Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Charlie Whiskey's avatar

Let me offer another dimension to your example about the derailment, insofar as you may not be a former railroad employee or train buff.

Positive Train Control, or PTC, is Important for the reasons you outline. Amtrak, to its credit, worked for a long time to meet the PTC directive. Keeping people safe is, in my opinion, Very Important. On a 1-5 scale, this would be a 5. Maybe a 6.

I point this out because Amtrak operates largely on largess from US Congressional budget awards, for reasons related to Sabotage and Expensive Lies. Without making this its own essay, I'll simply point out Amtrak would make a profit where it could control its traffic. The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is largely owned and operated by Amtrak, and Amtrak makes a good profit there.

Where Amtrak doesn't make a profit is everything outside its owned- and maintained-rail. There, it must rely on freight owned rail. And lemme tell you something, freight owned rail is a mess.

Rail has class ratings. Amtrak runs a class 6 rail, meaning it is well maintained, straight, has proper signaling and schedule control, and is capable of supporting speeds up to 150mph. Where Amtrak has to move a train to, say, Miami in Florida, it has to traverse freight lines. Freight can have classes as low as 1; although I couldn't say for sure what the track rating are from Virginia to Florida, I can say the max speed is generally 80mph.

So freight has lower class ratings, and also, freight prioritizes its traffic over Amtrak. Oranges, LPG, and liquid vinyl chloride, are all prioritized ahead of people, in a very real way. Freight charges rent on these connections, so Amtrak has to pay whatever the cost per mile is for people.

Amtrak makes zero money on the NYC-Miami trip. Not because Amtrak is terrible, but because freight owns the rail.

What if rail was owned by the US Government instead? What if the US Government controlled rail, maintained rail, had guidelines for rail conditions to the same level as, oh I dunno, federal highways? What if train operators had to pass rigorous inspections, meet certain safety standards, employ people with proper training, just like we do with truckers?

Why don't we? Because someone told the lie that privatization is cheaper, more efficient, and delivers higher quality than the government. Because someone sabotaged Amtrak's ability to turn a profit.

Just like the Post Office having to pre-pay its pension plan beyond anything remotely reasonable. The sabotage, and then the lie: the US Post Office is worse than Fedex / Amazon / UPS.

Just like school vouchers for charter schools, that can poach teachers from public schools, that exist to make profits, because someone told the lie that private can teach better than public. And sabotaged public schools to make it true.

Expand full comment
Bob Musser's avatar

"The cost of ignorance is, eventually, everything. The cost of knowledge, however painful, can never exceed it." That's a keeper.

Expand full comment
3 more comments...

No posts