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Comment by andrewguenther | Hacker News Reader

It's not an enforcement issue so much as it is a heavily exploited loophole. Part of the reason freight trains are so long is so that they can't fit in passing sidings. Since Amtrak does fit, they end up having to yield because the freight trains simply cannot.

Could this be fixed by legislation on max train length to ensure all trains fit in sidings? Yes. Will that legislation get passed? No.

An interesting video on the subject: https://youtu.be/qQTjLWIHN74?si=t3u3iyZj1kRQQUCe

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This is correct but needs more explanation. What the commenter is alluding to is Precision Scheduled Railraoding ("PSR") [1]. Basically this means having really long trains with half the crew and cutting down on safety inspections to increase profits by spending more time delivering freight. It also gets around the Amtrak priority. Why fewer staff? Because you only need one engine crew for a train twice as long.

Increasing train length on tracks not designed for it is a safety issue. Think about it, you have a whole bunch of separate carriages. Some are turning because that's wher they are on the track. Others are going uphills, yet others downhill. All of these forces become a problem that arguably increases the likelihood of derailment, the kind of which we had in East Palestine, Ohio a few years ago.

The labor situation is so bad that there was the threat of a strike in the Biden administration. For what? Paid sick leave, mainly. Biden got Congress to use their powers to end a strike by "essential" workers and then quietly later went and partially conceded to their demands.

Retiring crews haven't been replaced so the labor is at dire levels, all to slightly increase profits. It was estimated that if UP conceded toa ll the union's demands it would reduce their profit by 6%. Not revenue, profit.

[1]: https://www.fractracker.org/2024/06/exploring-the-fallout-of...

Amtrak says this but the freight disagree. At this point I assume both sides are lieing.

Amtrak isn't lying. You can see that the freight trains are too long by literally just watching one.

Having a enforced max length on any route especially those with commuter service is not a bad idea, it is the tendency of freight to scale up the number of cars as much as possible for efficiency, passenger services work better shorter with more frequent services.

Yes there are myriad other reasons Amtrak gets delayed, it is not like this is the only bottleneck they have, but that doesn't mean this is not also a key problem.

long trains are great for reducing cost and reducing total profit by delivering slower less frequent services :\

From what people in the industry have told me, freight train management is no less scummy than any other kind of freight transportation management, and they continually make trains longer and longer despite nearly everyone’s objections. Some are miles long so there’s no way engineers can see the front of the train even with a gentle curve, and they’re taking hazardous cargo through populated areas.

I’d take Amtrak’s word on it.

Wasn't there a big train crash with hazardous materials on an understaffed train a few years ago? And a strike for more sensible working conditions that was struck down by Congress?

I love that the US moves so much freight by train rather than truck, but everything I hear about how trains are run in the US sounds terrible.

The East Palestine, Ohio crash can’t be directly blamed on lean staffing.

Biden for all his pro-union talk intervened to prevent a strike, valuing consumers and capital over the union.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-13/tracking-productivity...

Yeah, kind of like when they put ‘style’ on the end of a product that copies the aesthetic of something without functionally being that thing— like a kosher-style deli or a professional-style stove— the mainstream democratic leaders are pro-labor-style politicians.

The infrastructure is horrifying and the railroads do everything possible to defer any and all maintenance. Practically every train arrives late, but the customers can't really do much about it (how else are you going to move 4 million pounds of coal?)

The main infratructor is in great shape. There are a lot of little used lines in terrible shape

Those in the industry includes those who benefit from calling management bad. As such it is hard to know if anyone is telling the truth.

everything I've heard doesn't add up. So I know someoneeis lying but not who or how much

Do you have any reason to believe amtrak would lie?

What does Amtrak have to gain by lying about this?

I am skeptical that Amtrak is outright lying about this, but of course I can imagine the motivation: they get to blame delays on an external factor.

I don't think anyone is outright lying. I think they are just not telling the full story. What that full story is though I have no idea, nor do I have any way to figure it out. (Any investigative reporters want to spend a year or two tracking this down? Beware that there probably isn't enough interest to pay for the time you spend)

No idea how true/false the comments are, but one reason to lie would be to scapegoat someone else for Amtrak's problems. If an airline's flights were regularly delayed by 6-24 hours, they'd go out of business

I worked for a freight railroad. Amtrak is correct.

Hang in there, I hear it’s anything but easy working for freight rail.

I've been out for a couple years and was just a code monkey anyway. But they did treat me poorly, and it was quite shocking seeing how the sausage was made.

Classic America. Laws favor industry and commerce over individuals. Because lower prices benefits everybody. Uh huh.

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