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Sorry but the railroads don't get to hide behind the "we need the cops to fix this" crap. In the US many railroads have their own police force with full arrest

Sorry but the railroads don't get to hide behind the "we need the cops to fix this" crap. In the US many railroads have their own police force with full arrest and police powers[0]. They can literally throw their own money and bodies at this problem if they really wanted to fix it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police#Jurisdiction_and_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_police#Jurisdiction_a...

justrealist 3y ago
> Sorry but the railroads don't get to hide behind the "we need the cops to fix this" crap. 1. Why should individuals and companies be responsible for their own law enforcement? That's literally the point of government. 2. They still rely on the court system and prosecutors. The railway companies aren't allowed to execute looters on sight.
- kube-system 3y ago
  The railroads have them because there wasn't much government out where they were operating when they became necessary.
- dendrite9 3y ago
  Item 1 is likely related to the spread of the railroads and how important they were so early on. I knew about railroad cops, and the no Social Security eligibility, but it wasn't until the recent strike threats that I learned how railroad employment is so different from most other employment because there are specifically different laws. The importance of the railroads is why there is so much checkerboarded land in the western US, it was given away in grants to the railroads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) The railroads using shorter trains would allow them to keep the trains in the railyards, where they have more physical control. But that would involve more employees and seems to be something the rail companies are specifically avoiding for various reasons.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  1. Trains run through very long multi jurisdictional route often with no meaningful police along the routes and no access due to lack of roads along the route. This was especially true historically but still remains true today. Train robberies have been a real thing for a long time with the robbers not being stupid and attacking the train far from police presence. Further rail facilities require 24x7 protection that local police can’t afford to offer. 2. They often have specific laws at a federal level and as I understand it wouldn’t depend on general local courts and prosecutors, particularly on interstate lines. For spur lines it’ll usually be state prosecutors. The crux of it is the rail companies probably don’t WANT to hire police if they absolutely can avoid it. That’s very expensive and I’m sure they would rather just eat losses, pay insurance premiums, and whine to local and state police for more coverage at the tax payers expense.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    Sure they want their own police. Nothing better than being able to investigate yourself and find you did nothing wrong. And when you call your local PD, good luck getting anywhere when another police force discontinued the investigation and local PD knows little/nothing about railways. Canada has similar private rail police and that’s basically what happened at least once: https://theconversation.com/why-major-canadian-railways-must-no-longer-be-permitted-to-police-themselves-190417 https://theconversation.com/why-major-canadian-railways-must...
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      I think the better question is why are they investigating accidents in the first place instead of limiting jurisdiction exclusively to essentially loss prevention.
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        $
legitster 3y ago
Expanding private police forces... is a good thing?
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Exactly. Presumably if it dovetails back into the existing public court system at the prosecution level (i.e. there are railroad lawyers empowered to bring cases similar to DAs), that's still a reasonable separation of powers. But the slope towards the government (with democratic checks and balances) ceding enforcement authority to a private party (without democratic checks and balances) seems worrisome.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_police# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_police# With a very narrow space and scope.
- spamizbad 3y ago
  In this case: yes, because it puts undue burden on taxpayers given the unique nature of the rail system. Does every jurisdiction with rail freight traffic need a fully staffed, taxpayer-funded task force to cover these things? You'd bankrupt a ton of smaller counties. The whole world is not New York City or the Bay Area where you have several billions of taxpayer revenues sloshing around you can throw at crime problems. The "tough on crime" crowd needs to be less ideological and think deeply about the fiscal implications of taxpayers of their policies.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    To me as a foreigner, it seems a bit perverse for the state's monopoly on violence to be extended to the employees of a private corporation.
    - spamizbad 3y ago
      The state does not have a monopoly on violence in the United States. Private citizens can and have used lethal force to stop and/or prevent certain crimes (and I’m not talking about kooky stand your ground laws either). It all makes sense given that we are, after all, a former British colony. Great Britain’s whole thing with its colonial empire was to outsource its territorial defense to its colonial citizens.
joe_the_user 3y ago
A big part of this is those mile-long trains have to park "somewhere" and that can't be rail yards 'cause they're too big to fit. So this wind-up being as if Fedex, to save money, eliminated their own parking lots and parked their trucks in the sketchy parts of town - and then demanded the cities eliminate the homeless 'cause their truck kept getting broken into.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  That’s the premise of self-checkouts: reduce your internal costs, increase your risk and externalize the costs of those risks to someone else.

