East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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PatAzo
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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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David Collins wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 2:28 pm
I have two other questions:

If congress created an investigation, what harm could they inflict on NS?

Could the FRA/NTSB make NS cease their operations until they can prove that their operation is *somewhat* safe?
The NTSB and the FRA are both federal agencies. So congress already created the investigating bodies. If congress were to convene a hearing it would be more about getting press time for the politicians than actual investigation.

The NTSB investigates and makes recommendations. It does not make and enforce rules. Could the FRA which does make and enforce rules force NS cease operations? Not without some pretty serious evidence of systemic failures and violations. Yes this was a serious derailment and there was a huge chemical release, but make them cease operations no.

Could the FRA strengthen rules on movement of hazardous materials? Sure they could.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Don't believe me? Listen to the former head of the FRA: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ohio-t ... kJy3jCgUX4
CBS ??? The Continuous Bull crap network. IMHO, that story was laughable.

Between the Brain Dead Media, clambering for some air time, and the Lawyers lining up ( like sharks smelling blood in the water), this will be a first class three ring circus. SMH.

And the beat goes on....... :roll:

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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David Collins wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 2:28 pm
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but apparently several journalists covering this story have been arrested, which is very concerning.
Charges were dropped. I know one of them was recording a live segment and was told to stop because the conference was about to start and they didn’t listen.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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PatAzo wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 3:16 pm
Could the FRA strengthen rules on movement of hazardous materials? Sure they could.
They probably should. This isn’t the first time but it’s definitely the worst one. Could have been proactive but since when have government and big business ever been proactive?

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Chip wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:39 pm
David Collins wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 2:28 pm
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but apparently several journalists covering this story have been arrested, which is very concerning.
Charges were dropped. I know one of them was recording a live segment and was told to stop because the conference was about to start and they didn’t listen.
No sound but a video of the event. I have to wonder if he didn't want a confrontation.

https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/ea ... palestine/

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Schteinkuh wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 9:00 am
Spoken like a man in a high tower. Does rr retirement take 34% of your paycheck? Would you tolerate what your guys go through for the pay they're getting right now?
Railroad Retirement taxes are the same for craft and management. We all pay the same taxes. And RRet does not take 34% of anybody's paycheck...it's the same 7.65% Tier 1 as everybody else on Social Security, plus the same 4.9% Tier 2 as everybody else in the industry.

Everybody who signs up for railroading knows that unpredictable working hours and forced overtime are part of the gig. As has been pointed out before, you trade your time for a pile of cash. It has literally always been that way - and essentially has to be that way given the 24/7 nature of the industry. Similar skill jobs with predictable work schedules pay far less. That's just how it works.

So these people chose this career and now are railing against primary components of the job. If you want a predictable schedule, there are plenty of jobs out there with that. They probably won't pay as well, though.

None of this is to cover for mismanagement, but when guys go on TV and complain about "forced overtime" I roll my eyes every time. It's basically the same thing as a surgeon complaining about having to see blood. There's no way you didn't know what you were getting into.
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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Saturnalia wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:27 pm
So these people chose this career and now are railing against primary components of the job. If you want a predictable schedule, there are plenty of jobs out there with that. They probably won't pay as well, though.
About the only thing that will come close is being on the line in the auto industry. The biggest difference is if you’re hired after 2011 you don’t get a pension and your vacation time caps at half of what the legacy workers have.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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R Bedell wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:15 pm
Don't believe me? Listen to the former head of the FRA: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ohio-t ... kJy3jCgUX4
CBS ??? The Continuous Bull crap network. IMHO, that story was laughable.

Between the Brain Dead Media, clambering for some air time, and the Lawyers lining up ( like sharks smelling blood in the water), this will be a first class three ring circus. SMH.

And the beat goes on....... :roll:
Also fwiw Saturnalia, after RR retirement, federal income tax, 401k, and medical (which has been steadily increasing for craft workers), I only keep around 66% of my checks. My apologies for misspeaking about the RRB percentage
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Schteinkuh wrote:
Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:49 am
Also fwiw Saturnalia, after RR retirement, federal income tax, 401k, and medical (which has been steadily increasing for craft workers), I only keep around 66% of my checks. My apologies for misspeaking about the RRB percentage
Sounds about right. The health insurance costs though are typically pretty cheap to employees considering the benefits. Not sure if you're on the National Plan, but that's a "Cadillac" plan versus the now much more common high-deductible plans almost everybody else is on. Whatever your "share" of the cost that comes in in your check, the railroad is probably paying several times that directly.

Considering that employers also pay their own share of most of these payroll taxes, by the time you add up the actual pay to an employee plus all of the taxes and payments by the company on behalf of the employee, that sum is often around double the "advertised" pay rates.

And therein lies the rub. The craft guys always want more money, but they're already well-payed in cash and definitely well-payed in benefits, too. For how much the job supposedly sucks, that's why most of those people never leave.
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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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A criticism of NS is that they cut car inspection times by half. For a car like the one initiating the derailment what would the required inspections of consisted of once NS received the car and what time is allotted at each inspection?

