Speaking of US railroads, a domestic and international disgrace, I happened upon a video showing a prior train derailment by a Class-1 railroad. What was most striking was a shot of the engine approaching a section of undulating rails prior to the derailment, and the first few boxcars shimmying like pole dancers as they traversed this section. In short, the condition of these rails was abysmal, a completely un-maintained slice of railway chaos.
Three-mile-long trains with two-man crews running over rail infrastructure that looks like it belongs in 1944 eastern France, after Allied bombing and sabotage by the French Resistance tried to destroy the German-transport rails in the months just prior to D-day.
In reality, the rail-freight carriers are a monopoly of four: Union Pacific, CSX, Norfolk Southern and and Burlington-Northern/Santa Fe, who have absconded on their duty to maintain infrastructure and run trains of a safe length with larger crews. But screw safety, that would reduce profitability, and profitability is everything.
But hey, that model quite obviously has the country by the cojones, since those excess profits are used in stock buybacks to satisfy the giant maws of Wall St. hedge funds, and ultimately the Capitalist owners of the world, BlackRock and Vanguard. And in 21st Century Western Capitalism, that’s the bottom line. My interests? Your interests? Get real, we don’t factor into corporate decision-making.
First-world Country or Banana Republic?
Time to nationalize the railroads!