Join the discussion on the following article:
BNSF winter woes delaying Northstar commuter trains
You guys just love stoking the fire…
Air brakes in the cold is a known issue and its well known how to deal with it. PROACTIVE measures can replace Reactive disasters. Passengers OR Freight, ON time is what its all about to most users. Get the moisture out of the brakes!!
A couple years ago (well, back in the Usenet days) there was a big storm in the East. Amtrak cancelled some trains.
A bunch of grumpy old men like the type who frequently post here wrote about how this never happened back in the day.
So I went and looked up some newspaper articles from a similar large storm in the past - the snowstorm that caused the Knickerbocker theater disaster in DC (in 1922). The articles that reported on the storm in the days after the storm mentioned that numerous trains had been cancelled. It was a routine thing. Clearly trains being cancelled account weather was nothing strange.
But, grumpy people will always tell us that things used to be better, and everyone younger than them is essentially a wimp. Same as it ever was.
It does take a special kind of crank to blame BNSF’s meltdown on liberals though.
Two more things: 1) it is possible that diesels are better now than they were in the Reagan administration, so that the fact that an engine starts does not actually prove that it’s not cold. But 2) yes, it is not as cold as it used to be in the winters. Any guesses why not?
Nobody at BNSF wants to admit it, but the railroad is close to a total meltdown (no pun intended) similar to what UP suffered 8 or 9 years ago. Blaming this mess on the weather is only exposing how poorly the railroad has been run and ill prepared they are for the traffic that they’ve been recruiting. Every railroad has problems in extreme cold and snow, but look at both CN and CP even further north and Montana rail. They’ve experienced nothing like to the total disaster that BNSF is. These guys got greedy, but didn’t do the foundational work needed to succeed. Time for some big changes at BNSF, but as long Warren “Buffy” Buffet owns the railroad their won’t be any big changes and you can expect future recurrences.
@GLENN MAGNELL from NEW YORK said: Nobody at BNSF wants to admit it, but the railroad is close to a total meltdown (no pun intended) Meltdown or freeze up?
Apparently certain railfans, or should I say, the ditch fillers, can’t tell the difference between pseudo-winter and real winters like grandpa used to have. The past thirty years or so the Midwest had pseudo-winter. With one or two exceptions back around 1995. So of course the majority of railfans don’t know what real winter is like. What is the first course of action? Full bore panic and blame me for the weather. Thank you. But seriously, you should be thanking George W Bush and his upgraded weather machine in his basement in Texas. Same one that trashed New Orleans. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the balmy weather. Heat wave today. It was -4F. Railfans used to be tough and could handle being outside in -30F for 6 hours waiting for a train to show up. Today, only a very few can pass that test.
As for BNSF, look who is running the show in the background. Warren Buffett, buddy of Obama, left wing environ-mentalist nut, and all around stock market raider for very short term gains. Instead of maintaining his railroad properly for winter weather, he let it fall apart. But then, why would anybody expect anything else from a corporate raider? That is what those guys do and they openly admit it. If you want BNSF to function like a real private sector freight railroad, get real private sector freight railroad owners and management. Verstehen? Or is this too complex to comprehend?
Years ago the real railroad owners didn’t have these problems. I remember when the Boat Train ran out to Kewaunee and back every day because the car ferries were busting ice on The Big Pond as The Shipyards intended. Meanwhile, a few miles to the south, the other car ferries showed up just east of the Beer Bottles and expected a train to be there. Nobody stopped for a minor cold snap, which is what we have right now.
I know this is a minor cold snap because I have not plugged in the diesel and it still starts. I have not yet taken out the tire chains this winter. The salt remains untouched. The snow shovel
Jefferey Guse is bashing the private sector now yet he is usually saying it’s evil big daddy government that’s so bad and everything should be run by the private sector. Simply put, humans are imperfect and anything run by people (whether it be private sector or government) is bound to imperfections, which clearly Mr. Guse is willing to take shots at both until people point out he has opposing arguments, at which point he gets immature and resorts to insults and name calling because he can’t stand when all of his flawed logic is pointed out to him.
BNSF trains having air brake issues blocked both main tracks at CP 421, just west of Elk River.
You mean to tell me a tax-paying private company can’t keep their trains running??? Tell the Goose to hyperventilate! His dream world nirvana is falling apart!
C,mon; don’t get the Goose started, Jim. The air is “fowl” enough already.
BNSF hasn’t kept up with the business from I see. They are short with people, power, and room to move trains. Then you have too much going on now for people to try to work out. It just a problem that is compounding. Warmer weather will help, but it isn’t going to fix this problem BNSF is having. Tons of money put back into the railroad is probably the best bet.
Craig Williams
CN Engineer
If you think BNSF has problems, just wait until all this snow starts to melt…
If you think BNSF has problems, just wait until all this snow starts to melt…
Is this Trains magazine? With all the commentary that ends up blaming liberals, Obama, and etc. one could mistake that they had accidentally logged on to Fox News. It really is sad that some cannot discuss the postings without having to also include political statements promoting an extreme right wing agenda.