If rail transport is too scary the Class One's could embargo hazmat shipments and let it go by truck.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hazardous- ... ns-tucson/

https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids ... spill.html

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Saturnalia wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:27 pm
Everybody who signs up for railroading knows that unpredictable working hours and forced overtime are part of the gig. As has been pointed out before, you trade your time for a pile of cash. It has literally always been that way - and essentially has to be that way given the 24/7 nature of the industry. Similar skill jobs with predictable work schedules pay far less. That's just how it works.
It hasn't and doesn't have to always be that way. You can do this magical thing called scheduling.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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MrAnderson wrote:
Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:02 pm
Saturnalia wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:27 pm
Everybody who signs up for railroading knows that unpredictable working hours and forced overtime are part of the gig. As has been pointed out before, you trade your time for a pile of cash. It has literally always been that way - and essentially has to be that way given the 24/7 nature of the industry. Similar skill jobs with predictable work schedules pay far less. That's just how it works.
It hasn't and doesn't have to always be that way. You can do this magical thing called scheduling.
Scheduling works great in theory. The problem is that in the real world scheduling doesn't work for operations like railroads or air travel? Why? When there is an issue in one area, it impacts the entire system.

As an example. You have X railcars which are set to be transported from point A to point B to be interchanged to another railroad and have to arrive in 48 hours. Train A is scheduled to leave the origin location at 0:00. It gets 2 hours out from the origin yard and gets stuck because Train B went into emergency with a broken air hose on a single track section of the railroad. Now after a 2 hour delay, the trains are back moving again. Later in the trip it gets delayed due to a weather related signal outage and is delayed another 2 hours. Even without any additional delays, the 48 hours is 52 hours and the connecting railroad has to either delay the train 4 hours (of which with scheduled railroading means paying people 4 hours for doing northing), or they run the train minus the cars in question. The cars in question now get delayed an additional 20 hours and won't leave on the second railroad until 24 hours after they should have.

Lets also consider something else. Some contracts require a train to be loaded and returned to the hauling railroad within a set time period, often 48 hours. If the train is supposed to arrive at 12:00, and you have your crew ready at 12:00 but the inbound cars don't arrive until 18:00, you have wasted 6 hours of time with the crew doing northing. Now, that also means that you may have a crew run out of hours while transporting the cars to the customer for loading, meaning those cars either sit in transport until the crew can transport them again, meaning a huge amount of lost time and potential fines to the customer / railroad as per the contract, or you have to bring out a second crew to finish the job.

If you think the second situation doesn't happen, you are wrong. The contract for CSX grain trains to the elevators on the GLC have such a window of time meaning the AA, GLC and the loading locationall have to work together to transport those cars from CSX in Toledo, to Osmer to the customer to be loaded, then back to Osmer and back to Toledo.

Air travel is the same way. One issue in one area can cause backups across the system which take days to clear up, thus the reason the "schedules" airlines use often have delayed or cancelled next to the flight number.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Freight railroads could to a great extent be scheduled if the people involved had the will to do it. Airlines are an example that it can be done. The government limits the number of hours a pilot can fly per week, per month and per year. Airlines generally build a monthly schedule of the lines crews will be working and the crews bid lines based on seniority. There are disruptions due to weather, illness and equipment availability. This forces the airlines to build and manage a schedule. Does it work flawlessly? No and that brings us to problem #1.

Problem #1. Mid-level managers would have to be managers. The schedule would have to be planned and managed every day. The mid-level managers would have to do it. There would be no master plan that would self execute. It would require constant effort. For most people the unknown is a scary thing. Mid-level management will align against it and make sure it doesn’t work.

Problem #2. It would take more people each working fewer trips. Benefit costs would go up for the carriers. Some crews would work fewer days and make less money. Both would have to confront their extra board deal with the devil.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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This 2018 report explains the response used in a multi-car hazmat derailment on ICG in 1982. Cars of other unconsumed substances unexpectedly ignited and exploded after cleanup had already begun. Six additional unbreached cars contained vinyl chloride that was deemed too unstable to offload, so they were vented with the cargo burned off, very similar to what NS's contractors did in East Palestine.

https://www.firehouse.com/rescue/hazard ... bert-burke

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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PatAzo wrote:
Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:45 pm
Freight railroads could to a great extent be scheduled if the people involved had the will to do it. Airlines are an example that it can be done. The government limits the number of hours a pilot can fly per week, per month and per year. Airlines generally build a monthly schedule of the lines crews will be working and the crews bid lines based on seniority. There are disruptions due to weather, illness and equipment availability. This forces the airlines to build and manage a schedule. Does it work flawlessly? No and that brings us to problem #1.

