You don’t begin to imagine how much harm this arrogant attitude does to the industry.
I suppose in a totalitarian railroad dream world, “they would have no right to complain” about an increase in railroad traffic, but in a democracy, existing in a real world, it is usually the complaint that drives the ultimate solution to the problem.
Another thing to remember about Barrington is that this is the same suburb that opposed Metra’s proposed Circle Route on the EJ&E since it would increase congestion.
And ICLand can’t begin to imagine (or doesn’t care) how much damage his habitual trollish contrarianism does to his credibility.
Look: The simple proposition is that railroads exist to run trains – an idea that every schoolboy used to know. The Barringtons of this world liked it better when they just grew weeds and – of course – paid their taxes. Problem is, this wasn’t sustainable, as the 1970s showed us.
CN bought the EJE for the stated and reasonable purpose of running more trains on it – not to maintain, for the convenience of the Barringtons, the same traffic level as the previous owner. The STB approved the transaction, with conditions. The conditions weren’t all that the Barringtons desired, but then all of those would have negated the value of the deal to CN.
Then one train breaks in two and somebody is supposed to find $60 million for an overpass? This is precisely the kind of politically driven misallocation of resources that is running our economy and competitiveness into the ditch.
And Schlimm is surely blowing smoke when he represents that Barrington is less than the affluent 'burb that owes its monied existence – who cares about the horses? – to the railr
ICLand can defend himself, but… Apparently any position contrary to your, “railroads exist to run trains” (which beyond stating the obvious, implies that no one , no community and certainly no government better do anything to impede that) is not credible and leads to an ad hominem attack on the individual (“trollish contrarianism”).
When and where did I represent Barrington is “less than the affluent 'burb that owes its monied existence to the railroad” whatever that is supposed to mean? Try to get your facts straight. Since when is the wealth of its residents relevant to the problem?
The CN also blocked the mostly passenger Metra line. Would your attitude be the same if CN were frequently blocking the freight-heavy UP West line in West Chicago? Or is that “different?”
Last point. If CN has no fault, why is it that Barrington and Aurora did not agree to the merger? And why is it that neither community complains about the major railroads in those communities (UP and BNSF)?
You’re welcome.
There is nothing about “the Barrington Incident” that incites “habitual trollish contrarianism.” What does incite it are pseudo-railroaders who absolutely know that they have everything figured out, and pronouncements that ordinary people “have no right to complain,” spoken on behalf of the rail industry that doesn’t need that kind of negative and condescending attitude that just happens to be dead wrong in the real world. It’s not going to endear the railroads to anyone, it doesn’t solve any problems to make the pronouncement, so what’s the point?
Generally, a break in a train is part of the contingency planning that all Class I railroads develop and review from time to time – pre-arranged response protocols to breaks, derailments, hazmat, earthquakes, etc… Ordinarily, a break at a crossing is treated as an “incident” and there is a plan for it, to get the train separated at the crossing as soon as practicable. This is so that 1) local public relations doesn’t go down the outhouse drain, and 2) emergency vehicles are not delayed or prevented from responding. All the railroad company needs is for some little kid to bleed to death or the mayor die of a heart attack because the ambulance couldn’t arrive in time because of a blocked crossing. And then you’ve got headlines, legislators, Congressmen, and lawsuits all thrown into a very expensive mix.
A colleague of mine was involved in a head-on (two trains) and in all the chaos, nobody realized that one of the trains was blocking a key crossing and the ambulance had to take a 40 minute detour to get to the wreck site. Two dead and four severely injured. I can’t tell you that th
Can I get an “AMEN” over here???
Amen. Remember all them folks who moved next to O’Hare, and then complained of jet noise? All my years living near Midway, never complained at all. BRC on one side, MDW on the other, and Cracker Jack to even it out.
Schlimm asks, “Where and when did I represent Barrington is 'less than the affluent ‘burb that owes its monied existence to the railroad’…?”
Well, it might have been when you told benburch he must have Barrington confused with Barrington Hills, "which is the part ‘tenanted by the better-off of the horsey set.’ "
In point of fact, Barrington Hills is the section of the Barrington area that has most of the “horsey set” with estates that in many cases include stables. However, if you actually read my words, you will see that I never said Barrington was not affluent. I included benburch’s term “better-off” in quotes, because Barrington Hills is even wealthier than Barrington.
All of that is really quite irrelevant to the real points that ICLand and I (and possibly other posters), which you and others are unable or unwilling to address.
In point of fact, they are mostly snobs up there from my experience. Allow me to qualify that after 35 years living on the South Side, it was also considered a foreign country as was everthing north of I-55!
