As a railroader, I can tell you that these aren't railroads, they're investment and exchange companies that just so happen to back their value by trains, not gold. Big, crappy, nasty, glorious trains
Nope, this is how businesses are run. There's nothing we can do about it, besides just ride out what it is. It would be great if UP could focus on the work they do and the people that work for them, but that's not what makes the most money. That's how They make record profits every single quarter. The fact is, we can deal with the failings of the railroad as a money printer or we can deal with them as a government entity but opening the can of worms that would allow a cascade like that to happen would take a monumental failure on part of the railroads to move freight. Besides, the amount of government overlap In the railroad industry is actually mind boggling. Even the craft has been considered federal employees, when convenient. Any time the rail road has been in trouble, here's a government grant to the rescue. We're where we are now Mainly because of PSR though. Cutting too deep and catching back up too slowly. There's a lot of thing that allowed PSR to happen, but that could probably fill a whole video 😅
I used to work in airlines. Airline staff thought they owned the company. Nope, other than pilots it is just another job, and you should come to grips with that 🎃
@@777jones were you not paying attention or just talking to yourself? did you not watch the video, read his comments, or care to be here for whats said? is it a political belief or did you completely misphrase what you said while not being in the same room, conversation, topic, and thought process but still talking?
@@Neville60001 it is a widely accepted thing. Just not in the country we live in. If you ever get to travel to Asia though, you will be amazed at the level of development of the railway system and overall pleasant experience using the trains in countries like Singapore, China, Japan, etc
I am a railroader and I agree with everything you said except 1 thing. That 1 thing is we are on call 7 days a week and we have 90 mins to get to work after our call at any time of the day or night. Other than that your spot on lol
@@GlennTXstate10 NO that's not correct. We used to be able to get more days off. This all changed in FEb.2022. Days off used to be manageable and the company would let you take them but now they don't.
The correct answer should be "do it or just sell the railroads to the public, or else we will put our entire being into ensuring you and your shareholders end up in prison for god knows how many counts of tax evasion and fraud.
9:50. I am a locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern. We are treated terrible and it is 6 days a week. And conductors don’t get ANY days off and we are only given 2 hours call. Also. THANKS FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO!!!
I worked for Norfolk Southern for 8 years. I was purposely told on several occasions to not serve a customer. We would not have the time to make it back and they did not want to spend the money on another crew to come relieve us and finish everything. The managment in the last 5 years made the job awful. No schedule, I was home 10 hours and gone for 48 hours. I was on the clock over 18 hours several times even though we legally can not operate the train after 12 hours. PSR destroyed an already rough industry.
"... not have the time to *not* make it back ..." I think the second "not" in your comment above shouldn't exist, you just made a double negative there. 😊
Second the notion that PSR was the railroads downfall. Do you get held away pay after 12 like the UP? My old boss sat for 33 hours waiting for relief in an inaccessible area during a winter storm, got back to the terminal and was told to be ready in 12 hours on Christmas Eve. He cleaned out his locker and told the corridor manager to eat 💩.
I hired out on Southern Railway in April of ‘79, retiring 41 years later from Norfolk Southern in 2020. The last two years I worked were beyond unbelievable! How such a great and strong industry as the American class 1 railroads could be so quickly raped, pillaged, and left for dead in such a short time is beyond outrageous! Wall Street did this via activist hedge fund robber barons, and the Federal government just sat back and let it happen! Of course I’m sure they received large envelopes under the table to encourage blindness! And now the RR’s are baffled as to why the thousands upon thousands of employees they unceremoniously dumped two years ago turn down offers to come back to work, even with healthy bonuses!
@@tomt9543 I think the carriers are purposely driving us off. I quit UP after 13 years and went to Amtrak. It’s nice to work for a company that treats us like human beings.
I think there are two facts that just add salt to the wound. 1: These companies are not financially struggling in any way. Despite their poor maintenance and labor practices, as well as continually degrading the quality and speed of the service they provide. 2: These companies could make even more money if they literally put ANY money into upgrading their infrastructure. On the low end, double tracking or even just maintaining a few lines would allow them to run trains even more profitably and faster. On the high end, electrification would basically reduce running costs on that railroad to almost zero.
How would faster trains make the companies more money. More wear and tear on equipment and how is a 40' container getting from LA to Chicago 2 or 4 hours faster going to benefit them, where rates are based on all sorts of factors, time not being one of them. Shippers of bulk, which is what rail does, care more about predictability than speed.
@@shopshop144 Time dependent goods = High value goods. Like yeah nobody cares how long it takes a car full of coal to get somewhere but maybe railroads shouldn't be relegated to only carrying the least time dependent of goods. The only market railroads can gain is that which they take away from trucks
@@shopshop144 1: Faster Train = More equipment utilization and less labor costs. 2: With how the companies have their infrastructure set up, there could be DAYS saved on a trip that long. Many sections of track are so bad they have been downgraded to 10mph ratings for dead straight track. Combine that with most lines being single tracks, and a trains could spend a 12 hour shift waiting for a green signal.
@@Heatherder But if you use electrified Trains you dont need to drive all the diesel around. that makes the Trains lighter so they dont need as much energy to move stuff around. Also electrisity can be made from renewable sources.
I've lived in a "railroad town" much of my life (near a major yard), and one maddening (and dangerous) thing that has happened the last few years is that trains get backed up and block street crossings. You can be many miles away from an under- or overpass with a train just sitting there, sometimes for hours. This is a hassle passed along to all drivers and can be dangerous for emergency vehicles. It's a typical form of pushing external costs onto the communities, essentially using our towns as extensions of their yard, another form of "pollution".
You realize these towns built up around the railroad yards right? Not the railyards invading a "community." Use the gray matter between your ears. I know its hard. Don't like it? Move.
@@silverbackag9790 that’s absolutely no excuse for the railroads making the trains unnecessarily and unsafely long, then paying the meager fines they receive for the behavior as a cost of business rather than the warning it should be.
They are trying to reactivate a line here and the town is worried they will block two rr crossings with the long trains. That is a problem for emergency vehicles. The trains they are talking about running are much longer.
I worked for Union Pacific. I remember one train went from West Colton, California to Houston and back without ever having the train switched out and the cars delivered to customers. It was on its third round trip between West Colton and Houston, and I had to switch the train out at an intermediate point even though none of the cars were destined there. This was a 14K ton train. Up and down the hills burning thousands of gallons of fuel and delivering no cars to customers. This was considered 'precision scheduled railroading'.
@@rjohnson1690 That's what it is, rolling storage. Trouble is that it costs more than storing cars because of track occupancy, locomotive and crew use, fuel consumption, car hire and other costs that I haven't mentioned. Now, how on earth can that be contributing to making a profit for the company? I can't see any way that it can.
@@markfryer9880 yeah I don’t get it either. UP does a lot things that are pretty baffling. They are always robbing Peter to pay Paul with their screwball plans.
I worked for BN for 38+ years. During that time our management made it abundantly clear that their job would be perfect if they didn’t have customers and employees to deal with.
This is, in fact, a storyline of all of modern America (and in extension, all of western culture in general). People who just want to be managers and finger pointers and tell people what to do, without any feedback or talk back, and get richly rewarded for being the person telling others to do work, while despising the very people that make any organization wealthy in the first place. Until it changes overall, in every facet of society, this won't improve anywhere. We are told we are free and democratic, yet in the most important part of any person's life (their work and economic life) they have none of either of those.
@@jerjerferson He's not wrong. Before I retired on some jobs there were more scabs than employees working. I doubt that has changed in the 10 years I've been retired.
@@FJA--- my dad retired back in 2000 so I imagine it's much worse now than it was back then. He said that the worst part of the whole thing was that his BN leadership was decent but they were all replaced by SF company men
As a Russian I didn't even know that passing sidings were a thing because I've literally never seen a railroad that wasn't double-tracked. The realization that it isn't like that in America was a huge cultural shock
Even with double tracked lines, you still need some passing loops to accomodate trains of different stops and speeds. But of course, they're much less necessary when you don't need to make space for a train coming from the other direction.
That’s interesting. And there are of course exceptions here in the US like BNSFs triple track mainline over Cajon and many many others but yes a lot of single track lines still exist
Cost-cutting is called running a business. Socialists don't run functioning systems, they keep stealing from people to pay for their fantasies. That's how you get 20 year waiting times to get a car in the soviet union and people living in 400sqft block apartments in the largest country on Earth.
the real trick is continuously growing year over year profits, sustained by unsustainable business practices, and without improving underlying infrastructure. That now that is flawless.
@@jre617 Your first question was how does one have to do with another? the video’s intro points out that the industry is slow to adapt new technology and fights any changes made. Little innovation and updates to the the trains and infrastructure along with lobbying to block and undue policies that promotes safety yet cuts profits…I think that lines up with your second question.
@@jre617 How are you not making the connection? A company that literally _will not replace its infrastructure unless it fails catastrophically_ is *not* doing the maintenance that would catch the failed component before it derails and causes a mess. There's a reason there are so many videos of diesel trains spewing fire from a blown turbo.
I'm sure the tens of thousands of people who manage the logistics of rail freight transport as a full time job will greatly appreciate your factorio knowledge.
Our call is a 2 hour call. And we work 11 of 14 days. And they regularly run us out of town the day before our "day off" and it absolutely crushes any ability to plan or schedule things in our personal lives.
This is what the public doesn’t understand. Then they say “well why do you work there? Get another job”. I wish we had went on strike so they could see the devastation it would have caused and why what we do is so important and worth what we were asking for was well deserved. I’m not in the field. I’m a dispatcher and finally able to hold a regular schedule because so many are quitting. But we still get tagged a lot and are forced to work our off days because of a shortage of workers. It pisses us off when we have a crew out there on the law and can’t get them off the train for hours and management just acts like ‘oh well. It is what it is’. I had a train master just yesterday cancel a taxi I ordered because they feel it’s a waste of money. The crew had to wait 2hrs for the yard shuttle to get back and take them to the hotel. Let me stop now because I’m ready to start ranting 😂
@@juggernaut808 your problem is that you are helping make your own situation desperate. The world won't end if some people don't get their stuff... but then somebody might actually do something about it without ruining your life. Don't live your life like they own you.
Yeah well welcome to the US. We're all just slaves to upper management in the Corporations. I mean I feel for you and it is wrong. But your industry isnt the only industry that has to deal with shit like that. Welcome to the club.
This is all 100% true. Having worked with them directly for intermodal transportation, they are all awful to deal with and increase prices for customers in completely unnecessary ways. The worst by far is Union Pacific. Got a container stuck in a stack that you need to move? Well screw you. We will charge you a daily fee for leaving your container here, but we won't let you pull it on a private chassis. You need to use one of our chassis's, which we don't currently have enough of, so you just wait your turn and pay up til we say you can do something. And don't even hope to accurately track your container in motion. I could go on but who has the time.
The duopolies remind me of what the author of Donut Economics says about the free market: “The free market doesn’t exist because whoever has the most money makes rules up so that they can keep their money. So don’t you want to use your vote in order to have a say in what those rules are?”
All of these problems can be solved with a magical money tree. It's magical, because even though it spits out more money to solve problems, it doesn't devalue currency already in circulation. It's the wonderful magic of socialism and communism.
@@troy3456789 If there is one entity I trust less than government, its corporations and they have ruined the ideals of free market and directly caused the rise of socialism and communism.
@@troy3456789 you mean taxes?? Who said we have to print money, we use taxes to pay for things which, newsflash, Doesn’t increase inflation. Most inflation is caused either by banks creating money through fractional reserve banking or through a cut of supply while demand rises (ie what we’re experiencing rn)
@@legoboy468 Only the government can create inflation. All the governments that printed money during covid created their inflation as well. None of the countries that did not print money and hand it out experienced inflation.
To be clear, this quote really just pertains to plutocracies (rule by the rich), like the USA. Also, frankly, the USA is far enough into the realm of plutocracy that the people's votes don't ever count, unless they're accompanied by a large suitcase full of cash. I'm not saying "don't vote," but don't expect the voices of a million everyday people to have the same weight as the vote of any given corporate CEO.
@@shopshop144 I feel like the union leaders fucked us completely by agreeing to this TA that literally zero of my coworkers have said they'd vote for. Congress might not have prevented the first strike but now that a TA has been achieved, I think our leverage went straight out the window. Can't wait to see how many more people quit after their backpay.
@@corxc997 Yes. Supposedly congress wasn't going to stop the strike and that forced the carriers to negotiate. But now the union leadership came to a TA and I'm 99% certain it will be voted no. There's no guarantee congress will allow us to actually strike the second time around. It will most likely be after midterms and they might be less willing to let us strike since the "union leadership thinks the TA is good enough so everyone else should be satisfied, too."
Except it's _because_ they're following the law that things are getting screwed over. The Buy America act prevents Class 1 and 2 rail operators, among other things, from purchasing foreign equipment even if they wanted to. So, while the companies are being shit, the government is definitely NOT helping.
I been a railroad conductor for 22 years. Since about 2006 the railroads have been run by Wall Street investors buying railroad stock to a point they have a say how railroads are run. These Wall Street investors all want large profits quickly from the rail companies. The easiest way to get shareholders rich is extream cost cutting measures. That in detail is cutting employment from all departments from a rail road especially the T&E Department. Trainmen and Engineers (T&E) jobs have been cut the most in the past 20 years running the rest of us T&E employees into the ground. My work load during my shift has increased by at least 75%. Jobs that have had 3 people on them are cut to 2 man jobs and even into 1 man jobs. The railroad has basically crippled me in the past 22 years, it's a physically takes a toll on your body each and every day. Only reason I stayed with the railroad was $35 a hour working in the railyard and a pension after 30 years. So in the past year or two railroad engineers and conductors are burnt out and are quitting the profession in masses. Less employees means trains aren't moving as quickly as they once were. The railroads are reluctant to do mass hiring as there profits goes down with more employees. I'm writing this before I watch this video. But I'm sure the person who is responsible for it has no clue on how a railroad works. I Believe trains only carry about 20% or less in the transport of good. We need more truck drivers and more railroad employees PERIOD !!! These 7 major railroads in America (CP, CSX, CN, NS, UP, KCS, BNFS) ALL MAKE BILLONS IN PROFITS 📈 EACH YEAR BUT CRY WHEN FEDERAL RAILROAD AGENCIES TELL THEM TO HIRE MORE PEOPLE !!!
I think this guy alan fisher who made this video is a wall street schill trying to hurt the railroad. Afterall what is left after reducing the rail worker volume to a skeleton crew but to claim it is old, dirty, inefficient and ultimately unnecessary. They want to kill the rail roads. This guy's video sucks and he can get stuffed. I love railroads and the people who work them - there needs to be more hires - this alan fisher guy is the one who is old, dirty, inefficient and unnecessary.
As a Rail Worker (DB), I feel pretty comfortable in saying that your system in the US Fucking sucks. For a Rail company to actually work you need a few things: -Excellent Planning (ik, DB isn't good in that either but a) its slowly changing and b) I know my schedule for the next 6 months) -Good Working Conditions (Paid illness leave for example is a standard here) -Investments both in infrastructure (expansion) and in your train fleet -And lastly, people in HR who are more dedicated to keep the railroad running rather than company profits.
