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Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

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Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#111

Post by msrenee »

jhghgfhgf wrote: post #98
dgoldstein0 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most interaction with USPS is at (residential) mailboxes. Sure, post office service is not great but they do a decent job of moving letters, post cards, and packages in a relatively timely manner - and the service for letters and postcards is damn cheap. In now remote / rural areas of the US, no for profit company would bother providing service, as it is wouldn't be profitably - but USPS serves everyone.

It's "damn cheap" because it's being subsidized heavily by US taxpayers. "The United States Postal Service (USPS) on Wednesday reported a net loss of $4.9 billion for the year ending Sept. 30."

The fact that the USPS is currently operating at a loss has a lot to do with a bill that passed in 2006 requiring them to prepay their employee benefits including pensions 50 years in advance.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_En...

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#112

Post by ericd »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #36
ericd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently the US trades dollars for real goods. One of the major uses of those dollars, since we don't export nearly enough goods to run balanced trade, is to buy US assets. Do you think that maybe our trade partners will stop accepting those dollars if we start nationalizing companies? At that point, doesn't it seem like maybe the USD will crumble?

Nah, never happens. Where will they go? The yuan? The euro? The ruble ? Dysfunctional emerging markets? Being a global reserve currency is as, if not more powerful than, a DoD branch. Lot of capital available to burn, pun intended. Investors still invest in Greece and Italy, for example, and they’ve done far worse economically speaking. Important to keep in mind this exposure is graded on a curve. You don’t have to b…

Reading my earlier comment, it's too black and white. It'd be another straw. Is it the one that breaks the back? I have no idea. But I don't think it's wise to start nationalizing companies.

If trust in foreign currency holdings declines (say, if we decide to unilaterally cancel other countries' holdings in our currency when we want to punish them), then I'd assume that creditor nations would start looking at replacing some or all of their US treasuries holdings with real assets that carry less counterparty risk. If we start nationalizing onshored assets, then the field of suitable assets starts narrowing a whole lot to portable things like commodities.

We should work very hard to maintain a reputation as a trustworthy counterparty if we want to be able to continue running large deficits.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#113

Post by stetrain »

Jochim wrote: post #100
stetrain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can nationalize the infrastructure without nationalizing the operations upon it. Many other countries use a system where one government-related entity manages in the infrastructure, and many private companies can pay to operate rail services on that infrastructure. This would actually allow market competition instead of geographic monopolies.

We have something like this in the UK. It's a dogshit system that leads to service that is both awful and overpriced. The whole thing should be nationalised.

Fair point, but I think the UK’s “awful and overpriced” rail service would be an order of magnitude improvement for most places in the US.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#114

Post by bobthepanda »

smadge wrote: post #95
bobthepanda wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly we need to build parallel rights of way anyways. The freight rails are slow and dilapidated. It would make more sense for passenger railways to be separated from freight railways entirely rather than to try and squeeze into inadequate trackage. We don’t try to unload air freight through passenger terminals or vice versa.

That makes sense on some corridors but I'm not sure about the economics of building 2000 miles of dedicated right of way for a train that runs 3 times a week. Maybe if price, reliability, and speed of the service improved to such a degree it could feasibly compete with air and highway travel between those cities.

The good news is that most of the population lives in corridors that would make sense.

The I-5 coast and everything west of I-35 represents most of the US population. In particular, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York form a triangle roughly 700 miles on each side. This is roughly the distance between Beijing and Shanghai, or Tokyo to Fukuoka, both of which see high speed trains regularly making the full journey.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#115

Post by [deleted] »

bastawhiz wrote: post #70
mlindner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Amtrak has priority by law over freight in the US as long as they are on time. They don't get priority once they area late. What happens is that Amtrak becomes late and then they lose their slot and become further late.

What happens when late freight makes Amtrak late? You can't just make a freight train evaporate from the track because Amtrak has priority.

[deleted]

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#116

Post by nopenopenopeno »

bastawhiz wrote: post #70
mlindner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Amtrak has priority by law over freight in the US as long as they are on time. They don't get priority once they area late. What happens is that Amtrak becomes late and then they lose their slot and become further late.

What happens when late freight makes Amtrak late? You can't just make a freight train evaporate from the track because Amtrak has priority.

You can make the freight train wait at the merge. It's not rocket science.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#117

Post by nopenopenopeno »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #108
bobthepanda wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly we need to build parallel rights of way anyways. The freight rails are slow and dilapidated. It would make more sense for passenger railways to be separated from freight railways entirely rather than to try and squeeze into inadequate trackage. We don’t try to unload air freight through passenger terminals or vice versa.

The government frankly doesn't have it in it to do a project like that anymore. Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property?

>Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property?

No, I can't, but I don't have to imagine the insurmountable resistance when the government merely suggests using eminent domain on a rich person's property.

Besides, poor people don't own property in the US anymore.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#118

Post by bastawhiz »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #116
bastawhiz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when late freight makes Amtrak late? You can't just make a freight train evaporate from the track because Amtrak has priority.

You can make the freight train wait at the merge. It's not rocket science.

Freight trains can be very long. If it's already occupying the track, it's too late to make it wait.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#120

Post by nopenopenopeno »

oxfeed65261 wrote: post #109
crote wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that freight transporters are intentionally running trains which are longer than the sidings. Even if an Amtrak train has priority by law, it is - by design - impossible for the freight train to pull over. The result is that an on-time Amtrak train has to wait for a delayed freight train, because it is physically impossible to do anything else. This of course results in the Amtrak train now being late,…

It is not impossible to deal with this. The Amtrak train could go onto the siding and then the freight train could back up, allowing the Amtrak train to reenter the main track ahead of the freight train.

Good point, but at the end of the day it's still ultimately a political problem.
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