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Freight railroads generally have operated the same way for more than a century: They wait for cargo and leave when customers are ready. Now railroads want to run more like commercial airlines, where departure times are set. Factories, farms, mines or mills need to be ready or miss their trips.
Called "precision-scheduled railroading," or PSR, this new concept is cascading through the industry. Under pressure from Wall Street to improve performance, Norfolk Southern and other large U.S. freight carriers, including Union Pacific Corp. and Kansas City Southern, are trying to revamp their networks to use fewer trains and hold them to tighter schedules. The moves have sparked a stock rally that has added tens of billions of dollars to railroad values in the past six months as investors anticipate lower costs and higher profits.
Calling all Railroad Tycoons...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @05:33PM (8 children)
Interesting timing here (pun not intended). Up until yesterday I have always thought people who stop on tracks are just idiots. And I could write on and on about how people seem to live in their own fantasy, not reality, and blame it on TV, movies, computers, smartphones, and even formal classrooms where people theorize more than deal with reality.
However, yesterday I was in a small town where there are very obvious heavily used tracks crossing a major highway. There's a sign "Do Not Stop On Tracks". I thought- anyone who can read that sign hopefully already knows better, right?
But here's the problem: idiot DOT (or whoever does this crap) put a traffic light 3 car lengths past tracks. So if you're in a heavy moving pack of cars, and light turns red (yellow is by economic definition split-second), it would be very easy to be stuck in the middle of the pack, stuck on the tracks. Can't go forward, can't back up. Train comes around curve, and if you're paying attention, you might get out of car and run for your life. Light should have been put on other side of tracks- stopping cars before they cross tracks. I'm sure the locals know this and most of the time deal with it, but being new to the town, it would be very easy to get trapped. I'd love to know how these things get approved.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 05 2019, @06:08PM (5 children)
I had a conversation with local DOT about why they re-striped 10 miles of 2 lane road to push the vehicles toward each other in the middle, widening the bike lanes. The lanes were narrowed to the point that school buses would touch both the centerline and the rumble strip separating the car lane from the bike lane at the same time at points, and never more than 12" to spare.
Local DOT informed me that the lane narrowing was done "to increase safety" since cars in narrower lanes tend to drive slower. I asked what they based this opinion on, their response "years of professional experience."
In truth, it was a politically motivated thing, in a town that's trying to become car unfriendly. BTW, those bike lanes went 10 miles to the middle of nowhere - bikes ride that road for pleasure, mostly on the weekends, while thousands of homes feed cars, SUVs and trucks onto the road to commute to work, shopping, etc.
As for RRX design, I'm going to guess that's a matter of "it's always been like this" and nobody important has died as a result, yet, so that's how they leave it. Generally, around here, if there's a new traffic signal or pavement widening for a turn lane, it's usually traceable back to a fatal collision at the spot.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday April 05 2019, @10:01PM (1 child)
Oh this frustrates on so many levels. I used to know a very successful businessman who was very cynical about govt., and he dealt with many: codes, inspections, health, food, licenses, taxes, etc. His degree and years of work was sociology and generally a nice guy and believed in people, but at some point things cross a line and even he gave up on them. He said that govt. workers were "the dregs of society". There are exceptions, but I have to sadly generally agree.
Yes, I'm sure that SOME people will slow down for narrower lanes. The stupidity in this is overwhelming. Any motion of a car can result in an accident if the car wavers in its path. What about large vehicles? Ever drive a truck, DOT idiot? They don't quite track like an Audi A6 now.
And like you said, intelligence doesn't seem to come into play until someone dies.
Someday I hope to understand stupidity (thinking about the Boeing 737 MAX problems as well as many others...)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @12:00AM
"Someday I hope to understand stupidity (thinking about the Boeing 737 MAX problems as well as many others...)"
Look much closer to home. It's easy to throw shit at others on the net by reflex while being completely ignorant of the real underlying problems. There's far too much of that going on these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @02:45AM (2 children)
I'm going to have to side with the DOT guy on this one. Jeff Speck -- who's a city planning engineer -- covers this topic in his book, The walkable city.
The gist of it is that there is overwhelming empirical evidence to support the idea that people drive safer in unstructured, hazardous environments, i.e. less accidents.
Your common sense may tell you otherwise, but common sense isn't common, and the real world can be counter intuitive.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday April 06 2019, @07:50AM (1 child)
It makes perfect sense to me, especially if you consider inattentive driving to be a big factor in crashes. More difficult driving conditions would force people to pay more attention. But it could overwhelm some people.
I have more thoughts but sadly SN is becoming a troll site and I'm tired of being trolled. I hope admins start noticing and remember why they started SN in the first place.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:05PM
Being a self important jackass is your problem. I went through this whole thread and no one trolled you. Maybe you're just too sensitive, and as for "why they stsrted SN" you just outed yourself as totally clueless.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @09:06PM
Yay, another internet person learns that reality is complicated and maybe just maybe they shouldn't judge things so harshly. Next up you'll be voting for universal healthcare!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 05 2019, @11:48PM
It's not that tough to figure out. No major conundrum or existential crisis or legislative BS. Don't try to cross the tracks until you're double damned sure you've got room on the other side. Granted the yokels at DOT could show some smarts, but jesus. You have a responsibility to protect your ass. Be aware of your surroundings and try not to be a dead dipshit.
I don't believe in "common sense." But when bad things are coming, if at all possible try your best not to be there.
Have you complained to the DOT idiots about the situation, or do you reserve these types of complaints specifically for SN?