The German system also sucks, the DB has no competition in long distance rail, Fernverkehr is a monopoly in Germany. Railinfrastructure and railway have to be strictly separate into different companies.
Thank you for including the part about freight trains not fitting in sidings, making the shorter Amtrak train always be the one that waits. I seriously regretted not putting that in my own Amtrak video last winter.
I've noticed this as soon as I started taking Amtrak in the early-21st Century. Unfortunately, because of this, travel time to and from NYC was actually the same as Greyhound. There's slightly more room on the train, but the keyword in that sentence is "slightly." If you're close to 6 feet or taller it's not much. You'd have to rent a room in a sleeping car, but good luck being able to afford that.
@@alexwithclipboard Three places. One was Dade City, which no longer has Amtrak trains, one was Orlando, and one was Tampa. That was in the early-to-mid-2000's though.
I feel like a lot of large businesses in the US have been taken over by "bean counters" who have game-ified spread sheets and strategies to maximize financial output for a minimum financial input - not maximum profit or long-term viability, mind you, just extracting max profit for the least possible investment.Sure, they'll slowly wreck the company; but, they maximized everyone's investment!
It's not the bean counters, it the consumers. Capitalism is just unsustainable, you figured it out when you were a kid. You cannot have infinite growth with finite resources. Cutting waste using computers was the last golden age for this type of economy, you cannot cut any more. That's why it's trying to expand into space instead of addressing any of the issues with scarcity. Capitalism doesn't understand the concept of priceless, and there are some thing you cannot buy back.
Capitalism only works on paper because human beings are not rational agents and have finite lifespans. Saving a buck today to pay 10 bucks in a week seems ridiculous, except when you're the CEO of an unchecked monopoly and you have the power to move that cost to future generations or to the government-funded competition (e.i. the highway network).
Reminds me, I ended up quitting the anime community for the train one, The anime one gets pretty repetative and compared to trains which isn't fictional.
@@calestial2457 It amazes me some of the stuff the Thomas fandom digs up. Wilbert Awdry's papers were largely preserved so people are constantly digging up new details. And I swear to God, the wooden toys will survive the Apocalypse. Mine look right out of the box!
I recently was reading an article how a large number to rail workers were on strike due terrible treatment they were receiving. And the train companies had the Gaul to try to say the workers were holding America hostage.
Yeah, that strike affected GM here in the DFW area. I work for "GM & Universal" , a warehouse that handles most of the individual parts of a vehicle and sorts them for the correct order for GM to build their cars. Anyway, about a month ago or so, we were told we'd be closed for the weekend, (our week here usually ends on Saturdays) and possibly into Monday. Come Monday and well, we had no parts. We were grabbing from the reserves. Our shifts have been all over the place since then. Cherry on top, they did the strike during our time to change parts for the yr 2023/24. So it's been chaotic. To clarify, I'm not blaming the strike for our chaos necessarily, just stating how it's affected the warehouse in which I work at in terms of production output.
The best way to describe PSR: Doing less with less. You hit the nail on the head with this video, glad to be back in school and going into a different field of work. FYI Canada has almost all the same problems as the US, only difference is our duopoly is between CP and CN. The biggest single thing that could be done to help workers is to repeal legislation that forces striking workers back to work. Then there would be negotiations in good faith. Right now it's so bad that new workers like myself see the best option is to walk away and pursue a different career whereas railroad jobs used to be coveted.
Four hours!? Five days a week!? I routinely worked seven days a week (when I was in the yard often twice a day) with only ten hours rest, and I only got a 90 minute phone call. One of the final straws for me was the horrible train lineups. Before PSR the lineups were bad, after PSR they were like reading a Magic Eight ball. The way class 1 freight companies treat their employees is downright criminal.
Wow, it's almost like leaving natural monopolies in the hands of private companies will lead to monopolies! And monopolies are like, bad? I am shocked.
Probably the best answer to railroad monopolies is making it easier to operate barges on American rivers, lakes and canals. Trucks already compete with rail on fast cargos, so having barges, which can literally be a mom-and-pop operation, competing with rail on slow, cheap cargos should bring a great deal of balance to the system.
More proof of a corrupted government. Covid killed 500,000 Americans per year. Cigarettes kill 750,000. Imagine if covid was caused by a known product but was still allowed and was indemnified against lawsuits in exchange for an annual payment.See Master Tobacco Settlement.
@@boblynch2802 Basically no, but why do you assume that the only alternatives are a monopoly of private railroad companies and a monopoly of government? Most operators of barges on the Mississippi River are small business owners. We need to ask what we can do to help small ma and pa barge operators compete with the big railroads! The parts of America that contain the majority of our population are traversed by navigable rivers and canals.
Nice to see the Indian Railways being mentioned in a positive light. Only very few foreigners seem to realize how good it is given the conditions it operates in. I'm very proud of projects such as Kavach, Train 18, DFC and the massive WAG 12 locomotive.
high-reach pantographs and double-stack intermodal with flatbed cars instead of gondolas even on the electrified track. Don't forget that part. Nobody does intermodal in a more energy efficient way than IR.
Well, they're probably still operating as a public service instead of just a corporation that profits as well by claiming losses as by showing a profit.
Honestly it's a great system. It's a (very cost effective) mass transit system, a intercity passenger system and a freight system all-in-one. The Indian Railways are a great example of how to responsibly use your resources to do the most good.
@@turdferguson2982 Well, it IS a PUBLIC SERVICE. It is COMPLETELY OWNED and operated by the government, so the regulations about right of way and train priorities can be properly enforced.
Funny thing …… looked into who owns the rail carriers , a bunch of companies in the pockets of both parties. So don’t expect much help from the government.
As a Pennsylvania native, Pennsylvania was well known with Pennsylvania Railroad. They ran electric freight trains between DC to NYC, Harrisburg via Philly to NYC, and Harrisburg to DC. That carried on through Penn Central years and Conrail until early 1980s they stopped running electric trains. Conrail retired their electric roster such as GG1 and E60. Enola yard, Port Road branch, Campben-Amboy and Columbia Secondary got de-electricfied. All the freights diverted onto non electric routes (Harrisburg Line, Reading Line, Lehigh Line) just so they wouldn't conflict with Amtrak on Northeast Corridor and so as on Keystone.
I see this with just about every company that decides it needs to adopt the corporate mindset. They let the bean counters dictate their actions while ignoring the experienced people that are actually dealing with the processes first hand. Everything looks great in the office setting while all the big shots sit in meetings all day to justify their wages. Outside the fancy offices is pure chaos and gross mismanagement. It's everywhere now and infested just about every industry.
This is why they got hauled in front of Congress recently, and were sternly reminded that they are common carriers under the law, which means they are legally obliged to serve anyone who wishes to ship things with them. That obligation has not gone away, nor is likely to anytime soon, and if it takes something like steep penalities or straight up nationalizing the entire system altogether, so be it. Precision scheduled railroading was also called out for the fraud it was, and it was something to sit and watch the railroad execs sit and sweat.
yeah but if we nationalized the railroads can you imagine the amount of people bleeding from their eyes and screaming about "MUH COMMUNISM!!" that's a big part in our problems with the government actually getting anything done
@@memethief4113 You can't please everyone, but I'd rather have a rail system that works for all than one that only lines the pockets of rich corporate types.
@@Shipwright1918, same, and I HATE the idea of nationalizing most anything, but as far as railroads and real crappy utility companies go, it really should be done at this point. Maybe we give them one last chance, find everyone in management/investors that has been criminally negligent, pushing dangerous conditions, neglecting infrastructure, ect, which is most of them, have the government seize all their assets and sentence them to 20 years of VERY hard labor, enforce stricter labor + safety laws on the companies, as well as force the companies to invest 90% of all profit into infrastructure repair until their respective industries are the best in the world. That or the government should straight up seize these companies and fire almost all of the management and prevent them from working in their industries ever again, oh, and no golden parachute for them. That's the only 2 ways sadly to fix those industries at this point.
In my experience, I’d have to say that gross incompetence of management is the major factor that disrupted everything. Many managers became managers simply by being related to someone that was a manager. And then they started making having a college education crucial to becoming management instead of having experience. There is no amount of college that will make you a better manager than having actual experience at what you’re doing. Every single aspect of the job was normally pandemonium.
This is a universal problem, promotions and raises are no longer based on merit. Its based on who you know, what you say, and if you have a 200 grand plus piece of paper that says I can do things. Despite having no real world experience or understand the world at all for that matter.
If you have 10 levels of management micromanaging to S*** out of the guy actually doing the job, you can no longer afford to hire a actually competent guy to do the job. even if by some miracle you do get someone good, the micromanaging will interfere with his work to the point where the job doesn't get done. but how would you justify the huge overhead and the big salaries, if they did nothing at all? There was a company in belgium which went belly up. bankruptcy guys talked to the workers, fired all top management, and they immediately went back to making a profit.
I am happy that you mentioned something positive about Indian railways. I know it is not good but it is definitely improving fast and I can see that in front of me. From punctuality to rolling stock to safety, everything is much better then what it was 10 years ago and will be much better in the next 10 years. You have atleast not stereotyped Indian railways as some old sluggish system where people travel on roofs of trains because they don't. I have travelled a lot and have never seen anybody on the roof of a train in my entire life. Yes the trains are still crowded for unreserved class but that will also improve as more and more sections are being tripled or quad tracked. So that will allow more trains to operate and that will ease congestion. On electrification aspect, we are electrifying 6,000km+ track km every year. Now I am aware that the energy being used for it is not clean but it will be. Plus that is not an excuse not to electrify because burning fossil fuels in thermal power plant is more efficient than these locomotives. Plus it is electricity at the end of the day, so switching sources will not be difficult because locomotives don't care what was the source of the electricity the are using.
As someone who grew up in the Chicago Metro Area, the railroad capital of the US. I can confirm all these opinions are true in the 90s and early 00s there were tons of trains but usually quick. But as time went on train took what seemed like forever and more and more stopped on the tracks. And getting crossings repaired took just as long .
Alan, for someone who attacks other youtubers for fact checking, you need to check you 4 hour status call. It can and typically is 1.5-2 hours notice for the big orange guy. :)
He also got the locomotive order part so wrong, I can't even fathom. NS just bought a fairly sized order of brand new SD70ACe Tier 4 credit units from EMD/Progress Rail over the past two years. UP bought a significant number of SD70ACe/AH units during the 2010's, SD70AH-T4 units during the last couple of years. BNSF, UP, CN, CSX, and NS have received a large number of brand new GEVO units, both tier 3 and tier 4, from GE Transportation (now wholly owned by Wabtec). I believe CP is the only Class 1 to not have bought brand new diesel locomotives, not rebuilds or ex-lease units, in more than 10 years.
@@rustingparts I feel you and see what you're saying, there was a lot of him acting out in this video. The old "railroading is outdated, they need to get with the times" theme and attitude as well, it's tiring rhetoric.
The property tax situation is something that's very often overlooked. More/better infrastructure leads to higher taxes, disincentivizing capital improvements and maintenance, and incentivizing de-electrification, single-tracking, and demolishing historic stations and other buildings. No other transportation system faces such a burden. Quite the opposite in fact. The big tax receipts from railroads helped fund the highways that put many of them out of business.
I wonder if we could work out an alternative legal situation, similar to a British letters patent, that has the rail right of way as a fiefdom rather than real estate, which would exempt it from property taxes and instead require the company to provide passenger services and support for the military and evacuations in the place of tax.
Oklahoma recently failed to get the Supreme Court to review an lower court ruling, that, had it gone the other way, might have led to shorter trains. They were told that, no, the States don't get to decide how long a train can block a crossing. That's the Federal government's purview. I'll see if I can find it. City of Edmond, Oklahoma v. BNSF Railway Company
If a city is concerned about crossing delays, the city is more then welcome to build an over or underpass. Almost guarantee you the rail line was there before the road was.
@@TheOwenMajor the railroad owns the land, so the railroad would have to approve any overpass or underpass, and building one would mean that section of track would be unusable for the construction time so the railroad almost certainly would refuse to approve it.
@@silaskuemmerle2505 You think you can't build an over/underpass while keeping a line mostly active? Pardon me while I'm laughing. Why do people who obviously have no idea what they are talking about so freely give their opinions? Firstly, railways are perfectly fine with grade separations. In fact, having grade-separating crossings is better for the railroads too. Secondly, it's not very hard(Relatively). For an overpass, you build the approaches to the bridge( No closers needed) and then set pre-fab bridge spans onto the supports. This can( and is) done regularly, and only requires closing the line for a matter of hours. And underpass in also fairly You simply dig out the underpass section(Next to the rail line), construct the bridge and new railway, and then transfer the active line over. Again you only need to close the rail line for a matter of hours. Something that already occurs regularly for routine maintenance.
@@TheOwenMajor "dibs" is only part of the issue. They also weren't running 2+ mile long freight trains when it was there. And that's if they even approve the overpass, which they likely wouldn't.
@@Joesolo13 Firstly, they are allowing a public crossing of their land. Your comment is like the person who moves next to a factor, then starts complaining the factor is noisy. A city doesn't get to complain about crossing delays when they decide to build a major road at level grade with a railway, instead of spending the money for a grade seperation. Secondly, where did you get this notion railways are refusing to allow overpasses to be built, lol. Bring up Google Earth and go to a fair-sized city. I guarantee you there will be plenty of over/underpasses.
I love trains, I did ever since I was a kid, I had a model railroad then and now as a 25 year old I have one again. Nothing is more fun than watching that little train except for watching the real ones go by, but hearing about how poorly run they are and how they treat their workers is atrocious. I hope one day we realize how important and beneficial trains are and can be again, especially with upgrades like you mentioned with the Swiss trains.
I decided against applying for CP rail up in Canada because they expect you to be on call 24/7 (no weekends off; only vacations and holidays) with only 2 hours of notice (not 4 as described in the video). In researching the company I learned that they have had several rail strikes recently. But the news media did not cover the actual issues very well. Apparently the main things under dispute were "wages and working conditions": but they were offering near $6000/month to start, so I concluded the the real point of contention was working conditions.
Everyone ignores the actual reason why we have supply chain issues. Who’s idea was it to shut down all of our critical factories and move them and the jobs overseas? Why are our railroads clogged up with millions of containers of products made in China and Korea and other countries? Imagine if the thing you purchased at the store was made somewhere close to where you live. There wouldn’t be a supply chain issue and there would be millions of jobs created. Blame it all on the railroads if it makes you feel better. But when was the last time you bought something made in America? Every time you order something from Amazon it comes from Mexico or China or India and has to be shipped half way around the planet to get to you. If there is a supply chain problem it’s you that are the cause of it. Not overcrowded and overworked railroads.
Amtrak had its own problem on a recent trip to Chicago. A 5.5 hour trip turned into a 19 hour nightmare. Electrical went out on the train and the toilets would not flush.
I think our geography works against us w.r.t. railroads. Railroads can't pass the straits, and the UP and northern LP aren't population centers demanding high-volume service. I think the map showed service going as far north as Flint. Maybe Saginaw and GR have rail service, I don't know. Beyond that, it's a lot of delivery trucks.