Problem #1. Mid-level managers would have to be managers. The schedule would have to be planned and managed every day. The mid-level managers would have to do it. There would be no master plan that would self execute. It would require constant effort. For most people the unknown is a scary thing. Mid-level management will align against it and make sure it doesn’t work.

Problem #2. It would take more people each working fewer trips. Benefit costs would go up for the carriers. Some crews would work fewer days and make less money. Both would have to confront their extra board deal with the devil.
Huh, sounds like something the RRs already tried. I think it's referred to as PSR.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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PatAzo wrote:
Sat Feb 18, 2023 12:45 pm
Freight railroads could to a great extent be scheduled if the people involved had the will to do it. Airlines are an example that it can be done. The government limits the number of hours a pilot can fly per week, per month and per year. Airlines generally build a monthly schedule of the lines crews will be working and the crews bid lines based on seniority. There are disruptions due to weather, illness and equipment availability. This forces the airlines to build and manage a schedule. Does it work flawlessly? No and that brings us to problem #1.
This supposition overlooks a major factor in airline schedules that the railroads do not benefit from: airlines are largely NOT a 24/7 operation, with the vast majority of airplanes schedules for long overnight layovers. This gives them a ton of scheduling slack that allows them to completely reset almost every day, even when there are significant service disruptions.

The freight railroads simply do not have this ability to "reset" in the same way, so delays tend to compound much more, and make the schedule much less predictable. Additionally, a far greater percentage of freight movements are "extra" versus strictly scheduled like the manifest and intermodal networks are. Those moves would be nearly impossible to schedule regularly.

Your suggestion on more crews for fewer trains is right - this would be required, also. But the railroads and unions made their deals with the devil, and neither will give up the ground they think they've gained in doing so. Both sides are their own worst enemies due to this paradoxical relationship.
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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Scheduling, at least to a much better degree than there is today, would be very doable with proper infrastructure investment to insure minimal delays and the sort.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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Saturnalia wrote:
Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:11 pm
This supposition overlooks a major factor in airline schedules that the railroads do not benefit from: airlines are largely NOT a 24/7 operation, with the vast majority of airplanes schedules for long overnight layovers. This gives them a ton of scheduling slack that allows them to completely reset almost every day, even when there are significant service disruptions.

The freight railroads simply do not have this ability to "reset" in the same way, so delays tend to compound much more, and make the schedule much less predictable. Additionally, a far greater percentage of freight movements are "extra" versus strictly scheduled like the manifest and intermodal networks are. Those moves would be nearly impossible to schedule regularly.
Airlines approach 24/7. Inbound crews arriving up 11:00PM or so and the following days flights starting to push back at 6:00AM the following day. The schedule methodology could be extended to cover a 24 hour operation. Consider here the number of railroad collisions associated with fatigue.

Freight movements are predominantly "extra" because the railroads choose to handle them that way. Product that moves on the scale of what railroads handle rarely moves by surprise. Ocean going containers, coal, grain, automobile production these movements are all known well in advance. Chemical producers as one exception commonly store in transit and they could turn a car loose with a moments notice. The primary truck load carriers we use both require a minimum one week notice. They do this to build schedules for their drivers. Without a schedule they have trouble holding drivers. We in turn build this into our planning and no one gives it a thought. We do call on short notice occasionally we end up with a brokered load with an unpredictable price and service.

Shippers time and again say they don't need fast service they need predictable service. Airlines and container ships sell capacity on a planned service. Take the loose car business and look at it from the prospective of selling capacity. Next week we have XX spots available on this lane do you want to book one? There will still be a need to extra crews and extra movements to even upsets and peaks in the system. But for this to be the predominant method is an antiquated technique.

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Re: East Palestine, Ohio Major NS Derailment

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PatAzo wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 8:05 am
Airlines approach 24/7. Inbound crews arriving up 11:00PM or so and the following days flights starting to push back at 6:00AM the following day. The schedule methodology could be extended to cover a 24 hour operation. Consider here the number of railroad collisions associated with fatigue.
You just proved my point. That's about 7 hours of float time every single day to clean up almost any residual delays, perform maintenance, and shuffle planes around if needed.

Passengers are easy to schedule because they show up when you tell them to. Same with the parcel carriers, they schedule cut-off times and run their daily routine off that. Massive difference with the railroads is that they perform all of the pickup and setoff work themselves, which is highly variable and happens 24/7, making clean cut-off times impossible. This extreme variation makes scheduling a lot of stuff a lot harder.

Railroads do operate on a cut-off time system for intermodal, and that works very well, especially the hot guarantee trains that they'll put Amtrak in the hole for.

A railroad's manifest and bulk traffic network just aren't all that conducive to highly reliable, tight scheduling like the airlines or parcel networks. Therefore, the people operating the equipment are going to have variable schedules. How variable is up for debate, but it's well known that the railroads traded cash for the extreme flexibility they have with their crews right now. The railroads will want wage concessions in exchange for tightening that flexibility. The unions will hear none of that. So there's deadlock on the issue.
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