number of fixed ground staff would go up with 1-man crews, but that doesn't help when you have a problem 60 miles into the cascades. Standby people is a possibility, but trains are often out in rural, or even inaccessible places; it may not be possible to get a supplementary crew member to a train without a helicopter or at least a multi-hour drive.
  - cperciva 4y ago
    Never mind one-person crews; why don't we have zero-person crews? In most cases the crew are just responding to signals anyway; trains accelerate slowly enough that it's very rare that train crew can see a problem in time to do anything about it anyway.
    - colmmacc 4y ago
      How do you find the Skytrain in Vancouver? As an occasional visitor I've found it reliable and friendly, but it is also a fully-isolated track (right?). I'm not sure how well current automation would cope with the semi-open train yards and crossing points that we have in Seattle's Interbay or SODO districts.
      - cperciva 4y ago
        Skytrain is awesome. Tracks are isolated for some definition of "isolated"; skytrain doesn't have to interoperate with any other rail traffic (unless you count maintenance vehicles) but there isn't any wall separating the track from the station platform like e.g. the Las Vegas airport has (it has been discussed as a safety measure, but skytrains don't presently park accurately enough to line up the doors) and there are many places where you can hop a fence and get onto the tracks (resulting in trains being stopped and police showing up to escort you away).
        jen20 4y ago
        The DLR in London is another example of how zero-person trains may work.
        secabeen 4y ago
        That's still a significant difference from running traditional trains on unprotected track. Skytrain has no grade crossings.
    - simlevesque 4y ago
      Here's why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster RIP to all 47 victims.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  My buddy is a freight conductor. It’s generally him and an engineer on the train. It’s a shit job that breaks marriages and encourages bad behaviors. You’re basically on call for 24 shifts, and can get called or not anytime from hour 1 to hour 24. You have to chase work, so many guys get “dead headed” having to take jobs hours away. It’s common for guys to have crash apartments or pooled cars to drive 4-5 hours home.
  - secabeen 4y ago
    Sounds about right. Can you imagine if they actually gave him a scheduled time to arrive at work, and paid him regardless of if the train was ready? That's what they should do.

gringoDan 4y ago

Great deep dive. Those that decry the US for not having a rail network comparable to Europe's only consider the passenger side of the equation. We have perhaps the best freight railroad network in the world.

Spooky23 4y ago
That’s disturbing. Being familiar with a couple of railroads, they aren’t exactly the best run corporations.
ericbarrett 4y ago
The first time I saw this claim was about 15 years ago in libertarian circles, deployed as a talking point against high-speed passenger rail, and justification for lack of investment therein by the U.S. There's no doubt we have an extensive rail system—most of the country was built by rail—but is it modern? Is it safe? Is it serving its purpose? Seems to me there are many scheduling, personnel, automation, safety, and supply-chain issues constantly popping up around the rail industry, though I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert. I wonder how much of its success relies on work done in the 19th and early 20th century that won't scale (or isn't scaling) with modern needs. I'm curious if there are any industry folks hanging around HN who'd care to comment.
- seibelj 4y ago
  A fairly good rule of thumb for the market test of an industry is how much subsidies they receive as a percentage of their revenue. For example renewable energy is constantly said to be cost competitive with fossil fuels, yet the industry is always demanding (begging) for subsidies and carve outs. In Boston they recently increased everyone’s electric bills by 30% by switching everyone’s supplier to renewable with an opt-out rather than opt-in change. If renewables were so cost effective, why are they always scheming for tax credits and subsidies? For railroads, the story is the same. Passenger rail networks are enormous money losers in every country they are deployed. But they win a lot of votes and get a lot of union make-work jobs so they keep getting subsidized.

bigcat12345678 4y ago

Railroad is to industry what a telco (Verizon att etc) is to IT. They are not AWS. The closest thing to AWS to industry might be flex port, but it's still on the international trade.

NHQ 4y ago

Big internet and railroads both began with loaded capitalists granting themselves first pick of pristine territory all over a new map. Same start, same result. All other info "business-wise" is beans compared to this primary detail.