Tough to swallow considering I'm a UP and BNSF rail fan. I like seeing the diesel freight trains run and appreciate how many old work horses have been saved from scrap but I absolutely hate the corporates who have chosen to trash these good names. This especially applies to the evil Norfolk Southern. Especially after the big rail accident that resulted in contaminating a whole town in Ohio, they should ashamed of the way they disgrace the great names they inherited such as the PRR, New York Central, Norfolk and Western, Western Maryland and many others. And for all the neglect of infrastructure and treatment of employees, dangerous cost cutting measures that led to the disaster, ALL the Executives, Stockhders, and the CEO should all be thrown in jail and fined into bankruptcy!
Once upon a time our rail lines were world famous. Representatives from all over came to study the layout and operations of our switch yards and stations to improve their own. Now it’s all stripped by the highway and what’s left is a joke.
I don't think you should blame the highways for this. Britain built highways too, but was still able to maintain its trains: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motorways_in_the_United_Kingdom Same is true of Germany, Poland and Italy.
@@alexanderfretheim5720 the difference is Britain kept them on as a utility service. Here in the US car companies sent representatives all over the US to shill the automotive future and some even went out of their way to buy up popular local transit services to shut them down and pave over the tracks. In my town a highway cuts right through downtown and if you look closer you’ll realize it’s paved right on top of the embankment for the double track that used to let trains and inter city trolleys take people out of town for cheap. Now if you wish to reach the next town within an acceptable time you MUST drop the 20k plus to get a car.
@@ltchugacast131 Technically they're run as utilities in the US too. The replacement of streetcars with buses actually makes sense because there's literally nothing you can do with a streetcar that you can't do with a bus, whereas buses have the definite advantage that they can be run on regular city streets and thus don't require expensive and difficult track construction and maintenance. Yes, buses are ugly and offputting to the middle class, but that's a product of utilitarian 1970's era design that would likely have happened to the streetcars too if they had remained in use. (It didn't happen in Europe because the aristocracy put their foot down.) Further, the aesthetic and comfort failures of buses are a design choice that can be undone without changing the basic transit technology.
Yes it is a fault of car companies GM, Ford, Chrisler etc that lobbied government in USA to sell off train tracks and instead build massive highways. That should never have happened. Now highways are government owned even that these are very expensive and ineffective, in opposite train tracks are privately owned even if these are highly efficient and cheap. It is like USA is walking on hands instead on legs. You can do it only for short time until collapse. 🥴
Its 'good' at what its designed to do, move full car loads from point to point, bulk shipping. Shipping a large crate coast to coast, outside of a few select cities, is much cheaper to do by truck, which is what that system is set up to do.
For smaller shipments (something that would take up less than a boxcar), trucks make sense, even over long distances. That's why the interstate highway system was such a kidney punch to the railroads in the 50s. Prior to that, long distance trucking was maddening.
So, one thing to note, the Class 1 rail companies aren't adopting new technologies quickly because there's actually law that basically bans doing so unless those technologies are produced entirely within the US. It's called the Buy America Act and it requires all government agencies and all major transportation lines operating within the US to solely operate equipment made in the US. Rail companies won't buy new equipment from, for example, Nippon Shoryu or Siemens, even if doing so would be financially advantageous, because _they're not legally allowed to._ For ANY change to happen, the Buy America Act needs to be repealed.
@@saibattu7745 Depends. If it's just final assembly, it's a no-go. The parts themselves have to be produced in the US, the only stuff that can be imported is base-level components (i.e. transistors) not produced in the US and raw materials.
This is wrong on multiple fronts, 1. They can actually just assemble them here and that can count which is likely they would do anyway with a contract here. They may even build some components here if they got one. 2. It does not require them to us US produced technology, it requires them to prefer it if everything else is equal, IE if the product is better or cheaper outside the country they can buy from there.
@@jamieboer3466 Your argument doesn't match the observed situation. Let's take commuter services for example. It would be advantageous in every way to run DMUs on non-electrified lines due to lower per-unit costs and the fact that you're not wasting fuel powering a large main-line diesel-electric locomotive just to pull a few cars that don't come anywhere near that locomotive's hauling capacity since a DMU's power output and fuel usage both scale with the size of the consist. As a result, DMUs make a huge amount of sense from a business perspective due to the savings and the ability to run more frequent trains without massively increasing your operating costs. So, why aren't they using them? Chicago's METRA makes some sense since they already have the ridership to justify conventional trains, but what about Orlando's Sunrail, which runs consists consisting of two bi-level commuter coaches behind a 3600hp MP32PH-Q. Looking at what's available, no one really makes DMUs in the US. However, some companies, like Nippon Shoryu, are willing to do production runs in the US and have in the past (Nippon Shoryu made the second-generation METRA Bi-level coaches as well as the EMUs used on the METRA Electric and South Shore lines, for example). But that hasn't been done since before the Buy America act had been further amended to expand its restrictions. Again, I cannot stress this enough, companies don't make shitty decisions for the hell of it. A company that does won't be a company for long. There's no reason to operate aging, high-maintence equipment when new, lower-maintence options exist, but we see this happen all the time. If a company is doing something that eats into their profit margins and they're not taking steps to correct it, it's generally because there's something preventing them from doing it. I'm not going to say that the rail companies are completely innocent. Their solution to this problem is to pull an "Axe Man Beeching" and cut expenses at the cost of service quality, expedience and working conditions, rather than pushing for fewer restrictions on rail equipment purchases. But the issue is far more complex than just "Union Pacific Bad" (although Union Pacific specifically has other issues that aren't entirely relevant to this topic).
PSR is truly a disaster of epic proportions. safety is also an issue: since they mix random cargoes you can't easily screen for dangerous goods in case of a derailment or security issue. Nobody even knows what's on these fucking trains until they pull into the depot to be sorted!
@Zaydan Naufal OR, much cheaper, easier and safer would be electrification, double tracking, state-run maintenance (safety > profit incentive) and a digital manifest of cargo, probably also optimising train layouts to isolate hazardous cargo on shorter trains that can fit in passing loops.
@Zaydan Naufal Risky though on long distance trains if something fails, often better to have a human crew onboard. I feel the same about automated Trucks, ideally yes some form of autopilot for the train but there should always be a crew at hand.
I worked for a water analysis lab for a few years, Norfolk Southern was one of my many personal clients. Never had anything but mediocre to bad experiences with them as a company. Took forever to actually pay invoices, unaccomodating to realistic issues presented when sampling, and woefully inept from my experiences.
The most screwed up thing about it is that their lack of volume is hurting not only the consumer but also the producer. I work in the grain shipping industry and due to precision railroading there have been many small town grain elevators that lose service due to not being able to load enough cars. Then the elevator eventually shuts down and the town around it also implodes. F the railroads
9:39 this is EXACTLY the reason I did my best to land a spot at a passenger railway when I got qualified. I’m 90% sure a spareboard would kill me. Now I switch for a passenger railway, and while my hours are shit, they’re 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙮 shit.
The refusal to maintain bridges in the same manner as they had been by the original railroad has created gross eyesores across the nation. A bridge near my home hasn’t been painted for decades, yet the bridge was always freshly painted in the 50s and 60s.
The big two up here in Canada are CN (which used to be a crown (state) corporation until it was privatised in 1995 (thanks Chrétien)) and CP. They seem to see passenger rail as a nuisance and therefore our passenger rail (provided by VIA) makes the US' look good.
They don't "seem" to see it as a nuisance. It is a nuisance to them, and they will tell you so(if they are being honest). The same in the US. Right now it is just the most reasonable solution. For better or for worse.
Passenger rail never made sense in North America. The railways were built to move freight, and passenger rail was a secondary good even back when it was the only option for long-distance travel. Once there were other options only train lovers used them. Driving and flying are better in 95% of cases, and you can survive on what remains.
@@Desmaad That's where it is least viable, all the land is bought up already to it would need to be taken with eminent domain and the government and corporations are not going to run in the expensive land. They will end up forcing the poor and the farmers off their land. The expansion of the cities is already destroying the good farm land let alone new infrastructure schemes like that.
I remember you guys talking about the rail workers troubles on the "building 7 well theres youre problem" episode. It was the first time Ive heard anything about it so thanks for getting the word out. I feel like all we hear from mainstream news is "supply chain issues" and no specific info as to what those issues are.
For the mainstream media to give specifics would require research. Remember that "the news" isn't about informing the viewer, but rather about emotionally investing the viewer enough that they'll stay tuned through commercials. Hence the whole "is a serial killer living in YOUR neighborhood?! find out after these messages" stuff.
I am so happy to work for a railroad that is small enough that when they boast record profits that means we workers are going to be getting a huge bonus that quarter
My father and grandfather have a combined time of almost 100 years working for BNSF and I can say for certain that right now it destroys me knowing that I can only see my dad 6 or so times out of the year or so because of the working hours and not having enough time to meet up and go do something for a bit before he get his call. Hell, growing up with in this environment I have developed the skill to listed out for a train horn amidst the sounds of cars construction equipment and even conversations I can still pick it up.
I hope you learned how to structure your life without that level of desperation. Unfortunately, I think some men get used to it and like being on the road.
Fun Simpsons trivia: Springfield is in Union-Pacific territory. It's also a coastal state, since their radio station starts with K they're west of the Mississippi river, and it gets snow. infer from those data points what you will.
The only issue I have with your video is when you talked about the on call workers. Many are on call 24/7/365 with their only time off being between shifts or on days when there are fewer or no vacancies. Also, I’d love to know where those 4 hour calls are. We get a 2 hour call which is an improvement from the hour and a half we used to get. I’ve been on call for the better part of my 15 years. You have no social life other than vacation time and personal leave days. On paper it doesn’t appear that I work all that much but when you consider that I’m subject to call at any given time, am I really off? No, just waiting for the phone to ring. My circadian rhythm is so screwed up that I rarely get to sleep before 4am. The toll that the uncertain work times is taking on my health and well being are becoming more and more evident. I’m tired all the time. Even on good days, I’m ready to lay down early but that doesn’t matter because I still won’t fall asleep until 4am just in time for the phone to ring at 7am to work a job at 9am because the regular engineer laid off in the middle of the night and I wasn’t constantly checking the board to know about it. Here we go again. Working on 3 hours of sleep. That seems safe.
Believe me, there are worse tracks. For example, The Four Foot has made a video on how bad the trains in the US are and one clip showed tracks which looked like they couldn't even be driven on.
Nationalization - The ONLY way I could see something like that possibly work is for the government to own and maintain the track and have all companies pay for the use of those tracks, much like Interstate and US highways with trucking companies. That could actually bring new pure and hybrid (train / truck) operators to bear. The mistake was allowing the big mergers to happen in the first place and kill what competition there was.
Britain didn't make mergers happen naturally instead we forced railways into 4 big companies starting the big 4 era that went till 1948 with full nationalization. With the big 4 also running passenger trains along side freight on all their lines from small branches through farmland to big heavy traffic mainlines.
@ghost mall Not that I'm aware of. Although in comparison this would imply the government would nationalize the runways and possibly terminals (since there is no need to build or maintain air). Since airlines already pay to use the locally owned runways and terminals, this would make no sense.
I showed this video to my dad who has worked for Union Pacific for 34 years, he said everything was “1000% true and those fucks are worse than you think” He did have one small gripe which was about the supply chain and covid, and once again quoting here. “the railroads were never entirely at fault cause we were still running, we never stopped, in fact when the unstated curfews we were considered essential workers and didn’t stop” He explained how for example if he hauled steel coils every two weeks pre covid, post covid he might have only done it once a month, the rest of the supply chain was slowing down and up had to lay people off, so while they seem like the crux of the issue since they were laying people off, the supply chain caused more issues. I am not sure if you have been made aware of this so I just wanted to share this with you and anyone else watching
Good video, I’m a 18 year railroader, the reason we were gonna strike, and you prob know is we have not had a contract for 3 years, same pay since 2019, worked through the pandemic to only get slapped in the face, one of the reasons was the crew consist was in mediation to get rid of the conductors, and have one man crew, but the mediation board shot the carriers down, the splitters you speak of 16k trains are not helping terminals either , if you don’t know what the carrier does now is send one train to another terminal and it’s combined with another train that’s going beyond its destination and splits in the yard destination which not only clogs up the main but now the yards while it splits in two, they are also. beginning to take their toll on equipment, trains are ripping apart and when a big one rips it’s a mess, PTC and TO will save us though.
I agree. PTC is annoying. The glare in my face from that damn screen (that I don't even look at), and T.O. demonstrates how NOT to run. Yet, the carriers are banking everything on those two garbage technologies.
@@michaelo1929 what is your solution to government mandates, adding needed capacity, and struggling with the flow of goods from China all while staying solvent?
Another feature not mentioned is that these super long trains will not fit in the rail yards, and when they enter the yards, they tie up all movement in the yard, and when they go out the other end, they block xings on those streets, whilst still yarding the train. There may not be enough room in the yards to hold all of the train, so they'll be blocking xings going into, then xings going out the other end. Railroads used to pay fines for blocking xings. How did they wiggle out of that responsibility?
Something that would never happen, but be so sweet if it did: the Texas Railroad Commission actually doing something related to railroading again (it's more of an energy administrator, I think) by being the first state to force rail electrification.
Usually I'm for less regulation. But, in this case when the supply chains are monopolized, you have to due 2 things 1. Create new railroad companies to create competition or 2. Regulate the railroads so safety is a priority. If railroads push back, hit them with anti trust cases.
As a non-American, I'm always bewildered by the freight's right to completely own most rail lines and stop passenger trains as they want. IMO, to even let any High-Speed Rail project gain support from the masses, they first need to fix regular train service
Why shouldn't it be their right, they have built theese rail lines once, so of course they own them. I never wondered about that, since in germany we got a lot of railroad companies that own their rail lines and lot of them prohibit passenger service completely, because they only run freight themselfs and don't want to maintain their rail lines to the higher specifications and higher safety level needed for passenger service.
@@denzzlinga of course it would be the best solution if the freight railroad is completely separated. But in America’s case it’s very hard to implement that as there’s very few surviving railroads to use. The bigger problem would be the utter monopoly these companies hold, and any legitimate power they have over the control of the only rails, as the video’s shown.
"Right to own"? They built the rail lines, they paid for them, they maintain them, and they pay taxes on them. What these videos don't mention is that US railways operate without any government subsidies, in fact they pay tens of billions in taxes. In contrast, European systems where infrastructure is publicly owned contribute nothing in taxes and require tens of billions in subsidies. This is despite their systems being much smaller than the US.
@@TheOwenMajor Europe's railway system isn't much smaller. Both, the us's and the european one are arround 220.000 kilometers in length. And we don't get "nothing" in return for all the tax money, or richer steakholders only. The whole thing is subsidized to have commuter trains on almost all rail lines, and all larger european cities are connected by inter city trains. A thing the us almost completely lacks. Even if a city is crossed by several rail lines, there are many without any passenger service.
About the nationalization thing, here in Brazil in the 1950s the federal government did this, they started a almost complete dismantling of our rail network built in the Empire era to the early republic (1860-1930) So the point is: Nationalize isn't necessarily a good thing (mainly if the politicians are as crap as ours.)
