3 ms·
Why Amtrak Sucks
- cratermoon 4y agoderegulation, late capitalism, short-term thinking.
- Xorakios 4y agoor rather, over-regulation, union focus on maximizing employment numbers instead of total compensation and quality of life, and similar short-term thinking (edited to reflect that I believe private sector unions are generally good, but focusing on membership count is not)
- cratermoon 4y agoDid we watch the same video?
- rayiner 4y agoAmtrak is owned by the federal government. The President appoints the board of directors. It’s literally socialist (public ownership of the capital stock).
- cratermoon 4y agoThe video is mostly about private freight rail.
- antifa 4y agoTechnically you vote for a capitalist oligarch to represent you, the peasant types like AOC are rare in elections. The only "socialism" here is socialism for the rich.
- db48x 4y agoHe oversimplifies it, I think. Amtrak does get track priority over freight during scheduling, but if a train is late then it won’t be in position to take advantage of it. Freight trains don’t cause Amtrak trains to be late to begin with.
- colejohnson66 4y agoThere was a post a few weeks ago about this. Basically, the freight companies are deliberately making their trains too long to go on the side track (and wait) when Amtrack comes through. So Amtrack is forced to wait instead. This delays them and caused them to lose their priority scheduling.
- db48x 4y agoNo, it doesn’t. Every train trip is completely planned out in advance, assigning each block of track to a single train at a time. There are no surprises. The Amtrak trains are assigned to wait at the siding while the longer freight train passes, so it certainly slows them down but it doesn’t _delay_ them. It doesn’t put them behind their assigned schedule.