Railroad companies have penalized workers for taking the time to make needed repairs and created a culture in which supervisors threaten and fire the very people hired to keep trains running safely. Regulators say they can’t stop this intimidation.
Jesus Christ, I knew this was going to be bad, but holy shit. There’s some real zingers in there.
On the busy rail corridor running through northwest Atlanta, there was a notorious stretch of track known for tripping up engineers. Larry Coston didn’t feel like he could navigate the large number of signal lights safely going the speed limit of 60 mph, so he radioed the dispatcher that he’d be driving at a slower speed, a 6 to 8 mph crawl, in an effort to avoid an accident.
Norfolk Southern fired him for “intentionally” delaying his assignment. The company declined to comment on specific cases. But his boss, and his boss’ boss, testified in his ongoing lawsuit that his judgment didn’t matter; engineers should travel at maximum authorized speeds regardless of their safety concerns. “Run your train,” his direct supervisor, Travis Bailey, a senior road manager of engines, said in a deposition. “Do your job.”
Supervisors have strong incentives to push their workers like this. Court records show that several freight rail companies rate and rank their managers using metrics that reward them for trains staying on schedule and penalize them for disruptions — even when the delays are caused by safety precautions. “Slow order delays,” for example, calculate the amount of time lost from slowing trains because of unsafe track conditions.
That’s just one among the most egregious examples. They track downtime due to safety issues and penalize managers for delays due to things being unsafe rather than just fucking fixing it. I’ve worked for some really shitty employers over the years, and the only ones who ever tried to skirt safety issues due to costs were the places that were being run as vulture capital operations. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the plan is to eventually declare insolvency because the costs to fix their bullshit is going to be too much, and have the government buy them out and remake CONRAIL. Once the government fixes their infrastructure on the taxpayer dime, they’re going to start lobbying Congress to re-privatize CONRAIL for pennies on the dollar because of “free market efficiency”.
Automated signaling exists and can manage all sections at the maximum safe speed. Trains shouldn’t even have anyone inside to drive normally. The job is obsolete today. (drivers might be useful in yards, or little used branches, but not the main line - in both cases the driver should live near their section and work when there is a train then go home)
Of course automatic signaling is programmed to be safe. Thus if that section cannot be driven faster than 10mph (or whatever speed) there is no override to go faster anyway.
Exists, yes, but is not installed throughout the US rail systems.
But there should still be a human on the trains. Automatic signaling won’t stop a train when there’s a stalled car on a crossing, or someone walking on the tracks.
I’m not 100% sure about that. Can you give me a little context as to where your knowledge comes from? Railroaders I’ve seen discussing fully automated trains seemed to have some doubts about the viability of the technology.
Many passenger trains around the world run fully automated.
the big issue is without someone on board there is nobody to see someone on the tracks and hit the emergency brake. My counter to that is it doesn’t matter as the train won’t stop until long after whoever was on the track is hit and dead.
Passenger trains have better maintained tracks and so are not likely to derail. They are also less likely to hit things because they are grade separated - fenced, elevated tracks, in tunnels. These are more cost, but they are things society wants (not the same as rail executives) Trams which run on the street are much slower and do have drivers.
They should 100% nationalize it… But I’m not sure that’s their plan. It would be an extremely risky plan on their part to let the government take over the company in hopes that they can maybe possibly convince them to give it back after they fix it up.
You’re not thinking like a modern CEO. This isn’t long term growth capitalism, this is slash and burn capitalism. The only thing that matters is next quarter’s profits (and, increasingly, this window is narrowing to single months or smaller). They’re going to extract as much wealth out as they can for as long as they can until it’s completely impossible to sustain it. If they can’t get the government to hand it back in the future, oh well, but that’s what lobbyists are for.
Jesus Christ, I knew this was going to be bad, but holy shit. There’s some real zingers in there.
That’s just one among the most egregious examples. They track downtime due to safety issues and penalize managers for delays due to things being unsafe rather than just fucking fixing it. I’ve worked for some really shitty employers over the years, and the only ones who ever tried to skirt safety issues due to costs were the places that were being run as vulture capital operations. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the plan is to eventually declare insolvency because the costs to fix their bullshit is going to be too much, and have the government buy them out and remake CONRAIL. Once the government fixes their infrastructure on the taxpayer dime, they’re going to start lobbying Congress to re-privatize CONRAIL for pennies on the dollar because of “free market efficiency”.
Automated signaling exists and can manage all sections at the maximum safe speed. Trains shouldn’t even have anyone inside to drive normally. The job is obsolete today. (drivers might be useful in yards, or little used branches, but not the main line - in both cases the driver should live near their section and work when there is a train then go home)
Of course automatic signaling is programmed to be safe. Thus if that section cannot be driven faster than 10mph (or whatever speed) there is no override to go faster anyway.
Exists, yes, but is not installed throughout the US rail systems.
But there should still be a human on the trains. Automatic signaling won’t stop a train when there’s a stalled car on a crossing, or someone walking on the tracks.
A human on board won’t stop a train either. They will hit the brakes, but trains don’t stop fast enough to make a difference in those situations.
Feel free to consider other scenarios. That’s just the first that came to mind.
I’m willing to, but so far I’m not ware of any.
I’m not 100% sure about that. Can you give me a little context as to where your knowledge comes from? Railroaders I’ve seen discussing fully automated trains seemed to have some doubts about the viability of the technology.
Many passenger trains around the world run fully automated.
the big issue is without someone on board there is nobody to see someone on the tracks and hit the emergency brake. My counter to that is it doesn’t matter as the train won’t stop until long after whoever was on the track is hit and dead.
They’re not there to hit the brakes, they’re there to report it.
Passenger trains generally don’t go that fast in areas where they’re likely to hit something or derail. Which is not what rail executives want.
Passenger trains have better maintained tracks and so are not likely to derail. They are also less likely to hit things because they are grade separated - fenced, elevated tracks, in tunnels. These are more cost, but they are things society wants (not the same as rail executives) Trams which run on the street are much slower and do have drivers.
They should 100% nationalize it… But I’m not sure that’s their plan. It would be an extremely risky plan on their part to let the government take over the company in hopes that they can maybe possibly convince them to give it back after they fix it up.
You’re not thinking like a modern CEO. This isn’t long term growth capitalism, this is slash and burn capitalism. The only thing that matters is next quarter’s profits (and, increasingly, this window is narrowing to single months or smaller). They’re going to extract as much wealth out as they can for as long as they can until it’s completely impossible to sustain it. If they can’t get the government to hand it back in the future, oh well, but that’s what lobbyists are for.