The USRA was not started until December 26, 1917, over 8 months after we had entered the war the previous April 6, though we had been shipping many supplies to Europe prior to that date. Congestion and misallocation of equipment were so bad under private ownership that nationalization was the only recourse for the war effort.
Is there no end to your fabrications of false reality? Apparently not.
The racist Wilson Administration was looking for ways to gain power for itself and remove liberty from the American People. Hell, they siezed control of the phone system, radio stations, and refused to deliver via US Mail magazines that differed from their views. With seizure of the railroads (which included the telegraph) they controlled communication and transportation. I see this time under Wilson as the closest the US ever came to loosing its freedom.
The rail congestion problems came from the government. They had great quantaties of war supplies ordered to east coast ports without regard to either shipping capacity or port capacity. So, the warehouses filled up. So then the railcars couldn’t be unloaded. Those cars had to go somewhere so they were stored on sidings and yard tracks. The removal of the sidings and yard tracks from their intended service created congestion. It also created a car shortage because the cars were being used for storage instead of transportation. They couldn’t be moved back west for another load.
And your solution to a government created problem is more government involvement?
I understand and agree. If you’re going to work the train you’ve got to have people on the ground to do so.
No, I haven’t operated an IM train on a class 1. I’ve sure been there in the cab when it happened. I have operated a locomotive, hooked up air hoses, helped rerail cars, etc. Hell, once I even hopped up on a moving flatcar that was running away and tied down the brake. Not a lifetime of experience, but good experience.
But please keep it focused on what was proposed. A short train originating in Dodge City, KS focused on, but not limited to, moving beef products out of Dodge. I’ll throw out a suggestion of 80 containers and/or trailers as a one person crew limit. (20’ international containers count as 1/2). As a former marketing/pricing guy I can live with that until we get to a main line train with two crew members.
If there’s work on the ground to do, an extra person has to do it. Maybe a Dodge City switch crew could assemble the train and hook up the air to the road locomotives?
Look, the railroads flat out have to move forward and gain new business. Drawing a line in the sand on two people per crew isn’t a good way to do that. Eve
I agree they need to grow too, but it ain’t happening with the current thinking of the class 1s. And to have an extra man to do the neccesary work of new business - I fear it will have to be the result of regulation - because the companes aren’t going to do it.
I wonder how much traffic is going to have to decline on the Class 1’s before they begin to emulate the shortlines and beat the bush for new business?
Don’t know. I hope it’s soon.
As long as they can continue to squeeze more pennies out of each dollar they have in hand, they won’t look to try and bring in more dollars. It’s all about operating ratios and stock price.
Jeff
It would seem that they’ve lost touch with that old saw, “you have to spend money to make money…”
Just to clear the air on the the conversation I was involved with earlier, the only ppl who had an issue were folks who were not part of the chat. The genetlman and I exchanged details we both did not know prior and waa helpful. He was not offended. He is a former railroader, a businessman and he gets it. The attachment at the end was a poke and nothing else. No one is telling anyone what they can or cannot do. Non-railroaders don’t get it. Sit in a yard office or AFHT hotel and see how employees talk w/each other. Its the culture and not for the faint hearted.My angle was the fact that these business proposals have been tried in the area at three locations in the sw KS triangle, 2 BNSF & 1 UP (Liberal) and none have ever lifted off the ground for a number of reasons that space and time doesn’t allow. Tyson never had any interest in such a project. Watching them the past decade has been interesting. This is the typical big client that has no trust in the rr and the rr has no trust in them. &nb
Things will have to get so bad that even the hard-headed reality-deniers who constantly chant “We’ve always done it this way!” have to admit that if something doesn’t change the whole railroad will go down the tubes. I remember reading about the Rock Island’s last days, when the new management team started making changes that had been needed for 20 years they STILL ran into resistance, even though the railroad was on life support.
A large share of biz, which comes out of packing facilitues, is the by-prods of tallow and bonemeal. Tallow is the dried blood that is cooked to a temp of 3000F, filled in tankcars and used as an additive in food and also to make clothing. This tallow is rfined into a thick white liquid.It is in high demand. Tyson tallow from Holcks travesl in IBPX and PBFX tanks and ships to Chicago and Houston, interchanged to PTRA down there. Meal ships in hoppers to Birmingham and interchanged to CSX @ St. Louis. About a decade ago, Tyson was becoming very sloppy w/their housekeeping. The tallow grease was covering the rails inside the plant. The flanges on the wheels were coated w/the crap. When those cars arrived @ KCK to be switched on the hump, the retarders became clogged by the grease on the flanges, they were not slowing down on the crest to 4 mph and instead were rocket slung at 15 mph into the bowl, making crossed drawbar joints w/some derailments. This was putting the hump out of service. .The rr traced and discovered what the issue was. We were instucted to switch out any cars on the lead that had the tallow on the wheels. Well…that order went in one ear, out the other. We were not
Slight correction- no Tyson in Sioux Falls (South Dakota). Probably Tyson in Sioux City (Iowa).
Historically, tallow has come from fat, not blood; it has been used in the making of candles.
Steam oil can still be coloquially referred to as ‘tallow’, though I don’t think it is made from animal fat anymore.
The hard grease we use in axle and rod bearings does contain lard, which also means it is fairly easy to wash off your hands, it feels almost soapy!
and whether rendered or processed, it would ASSUREDLY not involve “3000 degrees Fahrenheit” processing.
I had the ugly suspicion at one time that at least some commercial erythritol and erythorbate were actually sourced from the blood process stream … let’s hope they are not. Until relatively recently a major ‘sink’ of the processed blood was as “nutrients” in various types of cattle feeding system (which also doesn’t bear too much thinking about). Meanwhile some bright people discovered you could make supposedly-non-immunoreactive ‘emergency blood’ from cow hemoglobin (which is not a happy potential medical solution, although a higher-value product which should get rid of some large percentage of the abysmal cross-contamination conditions in most large-scale for-profit “processing facilities”. … note I said ‘should’.
With tallow being so easily rendered (probably at no more than 300F, which I think is what he meant to type from carcass fat of various types, that’s a more likely source than trying to synthesize something from blood components. It’s just as nasty and messy as he describes it, whatever the source.
While we’re on the subject, tallow was one of the ‘best’ lubricants for valves and cylinders in the early low-pressure days of steam railroading – it is what led to the sobriquet ‘tallowpot’ for a locomotive fireman. There are some highly amusing stories of all the hogs that ‘knew’ to assemble near the station close to train time because of the intriguing smell and perhaps taste opportunities from total-loss lubrication schemes…
I am pretty sure that it feels almost soapy because in fact rather than “lard” being present in the grease, you have lithium and perhaps potassium soaps (which might use components of lard as the base). These provide the necessary water tolerance a rod grease for a steam locomotive operated outdoors will benefit from, as well as holding the actual lubricating oil properly for tribology.
See here for some of the chemistry involved: https://books.google.com/books?id=CWznBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=false