CP derails in North Dakota

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PatAzo
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CP Derails 31 of 70 cars in North Dakota with HazMat

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NSSD70ACe
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Re: CP Derails 31 of 70 cars in North Dakota with HazMat

Unread post by NSSD70ACe »

The Coalition to Stop CPKC nuts are trying to use it as evidence that the merger is unsound and that “super long trains” are coming to Chicago.

Average railcar is somewhere between 50-60 feet. 70 cars times 60 feet per car is 4200 feet, probably 4400 with the power. What a joke. Typical clueless Chicagoland suburbanites.

Thankful the crew is safe and there was not any permanent environmental damage.
:roll:

the contents of the above post are my opinion and mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

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David Collins
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Re: CP Derails 31 of 70 cars in North Dakota with HazMat

Unread post by David Collins »

NSSD70ACe wrote:
Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:37 am
The Coalition to Stop CPKC nuts are trying to use it as evidence that the merger is unsound and that “super long trains” are coming to Chicago.
In reality, these...what's the nice way to say it...misinformed members of the general public are "Stop PSR" nuts. EVERYONE runs "super long trains" into Chicago.

While PSR is bad, and I personally believe that railroads need to stop using it. PSR has been a thing for years, and the public never knew about it until the derailments of late caused mass hysteria over it.

Had these derailments never happened, and the concept of PSR wasn't revealed, most of the general public probably wouldn't be as worried about a rail merger.

Just my thoughts.

NSSD70ACe
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Re: CP Derails 31 of 70 cars in North Dakota with HazMat

Unread post by NSSD70ACe »

David Collins wrote:
Tue Mar 28, 2023 6:52 pm
NSSD70ACe wrote:
Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:37 am
The Coalition to Stop CPKC nuts are trying to use it as evidence that the merger is unsound and that “super long trains” are coming to Chicago.
In reality, these...what's the nice way to say it...misinformed members of the general public are "Stop PSR" nuts. EVERYONE runs "super long trains" into Chicago.

While PSR is bad, and I personally believe that railroads need to stop using it. PSR has been a thing for years, and the public never knew about it until the derailments of late caused mass hysteria over it.

Had these derailments never happened, and the concept of PSR wasn't revealed, most of the general public probably wouldn't be as worried about a rail merger.

Just my thoughts.
You’re not wrong. PSR is insane. Here’s an example:

We’re two hours by car from the hump yard. To not give myself away, I won’t say exactly which one it is. Suffice to say it’s the only one on this part of the network. At this particular hump, if the slightest thing goes wrong, the place locks up. If the wind blows the wrong way, they can barely hump cars. This place also converted several sets of C44-9Ws to RCO for humping operations. Don’t get me started on that.

While we work here to try and service our own customers (25+ just here in town, another 20+ on the road), we end up working at a satellite yard for the hump because they can’t process their scheduled traffic. We’re also entirely dependent on them for our cars AND our motors. We don’t even have the capability here to service most of the motors beyond fuel and sand and a couple minor repairs…everything has to go to the shop at the hump yard which is also drowning in OOS motors (just like every other shop on the system).

So because of all these cuts, we’re running more traffic than we should be into a hump yard that causes frequent congestion issues resulting in farming the work out to surrounding terminals who are drowning in their own problems because they don’t have the capability to handle said problems locally because everything has to be sent to the hump yard to get taken care of. But nothing is getting into the hump because traffic is so backed up and the circle of despair continues.

We need another hump on this end of the system. We need to reopen the closed shop out on the coal lines to take the heat off of the one at our hump. Only then can we get a handle on these problems. Railroading is an expensive business. Lots of capital is needed to keep it in tip top shape. Sad that it ever got to this level.
:roll:

the contents of the above post are my opinion and mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

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