justrealist 3y ago

> Sorry but the railroads don't get to hide behind the "we need the cops to fix this" crap. 1. Why should individuals and companies be responsible for their own law enforcement? That's literally the point of government. 2. They still rely on the court system and prosecutors. The railway companies aren't allowed to execute looters on sight.

kube-system 3y ago
The railroads have them because there wasn't much government out where they were operating when they became necessary.
dendrite9 3y ago
Item 1 is likely related to the spread of the railroads and how important they were so early on. I knew about railroad cops, and the no Social Security eligibility, but it wasn't until the recent strike threats that I learned how railroad employment is so different from most other employment because there are specifically different laws. The importance of the railroads is why there is so much checkerboarded land in the western US, it was given away in grants to the railroads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) The railroads using shorter trains would allow them to keep the trains in the railyards, where they have more physical control. But that would involve more employees and seems to be something the rail companies are specifically avoiding for various reasons.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
1. Trains run through very long multi jurisdictional route often with no meaningful police along the routes and no access due to lack of roads along the route. This was especially true historically but still remains true today. Train robberies have been a real thing for a long time with the robbers not being stupid and attacking the train far from police presence. Further rail facilities require 24x7 protection that local police can’t afford to offer. 2. They often have specific laws at a federal level and as I understand it wouldn’t depend on general local courts and prosecutors, particularly on interstate lines. For spur lines it’ll usually be state prosecutors. The crux of it is the rail companies probably don’t WANT to hire police if they absolutely can avoid it. That’s very expensive and I’m sure they would rather just eat losses, pay insurance premiums, and whine to local and state police for more coverage at the tax payers expense.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Sure they want their own police. Nothing better than being able to investigate yourself and find you did nothing wrong. And when you call your local PD, good luck getting anywhere when another police force discontinued the investigation and local PD knows little/nothing about railways. Canada has similar private rail police and that’s basically what happened at least once: https://theconversation.com/why-major-canadian-railways-must-no-longer-be-permitted-to-police-themselves-190417 https://theconversation.com/why-major-canadian-railways-must...
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    I think the better question is why are they investigating accidents in the first place instead of limiting jurisdiction exclusively to essentially loss prevention.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      $

legitster 3y ago

Expanding private police forces... is a good thing?

ethbr1 3y ago
Exactly. Presumably if it dovetails back into the existing public court system at the prosecution level (i.e. there are railroad lawyers empowered to bring cases similar to DAs), that's still a reasonable separation of powers. But the slope towards the government (with democratic checks and balances) ceding enforcement authority to a private party (without democratic checks and balances) seems worrisome.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_police# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_police# With a very narrow space and scope.
spamizbad 3y ago
In this case: yes, because it puts undue burden on taxpayers given the unique nature of the rail system. Does every jurisdiction with rail freight traffic need a fully staffed, taxpayer-funded task force to cover these things? You'd bankrupt a ton of smaller counties. The whole world is not New York City or the Bay Area where you have several billions of taxpayer revenues sloshing around you can throw at crime problems. The "tough on crime" crowd needs to be less ideological and think deeply about the fiscal implications of taxpayers of their policies.
- michaelt 3y ago
  To me as a foreigner, it seems a bit perverse for the state's monopoly on violence to be extended to the employees of a private corporation.
  - spamizbad 3y ago
    The state does not have a monopoly on violence in the United States. Private citizens can and have used lethal force to stop and/or prevent certain crimes (and I’m not talking about kooky stand your ground laws either). It all makes sense given that we are, after all, a former British colony. Great Britain’s whole thing with its colonial empire was to outsource its territorial defense to its colonial citizens.

joe_the_user 3y ago

A big part of this is those mile-long trains have to park "somewhere" and that can't be rail yards 'cause they're too big to fit. So this wind-up being as if Fedex, to save money, eliminated their own parking lots and parked their trucks in the sketchy parts of town - and then demanded the cities eliminate the homeless 'cause their truck kept getting broken into.

Scoundreller 3y ago
That’s the premise of self-checkouts: reduce your internal costs, increase your risk and externalize the costs of those risks to someone else.