Switzerland nationized most of their rail road companies between 1890 and 1930 because they saw that privately owned companies do crappy stuff all around the tracks. Now, most tracks are owned by the several government with an exclusion of some rail road companies who are partily owned by local governments. The point that we as citizens of our country can decide, which politicians sit in parliaments means that we can do something about the rail road policy. We cannot change the policiy of privately owned compnies.
Politicians frequently tend to meddle with systems they only CLAIM to understand, whether they have advise and resources or not. They don't usually care what they dismantle in the pursuit of their ideas.
I was just at a town hall with my local representatives. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell was there and I shook her hand, looked her right in the eye, and asked her to bring back Conrail. Also I’m emailing her office director this video and few more from the channel. Thanks for your content
And that's one of the many reasons the Milwaukee Road failed: Only a small portion was electrified. Electrification requires all routes everywhere to have overhead wires or there are huge inefficiencies at points when electric locomotives need to be replaced by diesel-electric. Just as was the case on the Milwaukee Road.
I work in freight and transit track design in the United States. I agree with your analysis and proposed solutions, and not just because double tracking and electrification the network would keep me working until I turn to dust.
It's interesting, that you First mention Switzerland (my country) and then Nationalization of the infrastructure. As we actually went the other way, all railways where denationalized and turned into corporations. Still, the Public does hold majority stakes (so in a sense they still are nationalized). At the same time, regulation was created, which allows anyone to operate trains. this has created a more competitive environment, while the properly formulated regulation ensures that you get only paid if you actually maintain the stuff. As freight is concerned: being a small country is a main disadvantage. freight rail gets it easier to outcompete trucks the longer the distance. so increasing efficacy was important. also making trucks pay for the high wear and tear the inflict on roads did help, as well a public vote to not make the mistake to ignore induced demand (no additional road tunnels through the alps). The main difference is: Switzerland has a CPI (Corruption Index) of about 85 (100 = perfect), placing it in the top 10), the US has about 70. (This does not even include the legalised forms.) So whether it's state run or regulated, the have a hard time to wiggle out of their responsibilities. And the Swiss people always have the damocles sword hanging over any industry sector: One Direct Democratic Vote and you're gone and nationalized. If you do worse, as people except a nationalized version would do, you're gone. (Also the reason we do have (a somewhat) working privatized healthcare industry.) It's a really helpful tool, if you're economy is mainly a bunch a juristic psychopaths (more fitting acronym for corporation). And yes, having someone on call, you have them pay half salary for the time (general rule, there are some exemptions). So either management gets their S*** together or they're bankrupt in no time at all. So we only allow somewhat capable useful juristic psychopaths to exist.
The difference beeing, in Switzerland they privatize once all the infrastructure and equipment is paid in by the taxpayers, (That goes for the railroads as other previous public services like Skyguide (ATC), the postal office etc. and they don't even try to charge anything for the huge previous capital cost invested already. Just the promise to break the so called "too high salaries" of the staff and other running cost is enough for a private company to gain access to these ex-public markets.
As most of this is correct, the part about the last big order of new locomotives being in 2008 is not. All Class 1's have been purchasing newer/cleaner power every single year since 2008. They are actively phasing out or rebuilding the older locomotives as well. All new units since 2015 are Tier IV EPA emission compliant too.
While that may be true at some RR's its not at csx, we've had at least 4 seperate rebuild programs since 2010, and are currently running 2 rebuild programs now, an SD70, and an SD40. The 70 program removes the 16 cylinder emd 710 and replaces it with a german made 6 cylinder. I work at the Huntington lovomotive shop as a Boilermaker
Not just this, but it's retarded to buy new locomotives when you can just rebuild them. . . Duh! Bringing existing equipment up to modern standards at every large rebuild is infinitely better than just torching existing locomotives or cars. Hence why the Army upgrades as many existing M1s from the 1980's to modern standards as possible. The Airforce F16s and F16s and so on. The rail industry is so large with so so many moving parts now, that large equipment which is still used resembles old types of tanks or planesduring the cold war and exists from an arms race style of railroading. Old shit like that is literally just either obsolete or not worth fielding lmao Without conflict, there is generally less improvement. Ideally you should not need conflict to exist just to move forward, but thats just part of human nature right? Lol
Uhm, buddy, I dunno, but he talked about the Indian Railway. They really closed down their dieselworks. Their designs were oldschool Alco-based constructions, but they closed everything. No new diesel engines for India.
The evidence suggests it can but anti government religion is strong here, but as in other issues, other countries prove your knee jerk reaction incorrect.
@@timf2279 well, the government was forced to, since the railway companies were about to scrap them altogether because they weren't profitable. But then, other countries nationalized their railway systems and are doing just fine. So all you have are lame excuses.
Commuter trains, unless bankrolled at exorbitant rates by the taxpayer, are NEVER profitable unless the population is ultra densely packed. Which means the northeast, and nowhere else.
In the town I used to live in, CN has a yard and tracks passing right next to the town center, near a college. On a map, the tracks are almost in a straight line to Montreal (the trip from the said town to Montreal by car is arround an hour), yet the county has to use buses to get to Montreal because the VIA train service is absolutely dog shit (it passes 0.5 times a day... one day to, one day from).
Of course the Swiss freight rail system is great, first, it's paid by the tax payer, then secondly, it's paid a second time by whoever ships their goods, and then it's paid a third time by train travellers who buy their overpriced tickets from a monopolist train travel company that owns the monopolist goods freight company. If you buy something and pay triple, it'd better be good!
The US railroads can electrify, would be costly but would provide cost savings in the long run (say over 20 years after full electrification). Electrification of passenger rail in the northeast us began around 1907 but never even remotely completed. The sheer power and torque the electric locomotives would provide would be more than enough to do the job effectively
"The sheer power and torque the electric locomotives" Huh? You do know it's Diesel....-electric right? The issue is the length of track required and the maintenance required. Overhead electric lines require tons of maintenance. It's not uncommon here in Canada for locomotives to simply bash their way through fallen trees, now if those trees take down the wires, and your 300 km from the nearest yard, that causes massive delays.
We're on the cusp of a national rail strike. Things are looking great. /s It would've already happened a couple weeks ago if our union leadership didn't do something stupid.
This is not an easy subject, and the solution is definitely not simple. If you propose nationalisation, that simply means that the business is not profitable enough. If this is the case, it's probably to the unfair competition from trucks. The railroad companies, like all companies, have to compete in the market against many others of different sectors with certain profit margins. That's the sad true, but it's easy to point the finger at the management without going deeper. I think that a tax advantage could be a good option, given the benefits that railroad freight brings vs other ways of transportation.
It's not complicated. It's a strategically important industry and will be a key to sustainable development for decades to come. Inadequate government support and poor planning is the main issue. You don't see that issue in China or Europe. Profit is not the be all and end all of every single industry or service.
@@IshtarNike You cannot compare different countries with different infrastructures and geography. What makes you think that government support will increase service quality and not only profits? I guess you invest your money only for the sake of humankind and not to get dividends.
The problem here is not that the businesses are not profitable but rather that they have a natural monopoly in their territory (i.e. only they allow to run their own trains own their own tracks).
@@MarioFanGamer659 They use each other's tracks all the time. They are obliged to give access. Just think of Amtrak and how much track they own vs how much they use.
I've been a truck driver since 2003 and can say the railroads have a very robust lobby in DC and are constantly trying to get government to further regulate trucking as to make it less attractive as a shipping option. Theyre endlessly trying to get our hours of service- the number of hours in a day we can drive - decreased, along with blocking all attempts to increase the weight amount trucks can legally haul. They lobby the government to rig the system against their competition
Preach it until I see a tanker car at a gas station or refrigerator car at my grocery store, they can shut up or put up,ive been driving trucks going on 28 years now and it's getting worst out here,with ever body in our business.
I work in a logistics facility as a merchandise coordinator in Illinois that relies on shipping from the port of LA via BSNF. It is a complete and utter shit show. How can I coordinate the goddamn merchandise if I have no idea where it is or when it will get here?
It's called planning ahead and making sure you have enough stock. I work as a logistics coordinator, as long as you forecast correctly and hold buffer stock what's the issue? With rail freight, you need to plan a couple months in advance. If you do require something faster order via truck. Maybe you need to do your forecasting more accurately?
@@TheOwenMajor That is not something I have control over. My job is building-specific. I don’t order or make decisions regarding inbound transportation
@@ebryan1990 Then your company has intentionally kept it out of your hands, and at the same time, made you feel responsible for it. Work towards getting your company to change or change your place of employment. Keep an eye on regulations in effect... many govt regulation moves are politically motivated and intentionally counter productive for workers and companies alike. Escape to less regulated jobs or vote differently to ditch some bad regulations. There still exist "good" companies that know how to treat employees, but they are becoming more scarce.
You do know that, in exchange for those land grants (which were only alternate Sections), the predecessor railroads had to carry mail, troops, and other Federal property at below market rates - for decades. It was, as several have opined, one of the shrewdest business deals ever made by the Feds. And, no, I don't work for any of the railroads.
BNSF literally has like 5 or 6 very long trains parked outside of rathdrum Idaho. And some look like they've been parked there for a while. Really makes you wonder what clients and companies are waiting on some of the items in those train cars.
As a railroader, I can tell you that these aren't railroads, they're investment and exchange companies that just so happen to back their value by trains, not gold. Big, crappy, nasty, glorious trains
Have you got a better alternative that will actually work? Nationalisation isn't a widely accepted thing beyond this TH-cam video, you know.
Nope, this is how businesses are run. There's nothing we can do about it, besides just ride out what it is. It would be great if UP could focus on the work they do and the people that work for them, but that's not what makes the most money. That's how They make record profits every single quarter. The fact is, we can deal with the failings of the railroad as a money printer or we can deal with them as a government entity but opening the can of worms that would allow a cascade like that to happen would take a monumental failure on part of the railroads to move freight. Besides, the amount of government overlap In the railroad industry is actually mind boggling. Even the craft has been considered federal employees, when convenient. Any time the rail road has been in trouble, here's a government grant to the rescue. We're where we are now Mainly because of PSR though. Cutting too deep and catching back up too slowly. There's a lot of thing that allowed PSR to happen, but that could probably fill a whole video 😅
I used to work in airlines. Airline staff thought they owned the company. Nope, other than pilots it is just another job, and you should come to grips with that 🎃
@@777jones were you not paying attention or just talking to yourself?
did you not watch the video, read his comments, or care to be here for whats said?
is it a political belief or did you completely misphrase what you said while not being in the same room, conversation, topic, and thought process but still talking?
@@Neville60001 it is a widely accepted thing. Just not in the country we live in. If you ever get to travel to Asia though, you will be amazed at the level of development of the railway system and overall pleasant experience using the trains in countries like Singapore, China, Japan, etc
I am a railroader and I agree with everything you said except 1 thing. That 1 thing is we are on call 7 days a week and we have 90 mins to get to work after our call at any time of the day or night. Other than that your spot on lol
My god, your sleep schedule must be awful
@@jesusjimenez3766 Very much so. That is why we demand to be paid for what we give up with this job.
@@VetGamer718 completely understandable
But you choose to work that job under those stipulations for an agreed upon wage correct?
@@GlennTXstate10 NO that's not correct. We used to be able to get more days off. This all changed in FEb.2022. Days off used to be manageable and the company would let you take them but now they don't.
The railroads: "But Alan, how will we pay our shareholders if we have to pay our employees and improve our infrastructure? We can't possibly do both."
The correct answer should be "do it or just sell the railroads to the public, or else we will put our entire being into ensuring you and your shareholders end up in prison for god knows how many counts of tax evasion and fraud.
Do what New Zealand did with the internet and give out loans to these companies to upgrade infrastructure
@@Coolsomeone234 not enough, there needs to be a element of force to this, the companies have proven they won't willingly do what needs to be done
@@jonathanredacted3245 Won't use the loans for capital investment? No funding.
@@Coolsomeone234 how about we do something actually effective and nationalize the industry
9:50. I am a locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern. We are treated terrible and it is 6 days a week. And conductors don’t get ANY days off and we are only given 2 hours call. Also. THANKS FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO!!!
you needa get the fuck outta there damn
DieselDucy, do they still call it the “Nazi Southern”?
Thank you
How is everything in the company now with the Ohio Incident?
I wouldn’t be proud of this buddy. Norfolk southern = lying killers 😢 Ohio
I worked for Norfolk Southern for 8 years. I was purposely told on several occasions to not serve a customer. We would not have the time to make it back and they did not want to spend the money on another crew to come relieve us and finish everything. The managment in the last 5 years made the job awful. No schedule, I was home 10 hours and gone for 48 hours. I was on the clock over 18 hours several times even though we legally can not operate the train after 12 hours. PSR destroyed an already rough industry.
"... not have the time to *not* make it back ..." I think the second "not" in your comment above shouldn't exist, you just made a double negative there. 😊
@@DarkVoidIII Good catch. I must have over looked that.
Second the notion that PSR was the railroads downfall. Do you get held away pay after 12 like the UP? My old boss sat for 33 hours waiting for relief in an inaccessible area during a winter storm, got back to the terminal and was told to be ready in 12 hours on Christmas Eve. He cleaned out his locker and told the corridor manager to eat 💩.
I hired out on Southern Railway in April of ‘79, retiring 41 years later from Norfolk Southern in 2020. The last two years I worked were beyond unbelievable! How such a great and strong industry as the American class 1 railroads could be so quickly raped, pillaged, and left for dead in such a short time is beyond outrageous! Wall Street did this via activist hedge fund robber barons, and the Federal government just sat back and let it happen! Of course I’m sure they received large envelopes under the table to encourage blindness! And now the RR’s are baffled as to why the thousands upon thousands of employees they unceremoniously dumped two years ago turn down offers to come back to work, even with healthy bonuses!
@@tomt9543 I think the carriers are purposely driving us off. I quit UP after 13 years and went to Amtrak. It’s nice to work for a company that treats us like human beings.
I think there are two facts that just add salt to the wound.
1: These companies are not financially struggling in any way. Despite their poor maintenance and labor practices, as well as continually degrading the quality and speed of the service they provide.
2: These companies could make even more money if they literally put ANY money into upgrading their infrastructure. On the low end, double tracking or even just maintaining a few lines would allow them to run trains even more profitably and faster. On the high end, electrification would basically reduce running costs on that railroad to almost zero.
How would faster trains make the companies more money. More wear and tear on equipment and how is a 40' container getting from LA to Chicago 2 or 4 hours faster going to benefit them, where rates are based on all sorts of factors, time not being one of them. Shippers of bulk, which is what rail does, care more about predictability than speed.
@@shopshop144 Time dependent goods = High value goods. Like yeah nobody cares how long it takes a car full of coal to get somewhere but maybe railroads shouldn't be relegated to only carrying the least time dependent of goods. The only market railroads can gain is that which they take away from trucks
Electricity isnt free lmao
@@shopshop144
1: Faster Train = More equipment utilization and less labor costs.
2: With how the companies have their infrastructure set up, there could be DAYS saved on a trip that long. Many sections of track are so bad they have been downgraded to 10mph ratings for dead straight track. Combine that with most lines being single tracks, and a trains could spend a 12 hour shift waiting for a green signal.
@@Heatherder But if you use electrified Trains you dont need to drive all the diesel around. that makes the Trains lighter so they dont need as much energy to move stuff around. Also electrisity can be made from renewable sources.
