4 ms·

Oh yeah I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around. But for passenger service, you really can’t have a system where being 5 minutes late compounds into an ho

Oh yeah I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around. But for passenger service, you really can’t have a system where being 5 minutes late compounds into an hour late because then it’s a positive feedback loop and there’s no way to recover.

bluGill 1y ago
that nobody has fixed the problem despite laws and years of talk shows how incompetent management is...
- rsynnott 1y ago
  It's probably more a question of _money_, really; you'd need to build, at a minimum, lots of passing loops, and really ideally additional lines. That all costs money.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Amtrak has been around since the 1970s. Competent management would be asking where the delays are coming from and putting a priority on them and fixing them (note that priority need not be right, only that you are close and do something). While we may still need more passing loops, we should have seen lot built and my now at least some of them would be the needed ones. Amtrak seems to stuck on large projects, so we have shelf's full of plans/studies on new lines, but they are all too big to build and still they keep making more.
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      Amtrak don't actually own the tracks, right? They're not really in a position to fix this sort of problem; that would be on the owners of the tracks, who presumably don't have much incentive to fix it.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        Amtrak owns the tracks in the north east, and hasn't done anything. Even where they don't own tracks, doing a deep dive into the areas where there are problems can find solutions. There are many options to force a private owner to fix problems, and congress can fund part of the cost for a passing track if Amtrak calls it a priority. Or Amtrak and sue the private railroad for not giving them legal priority if that is the real problem. I'm sure there are lots of other options that someone in the railroads would know.

bluGill 1y ago

that nobody has fixed the problem despite laws and years of talk shows how incompetent management is...

rsynnott 1y ago
It's probably more a question of _money_, really; you'd need to build, at a minimum, lots of passing loops, and really ideally additional lines. That all costs money.
- bluGill 1y ago
  Amtrak has been around since the 1970s. Competent management would be asking where the delays are coming from and putting a priority on them and fixing them (note that priority need not be right, only that you are close and do something). While we may still need more passing loops, we should have seen lot built and my now at least some of them would be the needed ones. Amtrak seems to stuck on large projects, so we have shelf's full of plans/studies on new lines, but they are all too big to build and still they keep making more.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    Amtrak don't actually own the tracks, right? They're not really in a position to fix this sort of problem; that would be on the owners of the tracks, who presumably don't have much incentive to fix it.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Amtrak owns the tracks in the north east, and hasn't done anything. Even where they don't own tracks, doing a deep dive into the areas where there are problems can find solutions. There are many options to force a private owner to fix problems, and congress can fund part of the cost for a passing track if Amtrak calls it a priority. Or Amtrak and sue the private railroad for not giving them legal priority if that is the real problem. I'm sure there are lots of other options that someone in the railroads would know.