Had an interesting conversation yesterday. Was given a STRONG hint that place where the whole thing began was known. Hmmmm. I promised to not get into detail, etc. I will be interested in learning if the authorities eventually confirm.... If so,......
Official report hit earlier this month, NTSB determined track alignment and wear issues caused the derailment. Multiple trains passed the derailment site in the hours before the derailment, and all experienced worsening of the track condition. Read the whole report here: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/RIR2308.pdf More than 3000 pages of documentation is provided here: https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/?NTSBNumber=RRD21MR017
It was a known trouble spot, pointed out in the NTSB report by the track inspector to a road foreman or other manager during a hi-rail ride in the days before the crash. The rail that was installed was at the upper limit of wear, and section gangs working there had trouble getting the alignment right. By themselves, the track and alignment/roadbed issues identified in the report were not individually violations of the regulations, but combined, they created the perfect storm of conditions to cause a derailment. Tragic, but also highlights the effects of overworking track inspectors (no hours of service law limits their workdays--something I did not know), and the expectation of covering multiple hundreds of track miles. Hi-railing the inspection (authorized, but unreliable to detect what only a walking inspection can identify) was the only way to cover the miles the track inspector was responsible for, working 12-16 hour days to get it all done.
Yup. That was what I was told. But was asked to not say anything at that time. What the RR might have saved, by delaying or ignoring the issue, will surely be more than consumed by the litigations probably ongoing.
Since it's near me, and still in the news here, I was curious and compared figures. So far, Norfolk Southern has paid out $803 million in settlement claims, cleanup, repairs, etc. for it's derailment in East Palestine. Comparatively, NS's entire annual MoW budget for 2009 and 2010 (the most recent year for which I could find published numbers) was about $700 million for the entire system. So, they could have increased their budget (and staff) by ten percent for the last ten years, and still spent less money than they're spending to clean up the mess caused by not spending more on MoW. Granted, that's NS and not BNSF, but I'd bet that the cost/benefit ratio is similar for other railroads. Saving money on safety, doesn't save anybody money, and isn't safe.
Modern (mis)management philosophy, as taught by our post-high school institutions, is probably pretty much the same everywhere. So NS, BNSF, or other, they'll likely be thinking and doing the same. It is simply nothing more than gambling, to see what they can get away with and make the shareholders happy with those pinched pennies.
That's a pretty broad brush, with a "probably" thrown in. Can you quote a source for this, or direct experience from a post-high school experience? Most high level rail management came from the 80's - early 90's schools. Management philosophy flows from the top.
A lot of these cuts in MoW budgets and work are a result of the do more with less philosophy espoused by the whole PSR "thing." And that is probably the politest way I can put it. If the RR's don't get back on track, so to speak, they are going to put more stuff on the ground, run trains into each other and/or cause some other major damage to a community or state. That thinking has infiltrated all aspects of RR'ing, as well as most industry and employers in the good ole USofA, unfortunately.
Direct experience. It was quite an eye opener. From that, since then, I have maintained connections within the industry. Nothing has changed.
What many has said here is, sooo correct. PSR and all its nitwit-ed management practices are coming home to roost. CN has basically abandoned a great deal of the PSR operating philosophies.They have shortened crew districts and made more common sense operating practices. Their crews are making it to their terminals, and they are gaining ton/mile/revenue. US rail carriers have been loosing ton-mile revenue, since the dreaded PSR was conceived, by bean counting automatons. The US economy is still strong despite the US carriers obvious mis-givings. I fear what the US rail industry really needs is real threat of re-regulation.
"I fear what the US rail industry really needs is real threat of re-regulation." Not only that, but a breaking up of the mega corporations that are so large no one is able to "see" what is going on at the actual production side. Management is so far removed from the boots on the ground reality, they are unable to really make informed decisions. Add to that the new culture of only hiring non-rails to be management, dispatchers are a great example, and things have become only numbers related. When a business loses sight of it's people and it's customers, it is doomed to fail. Breaking these things back into smaller pieces is probably a pipe dream for now. But I think that they will end up getting broken up into more manageable sizes in the next 20 years or so.
