More on the same topic: https://ble-t.org/news/up-csx-aim-to-solve-workforce-woes-to-move-petroleum-coal-and-more/
What will/can STB do to address these deeply-rooted and severe problems that the railroads will not address effectively? Will re-regulation fix it? I don't know if the federal government can fix what the railroads won't fix. __________________________________________________ In typical RR fashion, corporate leadership dances around the fact that they themselves are at fault for crew availability problems and enabled the problem to continue rather than effectively addressing the reason career rails are leaving in droves. So sad.
I just posted it for conversation. We all know the regulators are corrupt, under the railroad's influence. Nothing will change for the better. However, something superficial might be cobbled together by the railroads, to fool the ignorant public. We are well on the way to one person crews on multi-mile long disasters waiting to happen. Essentially we are now in rail robber baron era number two. The anti-trust acts have been made a farce, and mega-monopolies the normal thing. Joe Q Public completely the fool, blind to what is happening.
The industry's belief in PSR will railroad it into being codlocked and gridlocked with a lack of a workforce and plant capacity to handle traffic. We are still in a Covid dimished world economy - and the railroads cannot handle the traffic. WHEN a truly functional and expanding world economy kicks into gear. The only thing that PSR can't handle is prosperity and a increasing level of rail traffic. I worked in the industry for 50+ years - the first 25 were in a industry that was looking for a place to die; don't invest because other forms of transportation will eliminate the NEED for railroads. Then Staggers was enacted. It took a few years, and the retirement of some industry 'leaders' but there came along leaders that saw what could be accomplished in operating a railroad like a business - a business operating for profit. That form of 'enlightened' business turn railroads into profitable properties that had the financial resources to roll back into their plant in form of track and facilities maintenance and enhancement as well as improving the efficiency of equipment and motive power as well as securing tools to enhance the efficiency of many areas of the workforce. Then along came EHH and his hedge fund bean counters that know the price of everything and the value of nothing planting the flag of PSR to run the carriers downhill to the decrepit condition of the carriers before Staggers - a condition of self inflicted deferred maintenance, this time in the name of 'shareholder value' as opposed to just trying to make to the next day as it was leading up to the enactment of Staggers.