I've lived in a "railroad town" much of my life (near a major yard), and one maddening (and dangerous) thing that has happened the last few years is that trains get backed up and block street crossings. You can be many miles away from an under- or overpass with a train just sitting there, sometimes for hours. This is a hassle passed along to all drivers and can be dangerous for emergency vehicles.
It's a typical form of pushing external costs onto the communities, essentially using our towns as extensions of their yard, another form of "pollution".
You realize these towns built up around the railroad yards right? Not the railyards invading a "community." Use the gray matter between your ears. I know its hard. Don't like it? Move.
@@silverbackag9790 that’s absolutely no excuse for the railroads making the trains unnecessarily and unsafely long, then paying the meager fines they receive for the behavior as a cost of business rather than the warning it should be.
They are trying to reactivate a line here and the town is worried they will block two rr crossings with the long trains. That is a problem for emergency vehicles. The trains they are talking about running are much longer.
The word you are looking for is “externalities”.
@@silverbackag9790 clown moment
I worked for Union Pacific. I remember one train went from West Colton, California to Houston and back without ever having the train switched out and the cars delivered to customers. It was on its third round trip between West Colton and Houston, and I had to switch the train out at an intermediate point even though none of the cars were destined there. This was a 14K ton train. Up and down the hills burning thousands of gallons of fuel and delivering no cars to customers. This was considered 'precision scheduled railroading'.
I saw a lot of the same empty center beams going back and forth. UP loves doing rolling storage.
@@rjohnson1690 That's what it is, rolling storage. Trouble is that it costs more than storing cars because of track occupancy, locomotive and crew use, fuel consumption, car hire and other costs that I haven't mentioned. Now, how on earth can that be contributing to making a profit for the company? I can't see any way that it can.
@@markfryer9880 yeah I don’t get it either. UP does a lot things that are pretty baffling. They are always robbing Peter to pay Paul with their screwball plans.
@@markfryer9880 It's a tax dodge, plain & simple.
I bet weekly carloadings were up during that period! ; )
I worked for BN for 38+ years. During that time our management made it abundantly clear that their job would be perfect if they didn’t have customers and employees to deal with.
Trucking companies are basically the same way!!!
This is, in fact, a storyline of all of modern America (and in extension, all of western culture in general). People who just want to be managers and finger pointers and tell people what to do, without any feedback or talk back, and get richly rewarded for being the person telling others to do work, while despising the very people that make any organization wealthy in the first place. Until it changes overall, in every facet of society, this won't improve anywhere. We are told we are free and democratic, yet in the most important part of any person's life (their work and economic life) they have none of either of those.
My dad said it got even worse after it became BNSF.
@@jerjerferson
He's not wrong. Before I retired on some jobs there were more scabs than employees working. I doubt that has changed in the 10 years I've been retired.
@@FJA--- my dad retired back in 2000 so I imagine it's much worse now than it was back then. He said that the worst part of the whole thing was that his BN leadership was decent but they were all replaced by SF company men
As a Russian I didn't even know that passing sidings were a thing because I've literally never seen a railroad that wasn't double-tracked. The realization that it isn't like that in America was a huge cultural shock
Even with double tracked lines, you still need some passing loops to accomodate trains of different stops and speeds. But of course, they're much less necessary when you don't need to make space for a train coming from the other direction.
"Poor Russians living under Soviet Communism don't know the freedom of single tracked railroads."
@@MarioFanGamer659 And you don't have to worry about an incident like Hinton in 1986 happening.
That’s interesting. And there are of course exceptions here in the US like BNSFs triple track mainline over Cajon and many many others but yes a lot of single track lines still exist
In Australia we only have single lines way out in the outback.
Ah, the mental pandemic known as "cost cutting", currently rampaging throughout the US business world.
Cost-cutting is called running a business. Socialists don't run functioning systems, they keep stealing from people to pay for their fantasies. That's how you get 20 year waiting times to get a car in the soviet union and people living in 400sqft block apartments in the largest country on Earth.
Well, it's the the only way to create "record" profits. You didn't seriously think greed had any bound did you?
the real trick is continuously growing year over year profits, sustained by unsustainable business practices, and without improving underlying infrastructure. That now that is flawless.
@@arkeuzarts5140 How do you think "record" profits are achieved what is this Singapore.
The US and everywhere else.
This video goes well with the current new with Norfolk Southern and the derailment in Ohio.
How does one have anything to to with the other? You think a failed axle is due to poor management?
@@jre617 I feel that cutting corners and ignoring the safety of stakeholders has a direct correlation to poor management
@@beverly9486 And to answer my question?
@@jre617 Your first question was how does one have to do with another? the video’s intro points out that the industry is slow to adapt new technology and fights any changes made. Little innovation and updates to the the trains and infrastructure along with lobbying to block and undue policies that promotes safety yet cuts profits…I think that lines up with your second question.
@@jre617 How are you not making the connection? A company that literally _will not replace its infrastructure unless it fails catastrophically_ is *not* doing the maintenance that would catch the failed component before it derails and causes a mess. There's a reason there are so many videos of diesel trains spewing fire from a blown turbo.
I feel like THE CONRAIL ERA is slowly becoming more and more of a meme until Conrail will actually be brought back.
Somebody actually made the Penn central again
In-fuckin-shallah
Get the conrail X dark Brandon memes going and maybe we’ll have a shot of something good happening for once…
@@jintabix3758 yeah coast to coast
@@jintabix3758 Conrail*
As a Factorio player, the concept of running double length trains thru old infrastructure is a quick way to completely jam your tracks
I'm sure the tens of thousands of people who manage the logistics of rail freight transport as a full time job will greatly appreciate your factorio knowledge.
@@TheOwenMajor Incompetent people tend to exist in groups you know.
@@therealextractedjuice Yeah, they usually offer their comments on Europhile TH-cam videos.
@@TheOwenMajor So calling for the implementation of common sense policies makes you a Europhile?
starting literally any argument with experience from a video game as your proof of legitimacy instantaneously invalidates everything you have to say
Our call is a 2 hour call. And we work 11 of 14 days. And they regularly run us out of town the day before our "day off" and it absolutely crushes any ability to plan or schedule things in our personal lives.
This is what the public doesn’t understand. Then they say “well why do you work there? Get another job”. I wish we had went on strike so they could see the devastation it would have caused and why what we do is so important and worth what we were asking for was well deserved. I’m not in the field. I’m a dispatcher and finally able to hold a regular schedule because so many are quitting. But we still get tagged a lot and are forced to work our off days because of a shortage of workers. It pisses us off when we have a crew out there on the law and can’t get them off the train for hours and management just acts like ‘oh well. It is what it is’. I had a train master just yesterday cancel a taxi I ordered because they feel it’s a waste of money. The crew had to wait 2hrs for the yard shuttle to get back and take them to the hotel. Let me stop now because I’m ready to start ranting 😂
I would quit tomorrow. No money is worth that.
@@juggernaut808 your problem is that you are helping make your own situation desperate.
The world won't end if some people don't get their stuff... but then somebody might actually do something about it without ruining your life.
Don't live your life like they own you.
Yeah well welcome to the US. We're all just slaves to upper management in the Corporations. I mean I feel for you and it is wrong. But your industry isnt the only industry that has to deal with shit like that. Welcome to the club.
I went back to truck driving after being laid off during the pandemic.
This is all 100% true. Having worked with them directly for intermodal transportation, they are all awful to deal with and increase prices for customers in completely unnecessary ways. The worst by far is Union Pacific. Got a container stuck in a stack that you need to move? Well screw you. We will charge you a daily fee for leaving your container here, but we won't let you pull it on a private chassis. You need to use one of our chassis's, which we don't currently have enough of, so you just wait your turn and pay up til we say you can do something. And don't even hope to accurately track your container in motion. I could go on but who has the time.
My buddy works at a grain shipper and there the crew has a saying that "You can't spell stupid without UP"
The duopolies remind me of what the author of Donut Economics says about the free market:
“The free market doesn’t exist because whoever has the most money makes rules up so that they can keep their money. So don’t you want to use your vote in order to have a say in what those rules are?”
All of these problems can be solved with a magical money tree. It's magical, because even though it spits out more money to solve problems, it doesn't devalue currency already in circulation. It's the wonderful magic of socialism and communism.
@@troy3456789 If there is one entity I trust less than government, its corporations and they have ruined the ideals of free market and directly caused the rise of socialism and communism.
@@troy3456789 you mean taxes?? Who said we have to print money, we use taxes to pay for things which, newsflash, Doesn’t increase inflation. Most inflation is caused either by banks creating money through fractional reserve banking or through a cut of supply while demand rises (ie what we’re experiencing rn)
@@legoboy468 Only the government can create inflation. All the governments that printed money during covid created their inflation as well. None of the countries that did not print money and hand it out experienced inflation.
To be clear, this quote really just pertains to plutocracies (rule by the rich), like the USA. Also, frankly, the USA is far enough into the realm of plutocracy that the people's votes don't ever count, unless they're accompanied by a large suitcase full of cash. I'm not saying "don't vote," but don't expect the voices of a million everyday people to have the same weight as the vote of any given corporate CEO.
The 4 organized crime syndicates that are fighting to kill trains
Five, counting the unions which more often than not look out for the union leaders and the union elites long before the rank-and-file members.
@@shopshop144 I feel like the union leaders fucked us completely by agreeing to this TA that literally zero of my coworkers have said they'd vote for. Congress might not have prevented the first strike but now that a TA has been achieved, I think our leverage went straight out the window. Can't wait to see how many more people quit after their backpay.
@@scopie49 it still has to be voted on...
@@corxc997 Yes. Supposedly congress wasn't going to stop the strike and that forced the carriers to negotiate. But now the union leadership came to a TA and I'm 99% certain it will be voted no. There's no guarantee congress will allow us to actually strike the second time around. It will most likely be after midterms and they might be less willing to let us strike since the "union leadership thinks the TA is good enough so everyone else should be satisfied, too."
Except it's _because_ they're following the law that things are getting screwed over. The Buy America act prevents Class 1 and 2 rail operators, among other things, from purchasing foreign equipment even if they wanted to.
So, while the companies are being shit, the government is definitely NOT helping.
I been a railroad conductor for 22 years. Since about 2006 the railroads have been run by Wall Street investors buying railroad stock to a point they have a say how railroads are run. These Wall Street investors all want large profits quickly from the rail companies. The easiest way to get shareholders rich is extream cost cutting measures. That in detail is cutting employment from all departments from a rail road especially the T&E Department. Trainmen and Engineers (T&E) jobs have been cut the most in the past 20 years running the rest of us T&E employees into the ground. My work load during my shift has increased by at least 75%. Jobs that have had 3 people on them are cut to 2 man jobs and even into 1 man jobs. The railroad has basically crippled me in the past 22 years, it's a physically takes a toll on your body each and every day. Only reason I stayed with the railroad was $35 a hour working in the railyard and a pension after 30 years. So in the past year or two railroad engineers and conductors are burnt out and are quitting the profession in masses. Less employees means trains aren't moving as quickly as they once were. The railroads are reluctant to do mass hiring as there profits goes down with more employees. I'm writing this before I watch this video. But I'm sure the person who is responsible for it has no clue on how a railroad works. I Believe trains only carry about 20% or less in the transport of good. We need more truck drivers and more railroad employees PERIOD !!! These 7 major railroads in America (CP, CSX, CN, NS, UP, KCS, BNFS) ALL MAKE BILLONS IN PROFITS 📈 EACH YEAR BUT CRY WHEN FEDERAL RAILROAD AGENCIES TELL THEM TO HIRE MORE PEOPLE !!!
Some industries shouldn't sell stocks.
Yeah me too. Been working for only a year. I’m already realizing how hungry the CEO’s are.
I think this guy alan fisher who made this video is a wall street schill trying to hurt the railroad. Afterall what is left after reducing the rail worker volume to a skeleton crew but to claim it is old, dirty, inefficient and ultimately unnecessary. They want to kill the rail roads. This guy's video sucks and he can get stuffed. I love railroads and the people who work them - there needs to be more hires - this alan fisher guy is the one who is old, dirty, inefficient and unnecessary.
Yup. I'm a conductor also
@@t42press15 why stick with diesel locomotives though? Why are companies resisting electrification at all costs?
the us government: ill use the n word
railways: nationalisation?
us government: *NI-*
railways: *AAAAAAHHHHHH*
As a Rail Worker (DB), I feel pretty comfortable in saying that your system in the US Fucking sucks. For a Rail company to actually work you need a few things:
-Excellent Planning (ik, DB isn't good in that either but a) its slowly changing and b) I know my schedule for the next 6 months)
-Good Working Conditions (Paid illness leave for example is a standard here)
-Investments both in infrastructure (expansion) and in your train fleet
-And lastly, people in HR who are more dedicated to keep the railroad running rather than company profits.
yeah, this is true, there's no way we can defend our shitty rail system
Well said!
The German system also sucks, the DB has no competition in long distance rail, Fernverkehr is a monopoly in Germany. Railinfrastructure and railway have to be strictly separate into different companies.
@@montiro8999 that's also changing: I believe that open access operators are coming.
I hate unionized workforce period . they made indian railways like shit
Thank you for including the part about freight trains not fitting in sidings, making the shorter Amtrak train always be the one that waits. I seriously regretted not putting that in my own Amtrak video last winter.
Oh hey! It's you! Loved your Amtrak video haha. Very educational and I learned many things I didn't know before!
I've noticed this as soon as I started taking Amtrak in the early-21st Century. Unfortunately, because of this, travel time to and from NYC was actually the same as Greyhound. There's slightly more room on the train, but the keyword in that sentence is "slightly." If you're close to 6 feet or taller it's not much. You'd have to rent a room in a sleeping car, but good luck being able to afford that.
@@DTD110865 The problems vary by route. Where were you riding from?
Amtrak doesn't own the lines so they wouldn't have the right of way anyway
@@alexwithclipboard Three places. One was Dade City, which no longer has Amtrak trains, one was Orlando, and one was Tampa. That was in the early-to-mid-2000's though.
I feel like a lot of large businesses in the US have been taken over by "bean counters" who have game-ified spread sheets and strategies to maximize financial output for a minimum financial input - not maximum profit or long-term viability, mind you, just extracting max profit for the least possible investment.Sure, they'll slowly wreck the company; but, they maximized everyone's investment!
It's not the bean counters, it the consumers. Capitalism is just unsustainable, you figured it out when you were a kid. You cannot have infinite growth with finite resources. Cutting waste using computers was the last golden age for this type of economy, you cannot cut any more. That's why it's trying to expand into space instead of addressing any of the issues with scarcity. Capitalism doesn't understand the concept of priceless, and there are some thing you cannot buy back.
That just sounds like capitalism
@@outlawruby not really. these analysts are harvard/yale business school scammers. capitalism is actually providing the services for what you charge.
Capitalism only works on paper because human beings are not rational agents and have finite lifespans. Saving a buck today to pay 10 bucks in a week seems ridiculous, except when you're the CEO of an unchecked monopoly and you have the power to move that cost to future generations or to the government-funded competition (e.i. the highway network).
@@outlawruby No that is just cronyism with spreadsheets and not effort.