Why would the complaints be different? Knuckles happend, some across diamonds, some across road crossings, anyone who knows anything about railroads know that. I had a QNPSKP train get a knuckle across 75th street a while back. It had both the BRC and Metra Southwest x Wabash line blocked, along with some local road crossings. There where no local articles in the Trib, no complaining from the locals. Maybe the locals in and around 75th are not the same NIMBYS that exist in Barrington, or maybe since the locals don’t have the $$$ that Barrington locals have the Trib didn’t care…
The people of Barrington complained to Metra when it looked at the circle route over the J a while back…Perhaps CN is not a bad apple but the people of Barrington are?
The petty Bourgeoisie of Barrington…
CN is a railroad company I have no experience with. But, on American Class I’s, the length of time that this crossing was tied up suggests about a 99.9% probability that someone got called on the carpet for it.
The “incident plan” for this kind of event failed, miserably, for some reason. And while it may be a 1 in a million event, every such event is a measure of the company’s ability to implement it’s incident plans.
And something clearly fell apart here. And railroad people don’t just wander around in a fog, dealing with unplanned breaks, and offering lame “oh gee, it only happens once in a great while,” excuses. No, these are professionals, and as soon as the break was reported, “someone” was responsible for identifying the crossings involved, bringing up power from the next train on line, breaking the train ahead of the crossing, and pulling it back 40 feet to clear the crossing. Repeat if more than one. Reverse the process if the original break or derailment is at the rear of the train, which was unlikely.
Consider the ability to do this quickly a “test.” CN failed on this one. Of
You can’t have it both ways.
As you said, the UP line through Barrington is mostly passenger Metra. There’s very little freight traffic on the line. Next you state that Barrington doesn’t complain about the UP line. “Duh” comes to mind. Residents of Barrington aren’t going to complain about a low traffic line that is mostly passenger and serves them directly. They would certainly start squawking if UP started running 15 intermodal trains each way everday.
CN is very much at fault for the breakdown, I haven’t seen anyone say otherwise. Breakdowns do happen though, as much as everyone wishes they didn’t, they still do. If the breakdown happened while crossing the UP West Line it would still have been an accident, and a regrettable one as well nothing malicious about it. The dispatchers in Omaha would most likely have to work extra hard to prevent trains from stacking up in queue all the way from West Chicago to LA
Whose car was it that had the knuckle break? I think that CN can hardly be responsible if some foreign car had a knuckle break, for example. And even if it was their car, no reasonable inspection can catch all of the defects that can cause this. This is just one of those things that happen like flat tires.
This thread seems to have divided into two opposing viewpoints:
CN is negligent for causing an unreasonable delay.
Break-in-twos are normal, unpredictable, and can happen anywhere, and Barrington residents or others who complain about delay are NIMBYS, morons and idiots that have no basis for a complaint, and should realize that railroads have a perfect right to delay everybody else for as long as they want to.
I adhere to item #1. However, it is not clear to me which side RR Ken and Murray are on. By giving an “Amen” to IC Land, I assume they support viewpoint #1.
Wow.
[quote user=“Bucyrus”]
This thread seems to have divided into two opposing viewpoints:
CN is negligent for causing an unreasonable delay.
Break-in-twos are normal, unpredictable, and can happen anywhere, and Barrington residents or others who complain about delay are NIMBYS, morons and idiots that have no basis for a complaint, and should realize that railroads have a perfect right to delay everybody else for as long as they want to.
I adhere to item #1. However, it is not clear to me which side RR Ken and Murray are on. By giving an “Amen” to IC Land, I assume they support viewpoint #1.
Aside from the fact that I suspect you’ve never “carried a knuckle” in your life, I don’t think you understand the point that is being discussed between the various gentlemen. The dispute appears to me not to be over whether or not a knuckle failed, but the railroad company’s response to it, which resulted in a lengthy delay, apparently at a critical crossing, causing a substantial traffic tie-up.
If there were more to story, and it were being told by a knowledgeable observer, I would suspect that not only did the company drop the ball on clearing the crossings according to their own pre-arranged contingency plan, but that the truck carrying the replacement knuckle was held up in the traffic caused by not clearing the crossings in a timely fashion. This is called “shooting yourself in the foot.”
But, again, I wasn’t there, and the story may be richly laden with ironies, or maybe not but I am sure the whole picture was not reported. However, confusing cause – knuckle – with effect – massive traffic tie-ups – confuses the issues for reasons I cannot discern. One is not the other.