While Management philosophy flows from the top down, the ideas at the top levels of Management get forged by the Wall Street financial analysts and their 'recommendations' of how Management is underperforming their duty to maximize the 'bottom line' by spending revenues on such things a maintenance and manpower. Wall Street's aim has always been for companies to become perpetual money machines, wherein all revenues go to the bottom line and get distributed as 'shareholder value'. Heaven forbid that the physical plant wears out and needs maintenance and replacement and that there are employees that perform the actions necessary to make a company a living, breathing entity. PSR has been a philosophy that EHH formulate in response to Wall Street pressures and it featured all the 'buzz word' solutions that Wall Street wanted to hear, thus PSR was pushed by the Wall Street analysts as a 'solution' for all the other Class 1's. Management doesn't stay in place that long when there is a crescendo of negativity about their actions from Wall Street. Railroads don't exist without continued investment, Wall Street's pronouncements drive the investor community.
The bean counters running the railroads and becoming "numbers-driven" was a point the NTSB bluntly hammered home in the East Palestine hearings a month ago. Just one example of it was the amount of time allotted for a carman to inspect a railcar at a terminal. "One man-minute is the goal..." and later in the testimony, the NTSB chair put an email from the Dearborn Division Senior General Foreman on the screen that showed their numbers were not at their goals, and to "let's get the numbers and reporting where it needs to be". These numbers are how long it takes to do a safety inspection on a railcar. The safety mindset is gone if they're worried about these numbers over public safety and the reliability of a railcar hauling anything, much less dangerous goods. The NTSB chair was not amused with the dancing around the issue act that the NS manager and the AAR representative did on camera, and it is just a brief example of how far gone class 1 American railroading is. https://www.youtube.com/live/x-QON0Tel1Q?feature=share&t=15366 The problem is the NTSB makes recommendations to federal agencies, industry groups, carriers and public service organizations (fire departments, etc), but I don't believe carries the authority to impose them as requirements. I have read dozens of NTSB reports and frequently they cite previous accident report recommendations as "unacceptable action" when the parties fail to act effectively upon them.
Wall Street dictating management is history repeating itself. Sadly, Wall Street doesn't bother to read, let alone learn history's lessons. For example..... In 1970 The General Electric Company was the second largest corporation in the World after Standard Oil. In 1971 Wall Street persuaded GE's Board to replace the current CEO with Jack Welch to make the company "more efficient". Today, fifty years later, The General Electric Company does not exist. Yes, there is a GE listed on the NYSE, but it is not the same company. It's similar to the current AT&T having no resemblance to the original AT&T, aka "Ma Bell".
The "Ma Bell" breakup of AT&T was brought about by Anti-Trust Laws. The GE break up appears to have been done financial failings of the various business groups in the post Welch world. I don't know enough about GE's internal structure to make any insightful comments. It looks like either, the management the followed Welch couldn't perform the financial juggling that Welch performed, OR the juggling Welch had been doing was collapsing on its own - Welch could see it and hit his Golden Parachute and left the mess for those following him to wade through.
The typical business mind is a peculiar thing. Almost always thinking of short-term costs and never about long-term consequences. Doug
I agree that Justice disassembled Ma Bell into Baby Bells using monopoly justification. Standard Oil also was disassembled into "baby" Standard Oils using monopoly justification. Standard Oil has since grown into a strong international corporation through skillful management and opportunities. Whereas AT&T did not survive. I acknowledge the seventy year difference in technical, corporate, and government cultures between breakups had a great deal to do with Standard Oil's survival. Standard Oil's breakup created a fuel and economic vacuum for which there was no immediate available solution. AT&T's breakup also created a perceived communications vacuum. However, there were enough mobile phone start-up companies with technology ready to fill that vacuum. Ergo, the US, and our continent has excellent cell service. Thank You. Furthermore, AT&T had become so comfortable over a hundred years with their unopposed technological monopoly, their corporate arrogance had them blind-sided to technological opposition. Whereas Standard Oil, though controlling much of the world's petroleum reserves, had many competitors in international leaderships who didn't give a hoot about outside money. They controlled their country's economies personally. Welcome to OPEC. RIP, Ma Bell, sleep well.
At the time of Ma Bell's break up I was involved with Chessie System distributed field computer systems for yard operations. The installation of these facilities required getting numerous telephone data circuits for operation of multiple terminals and printers. Initially it was deal with Ma Bell and you got your circuits. With the break up, we in some cases had to end up dealing with up to three of the Baby Bells and once the lines were installed, debugging them was an exercise in circular finger pointing. The good old days.