I was offered a job at CSX about 25 years ago. Turned it down flat after they told me about the schedule. Thankful I did.
they all lived in harmony before alan attacked
I mean... weebs have more friends than train buffs do. Trust me, I know...
@@matthewtymczyszyn8948 "young" train buffs
Reminds me, I ended up quitting the anime community for the train one, The anime one gets pretty repetative and compared to trains which isn't fictional.
@@calestial2457 they certainly feel fictional in my neck of the woods
@@calestial2457 It amazes me some of the stuff the Thomas fandom digs up. Wilbert Awdry's papers were largely preserved so people are constantly digging up new details.
And I swear to God, the wooden toys will survive the Apocalypse. Mine look right out of the box!
I recently was reading an article how a large number to rail workers were on strike due terrible treatment they were receiving. And the train companies had the Gaul to try to say the workers were holding America hostage.
brother-in-laws dad was a railway worker. just a track maintainer. died worth millions.
That's correct, we were told it was our fault!
*gall
Yeah, that strike affected GM here in the DFW area. I work for "GM & Universal" , a warehouse that handles most of the individual parts of a vehicle and sorts them for the correct order for GM to build their cars. Anyway, about a month ago or so, we were told we'd be closed for the weekend, (our week here usually ends on Saturdays) and possibly into Monday. Come Monday and well, we had no parts. We were grabbing from the reserves. Our shifts have been all over the place since then. Cherry on top, they did the strike during our time to change parts for the yr 2023/24. So it's been chaotic.
To clarify, I'm not blaming the strike for our chaos necessarily, just stating how it's affected the warehouse in which I work at in terms of production output.
What do the ancient Celtic of modern day France have to do with railroads? Oh, gall!
The best way to describe PSR: Doing less with less. You hit the nail on the head with this video, glad to be back in school and going into a different field of work. FYI Canada has almost all the same problems as the US, only difference is our duopoly is between CP and CN.
The biggest single thing that could be done to help workers is to repeal legislation that forces striking workers back to work. Then there would be negotiations in good faith. Right now it's so bad that new workers like myself see the best option is to walk away and pursue a different career whereas railroad jobs used to be coveted.
Boring storytelling
Four hours!? Five days a week!? I routinely worked seven days a week (when I was in the yard often twice a day) with only ten hours rest, and I only got a 90 minute phone call. One of the final straws for me was the horrible train lineups. Before PSR the lineups were bad, after PSR they were like reading a Magic Eight ball. The way class 1 freight companies treat their employees is downright criminal.
EMD POWER!!
Wow, it's almost like leaving natural monopolies in the hands of private companies will lead to monopolies! And monopolies are like, bad?
I am shocked.
Probably the best answer to railroad monopolies is making it easier to operate barges on American rivers, lakes and canals. Trucks already compete with rail on fast cargos, so having barges, which can literally be a mom-and-pop operation, competing with rail on slow, cheap cargos should bring a great deal of balance to the system.
and a Government monopoly is better?
More proof of a corrupted government. Covid killed 500,000 Americans per year. Cigarettes kill 750,000. Imagine if covid was caused by a known product but was still allowed and was indemnified against lawsuits in exchange for an annual payment.See Master Tobacco Settlement.
@@boblynch2802 Basically no, but why do you assume that the only alternatives are a monopoly of private railroad companies and a monopoly of government? Most operators of barges on the Mississippi River are small business owners. We need to ask what we can do to help small ma and pa barge operators compete with the big railroads! The parts of America that contain the majority of our population are traversed by navigable rivers and canals.
Just wait!
"The government railroad monopoly will be infinitely better than shareheld monopolies!"
- Said literally no one with a brain
Lol
Nice to see the Indian Railways being mentioned in a positive light. Only very few foreigners seem to realize how good it is given the conditions it operates in. I'm very proud of projects such as Kavach, Train 18, DFC and the massive WAG 12 locomotive.
high-reach pantographs and double-stack intermodal with flatbed cars instead of gondolas even on the electrified track. Don't forget that part. Nobody does intermodal in a more energy efficient way than IR.
Well, they're probably still operating as a public service instead of just a corporation that profits as well by claiming losses as by showing a profit.
Honestly it's a great system. It's a (very cost effective) mass transit system, a intercity passenger system and a freight system all-in-one. The Indian Railways are a great example of how to responsibly use your resources to do the most good.
WAG 12 is amazing!
@@turdferguson2982 Well, it IS a PUBLIC SERVICE. It is COMPLETELY OWNED and operated by the government, so the regulations about right of way and train priorities can be properly enforced.
Companies are so greedy. If the government owned the tracks but companies operated on them that is a good balance.
Who is responsible for maintenance and repairs?
@@SporkyMcFly gov
Kind of like airlines, where airports and air traffic are government controlled with private lines doing the actual shipping
@@burgerpommes2001 Anything sounds preferable to this, but the government sucks at managing anything.
that is how it works in france since the early 2000s and it literally killed freight rail in the country.
Funny thing …… looked into who owns the rail carriers , a bunch of companies in the pockets of both parties. So don’t expect much help from the government.
BNSF for example is one of the largest donors to PBS.
@@ianhomerpura8937 So,Your point?
As a Pennsylvania native, Pennsylvania was well known with Pennsylvania Railroad. They ran electric freight trains between DC to NYC, Harrisburg via Philly to NYC, and Harrisburg to DC. That carried on through Penn Central years and Conrail until early 1980s they stopped running electric trains. Conrail retired their electric roster such as GG1 and E60. Enola yard, Port Road branch, Campben-Amboy and Columbia Secondary got de-electricfied. All the freights diverted onto non electric routes (Harrisburg Line, Reading Line, Lehigh Line) just so they wouldn't conflict with Amtrak on Northeast Corridor and so as on Keystone.
I see this with just about every company that decides it needs to adopt the corporate mindset. They let the bean counters dictate their actions while ignoring the experienced people that are actually dealing with the processes first hand. Everything looks great in the office setting while all the big shots sit in meetings all day to justify their wages. Outside the fancy offices is pure chaos and gross mismanagement. It's everywhere now and infested just about every industry.
Health care suffers from the same thing bean counters don't consider patients needs
This is why they got hauled in front of Congress recently, and were sternly reminded that they are common carriers under the law, which means they are legally obliged to serve anyone who wishes to ship things with them.
That obligation has not gone away, nor is likely to anytime soon, and if it takes something like steep penalities or straight up nationalizing the entire system altogether, so be it.
Precision scheduled railroading was also called out for the fraud it was, and it was something to sit and watch the railroad execs sit and sweat.
yeah but if we nationalized the railroads can you imagine the amount of people bleeding from their eyes and screaming about "MUH COMMUNISM!!"
that's a big part in our problems with the government actually getting anything done
@@memethief4113
You can't please everyone, but I'd rather have a rail system that works for all than one that only lines the pockets of rich corporate types.
@@Shipwright1918, same, and I HATE the idea of nationalizing most anything, but as far as railroads and real crappy utility companies go, it really should be done at this point. Maybe we give them one last chance, find everyone in management/investors that has been criminally negligent, pushing dangerous conditions, neglecting infrastructure, ect, which is most of them, have the government seize all their assets and sentence them to 20 years of VERY hard labor, enforce stricter labor + safety laws on the companies, as well as force the companies to invest 90% of all profit into infrastructure repair until their respective industries are the best in the world.
That or the government should straight up seize these companies and fire almost all of the management and prevent them from working in their industries ever again, oh, and no golden parachute for them.
That's the only 2 ways sadly to fix those industries at this point.
As if congress has ever had any idea wtf they are talking about.
Bruh. Congress is literally making railroad workers life harder
As a CONRAIL employee… there’s alottta facts in this post because I live it everyday!
In my experience, I’d have to say that gross incompetence of management is the major factor that disrupted everything. Many managers became managers simply by being related to someone that was a manager. And then they started making having a college education crucial to becoming management instead of having experience. There is no amount of college that will make you a better manager than having actual experience at what you’re doing. Every single aspect of the job was normally pandemonium.
Having a pointless college education to do a job that a trained monkey could do is pretty much standard these days.
This is a universal problem, promotions and raises are no longer based on merit. Its based on who you know, what you say, and if you have a 200 grand plus piece of paper that says I can do things. Despite having no real world experience or understand the world at all for that matter.
Not gross incompetence--GREED.
If you have 10 levels of management micromanaging to S*** out of the guy actually doing the job, you can no longer afford to hire a actually competent guy to do the job. even if by some miracle you do get someone good, the micromanaging will interfere with his work to the point where the job doesn't get done. but how would you justify the huge overhead and the big salaries, if they did nothing at all?
There was a company in belgium which went belly up. bankruptcy guys talked to the workers, fired all top management, and they immediately went back to making a profit.
I am happy that you mentioned something positive about Indian railways.
I know it is not good but it is definitely improving fast and I can see that in front of me. From punctuality to rolling stock to safety, everything is much better then what it was 10 years ago and will be much better in the next 10 years.
You have atleast not stereotyped Indian railways as some old sluggish system where people travel on roofs of trains because they don't. I have travelled a lot and have never seen anybody on the roof of a train in my entire life. Yes the trains are still crowded for unreserved class but that will also improve as more and more sections are being tripled or quad tracked. So that will allow more trains to operate and that will ease congestion.
On electrification aspect, we are electrifying 6,000km+ track km every year.
Now I am aware that the energy being used for it is not clean but it will be. Plus that is not an excuse not to electrify because burning fossil fuels in thermal power plant is more efficient than these locomotives.
Plus it is electricity at the end of the day, so switching sources will not be difficult because locomotives don't care what was the source of the electricity the are using.
Most of the pics of those trains with people on the roof are from Bangladesh afaik, and even they are massively improving their railway system.
@@ianhomerpura8937 and if you look at them they look really old.
6000 km per year? holy fucking shit that's incredible
Indian railways is not good? It sounds like a dream compared to North America!
That's passenger rail, and that only happens in times of depression. Last I checked India isn't in a recession it just has a housing problem.
As someone who grew up in the Chicago Metro Area, the railroad capital of the US. I can confirm all these opinions are true in the 90s and early 00s there were tons of trains but usually quick. But as time went on train took what seemed like forever and more and more stopped on the tracks. And getting crossings repaired took just as long .
New York is the passenger railroad capital of the US. Chicago's passenger rail network pales in comparison.
@@monica012077 Well that's nice, but that comment and the video are not about passenger rail.
I was going to say Atlanta, but I looked it up on google. It’s Chicago.
As someone that was born, raised and lives in Aurora, freight trains have to wait until after the Metra morning rides to be able to go through.
@@monica012077 New York’s passenger trains are also the ones with the worst staff service.
I personally despise New York’s passenger trains.
Alan, for someone who attacks other youtubers for fact checking, you need to check you 4 hour status call. It can and typically is 1.5-2 hours notice for the big orange guy. :)
He also got the locomotive order part so wrong, I can't even fathom. NS just bought a fairly sized order of brand new SD70ACe Tier 4 credit units from EMD/Progress Rail over the past two years. UP bought a significant number of SD70ACe/AH units during the 2010's, SD70AH-T4 units during the last couple of years.
BNSF, UP, CN, CSX, and NS have received a large number of brand new GEVO units, both tier 3 and tier 4, from GE Transportation (now wholly owned by Wabtec). I believe CP is the only Class 1 to not have bought brand new diesel locomotives, not rebuilds or ex-lease units, in more than 10 years.
@@hakeemsd70m I like Alan, I just wish he drop this arrogant attitude he's taken on recently. He's not infallible either
@@rustingparts I feel you and see what you're saying, there was a lot of him acting out in this video. The old "railroading is outdated, they need to get with the times" theme and attitude as well, it's tiring rhetoric.
@@hakeemsd70m he's not wrong, he's just pretentious about it
@@rustingparts Agreed.
The property tax situation is something that's very often overlooked. More/better infrastructure leads to higher taxes, disincentivizing capital improvements and maintenance, and incentivizing de-electrification, single-tracking, and demolishing historic stations and other buildings. No other transportation system faces such a burden. Quite the opposite in fact. The big tax receipts from railroads helped fund the highways that put many of them out of business.
I wonder if we could work out an alternative legal situation, similar to a British letters patent, that has the rail right of way as a fiefdom rather than real estate, which would exempt it from property taxes and instead require the company to provide passenger services and support for the military and evacuations in the place of tax.
@@alexanderfretheim5720 Easy Tax cuts for those that hit a specific Criteria. I do not believe in subsidies but Tax Cuts for compliance to regulations
@@noirekuroraigami2270 Most businesses are required to comply with regulations WITHOUT tax cuts.
Oklahoma recently failed to get the Supreme Court to review an lower court ruling, that, had it gone the other way, might have led to shorter trains. They were told that, no, the States don't get to decide how long a train can block a crossing. That's the Federal government's purview.
I'll see if I can find it.
City of Edmond, Oklahoma v. BNSF Railway Company
If a city is concerned about crossing delays, the city is more then welcome to build an over or underpass. Almost guarantee you the rail line was there before the road was.
@@TheOwenMajor the railroad owns the land, so the railroad would have to approve any overpass or underpass, and building one would mean that section of track would be unusable for the construction time so the railroad almost certainly would refuse to approve it.
@@silaskuemmerle2505 You think you can't build an over/underpass while keeping a line mostly active?
Pardon me while I'm laughing.
Why do people who obviously have no idea what they are talking about so freely give their opinions?
Firstly, railways are perfectly fine with grade separations. In fact, having grade-separating crossings is better for the railroads too.
Secondly, it's not very hard(Relatively). For an overpass, you build the approaches to the bridge( No closers needed) and then set pre-fab bridge spans onto the supports. This can( and is) done regularly, and only requires closing the line for a matter of hours.
And underpass in also fairly You simply dig out the underpass section(Next to the rail line), construct the bridge and new railway, and then transfer the active line over. Again you only need to close the rail line for a matter of hours. Something that already occurs regularly for routine maintenance.
@@TheOwenMajor "dibs" is only part of the issue. They also weren't running 2+ mile long freight trains when it was there. And that's if they even approve the overpass, which they likely wouldn't.
@@Joesolo13 Firstly, they are allowing a public crossing of their land. Your comment is like the person who moves next to a factor, then starts complaining the factor is noisy. A city doesn't get to complain about crossing delays when they decide to build a major road at level grade with a railway, instead of spending the money for a grade seperation.
Secondly, where did you get this notion railways are refusing to allow overpasses to be built, lol. Bring up Google Earth and go to a fair-sized city. I guarantee you there will be plenty of over/underpasses.
Hand an already shit system created by lawyers and accountants to our stunningly ineffective federal bureaucracy. What could possibly go wrong?
How about let the state governments operate their own rail networks?
I love trains, I did ever since I was a kid, I had a model railroad then and now as a 25 year old I have one again. Nothing is more fun than watching that little train except for watching the real ones go by, but hearing about how poorly run they are and how they treat their workers is atrocious. I hope one day we realize how important and beneficial trains are and can be again, especially with upgrades like you mentioned with the Swiss trains.
I decided against applying for CP rail up in Canada because they expect you to be on call 24/7 (no weekends off; only vacations and holidays) with only 2 hours of notice (not 4 as described in the video).
