• You999@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It is intentional but you have the wrong reason. Right now all of the class one railroads are trying a business strategy called precision schedule railroading in order to boost their stock prices. The meat and potatoes behind PSR is to lower the railroad’s operation ratio as lower as possible by reducing anything that isn’t absolutely critical to making the business run. That means cutting your staff to below a skeleton crew level while fighting the FRA to allow for one man crew trains, running extremely long trains even if it literally divides a community, and deferring maintenance unless uncle Sam wants to pitch in. In some extreme cases of PSR some railroads have even gone as far as closing down tracks in sections with multiple main lines.

      • greenskye@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I feel like the car industry doesn’t compete at all with cargo rail. You don’t move tons of coal with a semi. That would be astronomically more expensive.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    All the rail companies are doing at this point is making the case for their shit to get nationalized stronger every single day. This is critical infrastructure, and they’re intentionally running it into the fucking ground.

  • Glaive0@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    It seems like the issue is that the safety inspector ISN’T saving them any money by catching issues before they’re fined for them. If they were actually ever held accountable for safety issues, his job would pay for itself.

    BNSF is absolutely a gilded age-level corporate villain. But no one is coming after them if Don doesn’t find these issues and that’s a problem too. If the rail safety bureau (or whoever manages rail safety) wants to hire him for the same job, I think BNSF would rethink that position VERY quickly.