• horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    This kid just got 10k for saying rail infrastructure is failing due to a lack of maintenance. Specifically the springs at junctions. The main failing here in the US though is that rail maintenance falls to rail companies that have little financial incentive to spend the money on safety. That may be changing, however if the federal government just hands over money with inadequate oversight it will just enrich the companies.

    https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/fact-sheet-rail-safety

    https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-us-rail-system-works

    https://www.publicrailnow.org/site/assets/files/1036/putting_america_back_on_track_final_6-30-24_single_pages.pdf

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The main failing here in the US though is that rail maintenance falls to rail companies that have little financial incentives to spend the money on safety. That may be changing, however if the federal government just hands over money with inadequate oversight it will just enrich the companies.

      Sounds almost as if critical infrastructure should be owned by the public.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      if the federal government just hands over money with inadequate oversight it will just enrich the companies.

      The worst part of this is that that money is not just wasted, it’s used to lobby politicians to make it worse.

      And to be clear, the railroads don’t need more money, back when Biden banned Warren Buffet’s railroad from striking, I did the math, they could afford to double their work force, giving them all half the year off, and pay each one of them 100K/year, and still give the shareholders multiple billions a year.

      • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Absolutely, Robber Barons have been a thing since the rails were laid. It’s a shit system and the main reason we don’t have highspeed rail.

        • aramis87@fedia.io
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          2 days ago

          I took Amtrak across the country once. The freight trains are supposed to give priority to the passenger trains so they leave and arrive (mostly) on time, but (outside the NEC) they mostly don’t bother and they’ve never been held to those requirements. Once again, prioritizing “stuff” over people.

          • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Oh it’s simpler than that. They just go around the requirement via loopholes in the agreements. They know they’re required to give priority, so they just make the freight trains too long to fit on the side track on those routes. So if there’s a conflict, the freight train physically cannot get out of the way and the passenger one has to.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        2 days ago

        Not to mention the inflationary effects of shareholders skimming a set percentage in profits off everything that gets transported over rail. If the government ran it at cost, a huge drag on the economy would be removed.