In researching the company I learned that they have had several rail strikes recently. But the news media did not cover the actual issues very well. Apparently the main things under dispute were "wages and working conditions": but they were offering near $6000/month to start, so I concluded the the real point of contention was working conditions.
6000$/month is not nearly enough to have your free will removed. Actually no amount is enough for that sh*tshow of a schedule.
@@bilbobaggins1934 HR is a misnomer. HR does what's best for company, not the humans.
Everyone ignores the actual reason why we have supply chain issues. Who’s idea was it to shut down all of our critical factories and move them and the jobs overseas? Why are our railroads clogged up with millions of containers of products made in China and Korea and other countries? Imagine if the thing you purchased at the store was made somewhere close to where you live. There wouldn’t be a supply chain issue and there would be millions of jobs created. Blame it all on the railroads if it makes you feel better. But when was the last time you bought something made in America? Every time you order something from Amazon it comes from Mexico or China or India and has to be shipped half way around the planet to get to you. If there is a supply chain problem it’s you that are the cause of it. Not overcrowded and overworked railroads.
As a Michigander, when I see a thumbnail that excludes my state from a disaster map, I am legally obligated to watch.
Amtrak had its own problem on a recent trip to Chicago. A 5.5 hour trip turned into a 19 hour nightmare. Electrical went out on the train and the toilets would not flush.
I mean as another michigander we probably cant even afford railroads have you seen how bad our roads our?
I think our geography works against us w.r.t. railroads. Railroads can't pass the straits, and the UP and northern LP aren't population centers demanding high-volume service. I think the map showed service going as far north as Flint. Maybe Saginaw and GR have rail service, I don't know. Beyond that, it's a lot of delivery trucks.
Tough to swallow considering I'm a UP and BNSF rail fan. I like seeing the diesel freight trains run and appreciate how many old work horses have been saved from scrap but I absolutely hate the corporates who have chosen to trash these good names. This especially applies to the evil Norfolk Southern. Especially after the big rail accident that resulted in contaminating a whole town in Ohio, they should ashamed of the way they disgrace the great names they inherited such as the PRR, New York Central, Norfolk and Western, Western Maryland and many others. And for all the neglect of infrastructure and treatment of employees, dangerous cost cutting measures that led to the disaster, ALL the Executives, Stockhders, and the CEO should all be thrown in jail and fined into bankruptcy!
Once upon a time our rail lines were world famous. Representatives from all over came to study the layout and operations of our switch yards and stations to improve their own. Now it’s all stripped by the highway and what’s left is a joke.
I don't think you should blame the highways for this. Britain built highways too, but was still able to maintain its trains: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motorways_in_the_United_Kingdom Same is true of Germany, Poland and Italy.
@@alexanderfretheim5720 the difference is Britain kept them on as a utility service. Here in the US car companies sent representatives all over the US to shill the automotive future and some even went out of their way to buy up popular local transit services to shut them down and pave over the tracks. In my town a highway cuts right through downtown and if you look closer you’ll realize it’s paved right on top of the embankment for the double track that used to let trains and inter city trolleys take people out of town for cheap. Now if you wish to reach the next town within an acceptable time you MUST drop the 20k plus to get a car.
@@ltchugacast131 Technically they're run as utilities in the US too. The replacement of streetcars with buses actually makes sense because there's literally nothing you can do with a streetcar that you can't do with a bus, whereas buses have the definite advantage that they can be run on regular city streets and thus don't require expensive and difficult track construction and maintenance. Yes, buses are ugly and offputting to the middle class, but that's a product of utilitarian 1970's era design that would likely have happened to the streetcars too if they had remained in use. (It didn't happen in Europe because the aristocracy put their foot down.) Further, the aesthetic and comfort failures of buses are a design choice that can be undone without changing the basic transit technology.
Yes it is a fault of car companies GM, Ford, Chrisler etc that lobbied government in USA to sell off train tracks and instead build massive highways. That should never have happened. Now highways are government owned even that these are very expensive and ineffective, in opposite train tracks are privately owned even if these are highly efficient and cheap. It is like USA is walking on hands instead on legs. You can do it only for short time until collapse. 🥴
@@teranova5566 Very few train tracks were sold off to become highways. Most were maintained as freight routes.
If the US freight rail system were good, there wouldn’t be 18-wheelers littering every interstate highway.
Its 'good' at what its designed to do, move full car loads from point to point, bulk shipping. Shipping a large crate coast to coast, outside of a few select cities, is much cheaper to do by truck, which is what that system is set up to do.
For smaller shipments (something that would take up less than a boxcar), trucks make sense, even over long distances. That's why the interstate highway system was such a kidney punch to the railroads in the 50s. Prior to that, long distance trucking was maddening.
@@ixiairisborne1695 Box cars can be loaded just like trucks can be.
The glorified European rail system must be even worse then.
They have big rigs littering Europe as well. Basically, that's the only way they transport freight in Europe.
So, one thing to note, the Class 1 rail companies aren't adopting new technologies quickly because there's actually law that basically bans doing so unless those technologies are produced entirely within the US. It's called the Buy America Act and it requires all government agencies and all major transportation lines operating within the US to solely operate equipment made in the US. Rail companies won't buy new equipment from, for example, Nippon Shoryu or Siemens, even if doing so would be financially advantageous, because _they're not legally allowed to._
For ANY change to happen, the Buy America Act needs to be repealed.
So they can't buy ALC-42's even though they are built in Sacramento?
@@saibattu7745
Depends. If it's just final assembly, it's a no-go. The parts themselves have to be produced in the US, the only stuff that can be imported is base-level components (i.e. transistors) not produced in the US and raw materials.
This is wrong on multiple fronts, 1. They can actually just assemble them here and that can count which is likely they would do anyway with a contract here. They may even build some components here if they got one. 2. It does not require them to us US produced technology, it requires them to prefer it if everything else is equal, IE if the product is better or cheaper outside the country they can buy from there.
@@jamieboer3466
Your argument doesn't match the observed situation. Let's take commuter services for example. It would be advantageous in every way to run DMUs on non-electrified lines due to lower per-unit costs and the fact that you're not wasting fuel powering a large main-line diesel-electric locomotive just to pull a few cars that don't come anywhere near that locomotive's hauling capacity since a DMU's power output and fuel usage both scale with the size of the consist. As a result, DMUs make a huge amount of sense from a business perspective due to the savings and the ability to run more frequent trains without massively increasing your operating costs. So, why aren't they using them? Chicago's METRA makes some sense since they already have the ridership to justify conventional trains, but what about Orlando's Sunrail, which runs consists consisting of two bi-level commuter coaches behind a 3600hp MP32PH-Q.
Looking at what's available, no one really makes DMUs in the US. However, some companies, like Nippon Shoryu, are willing to do production runs in the US and have in the past (Nippon Shoryu made the second-generation METRA Bi-level coaches as well as the EMUs used on the METRA Electric and South Shore lines, for example). But that hasn't been done since before the Buy America act had been further amended to expand its restrictions.
Again, I cannot stress this enough, companies don't make shitty decisions for the hell of it. A company that does won't be a company for long. There's no reason to operate aging, high-maintence equipment when new, lower-maintence options exist, but we see this happen all the time. If a company is doing something that eats into their profit margins and they're not taking steps to correct it, it's generally because there's something preventing them from doing it.
I'm not going to say that the rail companies are completely innocent. Their solution to this problem is to pull an "Axe Man Beeching" and cut expenses at the cost of service quality, expedience and working conditions, rather than pushing for fewer restrictions on rail equipment purchases. But the issue is far more complex than just "Union Pacific Bad" (although Union Pacific specifically has other issues that aren't entirely relevant to this topic).
Smartest comment in the entire thread.
10 year railroader and now in management.
This video nailed it right on the fucking head
You’re right, scooby doo probably would counter argue “well Switzerland is so small compared to the United States”
It's actually Shaggy's argument, but Scooby Doo repeats it mockingly.
Switzerland is. Russia, China and India are not.
PSR is truly a disaster of epic proportions. safety is also an issue: since they mix random cargoes you can't easily screen for dangerous goods in case of a derailment or security issue. Nobody even knows what's on these fucking trains until they pull into the depot to be sorted!
@Zaydan Naufal OR, much cheaper, easier and safer would be electrification, double tracking, state-run maintenance (safety > profit incentive) and a digital manifest of cargo, probably also optimising train layouts to isolate hazardous cargo on shorter trains that can fit in passing loops.
PSR and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
@Zaydan Naufal Risky though on long distance trains if something fails, often better to have a human crew onboard. I feel the same about automated Trucks, ideally yes some form of autopilot for the train but there should always be a crew at hand.
@Zaydan Naufal The train can do the driving while humans supervise and take over for switching.
@Zaydan Naufal driverless trains aren’t a thing and it would solve nothing
I worked for a water analysis lab for a few years, Norfolk Southern was one of my many personal clients. Never had anything but mediocre to bad experiences with them as a company. Took forever to actually pay invoices, unaccomodating to realistic issues presented when sampling, and woefully inept from my experiences.
So... anyone came back to this vid after that shitshow in ohio?
A good reminder that eventually, these kind of monopolies kill people. Regulations are written by blood.
The most screwed up thing about it is that their lack of volume is hurting not only the consumer but also the producer. I work in the grain shipping industry and due to precision railroading there have been many small town grain elevators that lose service due to not being able to load enough cars. Then the elevator eventually shuts down and the town around it also implodes. F the railroads
9:39 this is EXACTLY the reason I did my best to land a spot at a passenger railway when I got qualified. I’m 90% sure a spareboard would kill me. Now I switch for a passenger railway, and while my hours are shit, they’re 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙮 shit.
As a passenger rail guy too, I can confirm this consistency of shit personally. Haha
The refusal to maintain bridges in the same manner as they had been by the original railroad has created gross eyesores across the nation. A bridge near my home hasn’t been painted for decades, yet the bridge was always freshly painted in the 50s and 60s.
The ghost of Hunter Harrison is alive and well on all the lines. I work for NS and the operating ratio is all management talks about.
The big two up here in Canada are CN (which used to be a crown (state) corporation until it was privatised in 1995 (thanks Chrétien)) and CP. They seem to see passenger rail as a nuisance and therefore our passenger rail (provided by VIA) makes the US' look good.
I would be super happy if via was as good as Amtrak... And that's pretty depressing
They don't "seem" to see it as a nuisance. It is a nuisance to them, and they will tell you so(if they are being honest). The same in the US. Right now it is just the most reasonable solution. For better or for worse.
Passenger rail never made sense in North America. The railways were built to move freight, and passenger rail was a secondary good even back when it was the only option for long-distance travel.
Once there were other options only train lovers used them. Driving and flying are better in 95% of cases, and you can survive on what remains.
@@TheOwenMajor I'd stay it's still viable in denser parts of the continent (the Quebec-Windsor Corridor and the Northeast Corridor, for example).
@@Desmaad That's where it is least viable, all the land is bought up already to it would need to be taken with eminent domain and the government and corporations are not going to run in the expensive land. They will end up forcing the poor and the farmers off their land. The expansion of the cities is already destroying the good farm land let alone new infrastructure schemes like that.
I remember you guys talking about the rail workers troubles on the "building 7 well theres youre problem" episode. It was the first time Ive heard anything about it so thanks for getting the word out. I feel like all we hear from mainstream news is "supply chain issues" and no specific info as to what those issues are.
For the mainstream media to give specifics would require research. Remember that "the news" isn't about informing the viewer, but rather about emotionally investing the viewer enough that they'll stay tuned through commercials. Hence the whole "is a serial killer living in YOUR neighborhood?! find out after these messages" stuff.
Alot of the terms in this video appeared in that podcat lol
*Shouting the N word at Railroads because Alan told me to*
I enjoy the blunt and straightforward commentary. Good video, you seem to actually have a clue what's going on in the industry.
I am so happy to work for a railroad that is small enough that when they boast record profits that means we workers are going to be getting a huge bonus that quarter
OH SNAP ALAN GOING AFTER THE RAILROADS
*LETS GOOOO*
My father and grandfather have a combined time of almost 100 years working for BNSF and I can say for certain that right now it destroys me knowing that I can only see my dad 6 or so times out of the year or so because of the working hours and not having enough time to meet up and go do something for a bit before he get his call. Hell, growing up with in this environment I have developed the skill to listed out for a train horn amidst the sounds of cars construction equipment and even conversations I can still pick it up.
It hurts to see this I used to love trains going by but to know you don’t even get to see your dad it sucks
I hope you learned how to structure your life without that level of desperation.
Unfortunately, I think some men get used to it and like being on the road.
Fun Simpsons trivia: Springfield is in Union-Pacific territory. It's also a coastal state, since their radio station starts with K they're west of the Mississippi river, and it gets snow.
infer from those data points what you will.
No.clue.
I suck at geography.
@@RobertDetert It's in the Northwest. It can only be Washington or Oregon.
The only issue I have with your video is when you talked about the on call workers. Many are on call 24/7/365 with their only time off being between shifts or on days when there are fewer or no vacancies. Also, I’d love to know where those 4 hour calls are. We get a 2 hour call which is an improvement from the hour and a half we used to get. I’ve been on call for the better part of my 15 years. You have no social life other than vacation time and personal leave days. On paper it doesn’t appear that I work all that much but when you consider that I’m subject to call at any given time, am I really off? No, just waiting for the phone to ring. My circadian rhythm is so screwed up that I rarely get to sleep before 4am. The toll that the uncertain work times is taking on my health and well being are becoming more and more evident. I’m tired all the time. Even on good days, I’m ready to lay down early but that doesn’t matter because I still won’t fall asleep until 4am just in time for the phone to ring at 7am to work a job at 9am because the regular engineer laid off in the middle of the night and I wasn’t constantly checking the board to know about it. Here we go again. Working on 3 hours of sleep. That seems safe.
It's the same on the commercial boats buddy, greedy fucks won't want all those I'll gains when it's time to pay.
Oh god that bouncy train going over the level crossing at 6:00 is just giving me nighmares. That track is so awful.
Bouncy trains are the main reason for hunting oscillation, which makes transcontinental Amtrak trips MUCH worse.
@@ianhomerpura8937 I thought the ECML in the UK was a bit crap, but this is orders of magnitude worse.
Believe me, there are worse tracks. For example, The Four Foot has made a video on how bad the trains in the US are and one clip showed tracks which looked like they couldn't even be driven on.
Nationalization - The ONLY way I could see something like that possibly work is for the government to own and maintain the track and have all companies pay for the use of those tracks, much like Interstate and US highways with trucking companies. That could actually bring new pure and hybrid (train / truck) operators to bear.
The mistake was allowing the big mergers to happen in the first place and kill what competition there was.
Britain didn't make mergers happen naturally instead we forced railways into 4 big companies starting the big 4 era that went till 1948 with full nationalization. With the big 4 also running passenger trains along side freight on all their lines from small branches through farmland to big heavy traffic mainlines.
@ghost mall Not that I'm aware of.
Although in comparison this would imply the government would nationalize the runways and possibly terminals (since there is no need to build or maintain air). Since airlines already pay to use the locally owned runways and terminals, this would make no sense.
I showed this video to my dad who has worked for Union Pacific for 34 years, he said everything was “1000% true and those fucks are worse than you think”
He did have one small gripe which was about the supply chain and covid, and once again quoting here. “the railroads were never entirely at fault cause we were still running, we never stopped, in fact when the unstated curfews we were considered essential workers and didn’t stop” He explained how for example if he hauled steel coils every two weeks pre covid, post covid he might have only done it once a month, the rest of the supply chain was slowing down and up had to lay people off, so while they seem like the crux of the issue since they were laying people off, the supply chain caused more issues.
I am not sure if you have been made aware of this so I just wanted to share this with you and anyone else watching
Certified big business moment
Good video, I’m a 18 year railroader, the reason we were gonna strike, and you prob know is we have not had a contract for 3 years, same pay since 2019, worked through the pandemic to only get slapped in the face, one of the reasons was the crew consist was in mediation to get rid of the conductors, and have one man crew, but the mediation board shot the carriers down, the splitters you speak of 16k trains are not helping terminals either , if you don’t know what the carrier does now is send one train to another terminal and it’s combined with another train that’s going beyond its destination and splits in the yard destination which not only clogs up the main but now the yards while it splits in two, they are also. beginning to take their toll on equipment, trains are ripping apart and when a big one rips it’s a mess, PTC and TO will save us though.
When Trip Sodomizer rips your train in half because of a PTC fault, make sure you tell it to go walk the train once they've gone to 1 man crews lol
I agree. PTC is annoying. The glare in my face from that damn screen (that I don't even look at), and T.O. demonstrates how NOT to run. Yet, the carriers are banking everything on those two garbage technologies.
@@michaelo1929 what is your solution to government mandates, adding needed capacity, and struggling with the flow of goods from China all while staying solvent?
Another feature not mentioned is that these super long trains will not fit in the rail yards, and when they enter the yards, they tie up all movement in the yard, and when they go out the other end, they block xings on those streets, whilst still yarding the train. There may not be enough room in the yards to hold all of the train, so they'll be blocking xings going into, then xings going out the other end. Railroads used to pay fines for blocking xings. How did they wiggle out of that responsibility?
Something that would never happen, but be so sweet if it did: the Texas Railroad Commission actually doing something related to railroading again (it's more of an energy administrator, I think) by being the first state to force rail electrification.
In TEXAS?!?!?!? I'm surprised they aren't demanding the return of coal-fired steam engines.
@@larkmacgregor3143 ah, but we have much more oil than coal here.
@@larkmacgregor3143 why would the state call for anything of that nature? Don't be stupid
@@jerredwayne8401 Your irony filter seems to be malfunctioning. You should get that looked into.
Usually I'm for less regulation. But, in this case when the supply chains are monopolized, you have to due 2 things 1. Create new railroad companies to create competition or 2. Regulate the railroads so safety is a priority.
If railroads push back, hit them with anti trust cases.
The reason why there's 4 rail roads in monopoly.
As a non-American, I'm always bewildered by the freight's right to completely own most rail lines and stop passenger trains as they want.
IMO, to even let any High-Speed Rail project gain support from the masses, they first need to fix regular train service
Why shouldn't it be their right, they have built theese rail lines once, so of course they own them.
I never wondered about that, since in germany we got a lot of railroad companies that own their rail lines and lot of them prohibit passenger service completely, because they only run freight themselfs and don't want to maintain their rail lines to the higher specifications and higher safety level needed for passenger service.
@@denzzlinga of course it would be the best solution if the freight railroad is completely separated. But in America’s case it’s very hard to implement that as there’s very few surviving railroads to use. The bigger problem would be the utter monopoly these companies hold, and any legitimate power they have over the control of the only rails, as the video’s shown.
"Right to own"?
They built the rail lines, they paid for them, they maintain them, and they pay taxes on them.
What these videos don't mention is that US railways operate without any government subsidies, in fact they pay tens of billions in taxes.
In contrast, European systems where infrastructure is publicly owned contribute nothing in taxes and require tens of billions in subsidies. This is despite their systems being much smaller than the US.
@@denzzlinga They built them using the government's money. Same thing as with big pharma.
@@TheOwenMajor Europe's railway system isn't much smaller.
Both, the us's and the european one are arround 220.000 kilometers in length.
And we don't get "nothing" in return for all the tax money, or richer steakholders only. The whole thing is subsidized to have commuter trains on almost all rail lines, and all larger european cities are connected by inter city trains.
A thing the us almost completely lacks. Even if a city is crossed by several rail lines, there are many without any passenger service.
About the nationalization thing, here in Brazil in the 1950s the federal government did this, they started a almost complete dismantling of our rail network built in the Empire era to the early republic (1860-1930) So the point is: Nationalize isn't necessarily a good thing (mainly if the politicians are as crap as ours.)
The 1950s was a time when the government was insanely neoliberal, i.e. Kubischek and his move to Brasilia scheme.
Our politicians are crappier.
Switzerland nationized most of their rail road companies between 1890 and 1930 because they saw that privately owned companies do crappy stuff all around the tracks. Now, most tracks are owned by the several government with an exclusion of some rail road companies who are partily owned by local governments.
The point that we as citizens of our country can decide, which politicians sit in parliaments means that we can do something about the rail road policy. We cannot change the policiy of privately owned compnies.
Politicians frequently tend to meddle with systems they only CLAIM to understand, whether they have advise and resources or not. They don't usually care what they dismantle in the pursuit of their ideas.
I was just at a town hall with my local representatives. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell was there and I shook her hand, looked her right in the eye, and asked her to bring back Conrail. Also I’m emailing her office director this video and few more from the channel. Thanks for your content
“We need to electrify all the rail lines” me: THE MILWAUKEE ROAD
And that's one of the many reasons the Milwaukee Road failed: Only a small portion was electrified. Electrification requires all routes everywhere to have overhead wires or there are huge inefficiencies at points when electric locomotives need to be replaced by diesel-electric. Just as was the case on the Milwaukee Road.
I work in freight and transit track design in the United States. I agree with your analysis and proposed solutions, and not just because double tracking and electrification the network would keep me working until I turn to dust.
It's not a 4 hour call. It's a 2 hour call, other than that this is pretty damn accurate
Sounds like what the union trucking is.
Call times differ by terminal. Some have as little as an hour and a half, some locations get a two hour call. Chicago gets a three hour call, etc.
At NS it was a 90 minute call but would give 120 as a courtesy when available (99% of the time)
It's interesting, that you First mention Switzerland (my country) and then Nationalization of the infrastructure. As we actually went the other way, all railways where denationalized and turned into corporations. Still, the Public does hold majority stakes (so in a sense they still are nationalized). At the same time, regulation was created, which allows anyone to operate trains. this has created a more competitive environment, while the properly formulated regulation ensures that you get only paid if you actually maintain the stuff. As freight is concerned: being a small country is a main disadvantage. freight rail gets it easier to outcompete trucks the longer the distance. so increasing efficacy was important. also making trucks pay for the high wear and tear the inflict on roads did help, as well a public vote to not make the mistake to ignore induced demand (no additional road tunnels through the alps).
The main difference is: Switzerland has a CPI (Corruption Index) of about 85 (100 = perfect), placing it in the top 10), the US has about 70. (This does not even include the legalised forms.)
So whether it's state run or regulated, the have a hard time to wiggle out of their responsibilities. And the Swiss people always have the damocles sword hanging over any industry sector: One Direct Democratic Vote and you're gone and nationalized. If you do worse, as people except a nationalized version would do, you're gone. (Also the reason we do have (a somewhat) working privatized healthcare industry.) It's a really helpful tool, if you're economy is mainly a bunch a juristic psychopaths (more fitting acronym for corporation).
And yes, having someone on call, you have them pay half salary for the time (general rule, there are some exemptions). So either management gets their S*** together or they're bankrupt in no time at all. So we only allow somewhat capable useful juristic psychopaths to exist.
The difference beeing, in Switzerland they privatize once all the infrastructure and equipment is paid in by the taxpayers, (That goes for the railroads as other previous public services like Skyguide (ATC), the postal office etc. and they don't even try to charge anything for the huge previous capital cost invested already. Just the promise to break the so called "too high salaries" of the staff and other running cost is enough for a private company to gain access to these ex-public markets.
As most of this is correct, the part about the last big order of new locomotives being in 2008 is not. All Class 1's have been purchasing newer/cleaner power every single year since 2008. They are actively phasing out or rebuilding the older locomotives as well. All new units since 2015 are Tier IV EPA emission compliant too.
While that may be true at some RR's its not at csx, we've had at least 4 seperate rebuild programs since 2010, and are currently running 2 rebuild programs now, an SD70, and an SD40. The 70 program removes the 16 cylinder emd 710 and replaces it with a german made 6 cylinder. I work at the Huntington lovomotive shop as a Boilermaker
Not just this, but it's retarded to buy new locomotives when you can just rebuild them. . . Duh!
Bringing existing equipment up to modern standards at every large rebuild is infinitely better than just torching existing locomotives or cars. Hence why the Army upgrades as many existing M1s from the 1980's to modern standards as possible. The Airforce F16s and F16s and so on. The rail industry is so large with so so many moving parts now, that large equipment which is still used resembles old types of tanks or planesduring the cold war and exists from an arms race style of railroading. Old shit like that is literally just either obsolete or not worth fielding lmao
Without conflict, there is generally less improvement.
Ideally you should not need conflict to exist just to move forward, but thats just part of human nature right? Lol
Uhm, buddy, I dunno, but he talked about the Indian Railway. They really closed down their dieselworks. Their designs were oldschool Alco-based constructions, but they closed everything. No new diesel engines for India.
@@mr.trueno6022 yeah, he also was talking about US Class 1's. To which I was referring. Couldn't care less about India.
so basically trains good, railroad companies bad...
yes
It's so bad when you think the government could do a better job, ugh 😫
The evidence suggests it can but anti government religion is strong here, but as in other issues, other countries prove your knee jerk reaction incorrect.
@@Redactedlllllllllllll what evidence, you mean how the post office is run?
@@The_Chosen_None_ do you want to elaborate?
This guy is a clown thinking the government can run a railroad.
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
@@timf2279 well, the government was forced to, since the railway companies were about to scrap them altogether because they weren't profitable.
But then, other countries nationalized their railway systems and are doing just fine. So all you have are lame excuses.
But, grocery stores have no competition. Companies buy shelf space now. Inflation guaranteed...
CN is the sole reason that my city doesn't have a commuter rail service that goes thru all of the most populated areas in the metro area
Commuter trains, unless bankrolled at exorbitant rates by the taxpayer, are NEVER profitable unless the population is ultra densely packed. Which means the northeast, and nowhere else.
In the town I used to live in, CN has a yard and tracks passing right next to the town center, near a college. On a map, the tracks are almost in a straight line to Montreal (the trip from the said town to Montreal by car is arround an hour), yet the county has to use buses to get to Montreal because the VIA train service is absolutely dog shit (it passes 0.5 times a day... one day to, one day from).
@@drm9397 road networks are also highly subsidized by taxpayers
Of course the Swiss freight rail system is great, first, it's paid by the tax payer, then secondly, it's paid a second time by whoever ships their goods, and then it's paid a third time by train travellers who buy their overpriced tickets from a monopolist train travel company that owns the monopolist goods freight company. If you buy something and pay triple, it'd better be good!
The US railroads can electrify, would be costly but would provide cost savings in the long run (say over 20 years after full electrification). Electrification of passenger rail in the northeast us began around 1907 but never even remotely completed. The sheer power and torque the electric locomotives would provide would be more than enough to do the job effectively
"The sheer power and torque the electric locomotives" Huh? You do know it's Diesel....-electric right? The issue is the length of track required and the maintenance required.
Overhead electric lines require tons of maintenance. It's not uncommon here in Canada for locomotives to simply bash their way through fallen trees, now if those trees take down the wires, and your 300 km from the nearest yard, that causes massive delays.
@@TheOwenMajor you tell em owen💪
I wish Iowa would do more protecting our environment, especially because we are an agricultural state.
This makes me really worried about America's future
We're on the cusp of a national rail strike. Things are looking great. /s It would've already happened a couple weeks ago if our union leadership didn't do something stupid.
What future?
4:48 Jesse, we have to use BNSF
Dang if BNSF did not monopolize NM, we would have a national Walter White pandemic.
This is not an easy subject, and the solution is definitely not simple. If you propose nationalisation, that simply means that the business is not profitable enough. If this is the case, it's probably to the unfair competition from trucks. The railroad companies, like all companies, have to compete in the market against many others of different sectors with certain profit margins. That's the sad true, but it's easy to point the finger at the management without going deeper. I think that a tax advantage could be a good option, given the benefits that railroad freight brings vs other ways of transportation.
It's not complicated. It's a strategically important industry and will be a key to sustainable development for decades to come. Inadequate government support and poor planning is the main issue. You don't see that issue in China or Europe. Profit is not the be all and end all of every single industry or service.
@@IshtarNike You cannot compare different countries with different infrastructures and geography. What makes you think that government support will increase service quality and not only profits? I guess you invest your money only for the sake of humankind and not to get dividends.
The problem here is not that the businesses are not profitable but rather that they have a natural monopoly in their territory (i.e. only they allow to run their own trains own their own tracks).
@@MarioFanGamer659 They use each other's tracks all the time. They are obliged to give access. Just think of Amtrak and how much track they own vs how much they use.
I've been a truck driver since 2003 and can say the railroads have a very robust lobby in DC and are constantly trying to get government to further regulate trucking as to make it less attractive as a shipping option. Theyre endlessly trying to get our hours of service- the number of hours in a day we can drive - decreased, along with blocking all attempts to increase the weight amount trucks can legally haul. They lobby the government to rig the system against their competition
Preach it until I see a tanker car at a gas station or refrigerator car at my grocery store, they can shut up or put up,ive been driving trucks going on 28 years now and it's getting worst out here,with ever body in our business.
I work in a logistics facility as a merchandise coordinator in Illinois that relies on shipping from the port of LA via BSNF. It is a complete and utter shit show. How can I coordinate the goddamn merchandise if I have no idea where it is or when it will get here?
It's called planning ahead and making sure you have enough stock. I work as a logistics coordinator, as long as you forecast correctly and hold buffer stock what's the issue?
With rail freight, you need to plan a couple months in advance. If you do require something faster order via truck. Maybe you need to do your forecasting more accurately?
@@TheOwenMajor That is not something I have control over. My job is building-specific. I don’t order or make decisions regarding inbound transportation
@@ebryan1990 Then your company has intentionally kept it out of your hands, and at the same time, made you feel responsible for it. Work towards getting your company to change or change your place of employment. Keep an eye on regulations in effect... many govt regulation moves are politically motivated and intentionally counter productive for workers and companies alike. Escape to less regulated jobs or vote differently to ditch some bad regulations. There still exist "good" companies that know how to treat employees, but they are becoming more scarce.
Deregulate to create competition ... yeah right.
You do know that, in exchange for those land grants (which were only alternate Sections), the predecessor railroads had to carry mail, troops, and other Federal property at below market rates - for decades. It was, as several have opined, one of the shrewdest business deals ever made by the Feds. And, no, I don't work for any of the railroads.
BNSF literally has like 5 or 6 very long trains parked outside of rathdrum Idaho. And some look like they've been parked there for a while. Really makes you wonder what clients and companies are waiting on some of the items in those train cars.