There was a recent thread on the cancelation of the XL pipeline project. It was deleted. OK, Kalmbach owns the website, and they can control what’s on it.
But…
I think anything involving transportation, especially transportation infrastructure, is railroad related and is a legitimate issue for discussion on this website.
The cancelation of the pipeline will affect both the US and Canadian economies. Transportation is a derived demand. i.e., We got it here and you need it there.
Limiting economic development will affect transportation demand.
I think we had an exceptionally good, railroad related, discussion going on. It got deleted. I disagree with that decision. But I acknowledge their right to make the decision.
I thought it was rail-related, seeing as the oil that would have moved in the pipeline will now most likely go by train.
I had posted this link to the previous thread, an expansion of the Hardisty, AB rail terminal is set to come online soon. I believe this is the first terminal set up to ship 100+ car unit trains of bitumen without diluent.
Well, for me I could absolutely care less about the XL pipeline but it seems to be a very emotional issue with some elsewhere on social media. I think it is great rail is getting the contracts and the business. From a political standpoint for myself I was always luke warm on the issue. Not really for it and not really against it and can’t really see wasting any energy making an argument one way or another.
I know I brought this up before and a lot of folks pooh-poohed it. I think it would be cool to use rail to ship desalinated fresh water from the East or Pacific Coast inland to start replentishing empty reservoirs. Pure fantasy I guess and I know it would probably be prohibitively expensive…you never know though. I never thought I would see oil transported again by rail in such quantities.
The plain fact of the matter is the stuff’s going to be moved from where it is to where it has to be one way or another, just like any other commodity. That won’t change.
I could not argue any of the ‘points’ greyhounds raises:
The FORUM is Kalmbach’s property, and they may edit and control its content; as they may. Similarly, as do the ‘Silicone Valley’ Overlords have been doing, with their Social Media" sites. [bow]
All of which may be coming to an end if the House’ can pass some legislation, being report
I started the thread and wondered why it suddenly disappeared. In the past you would see a lock symbol on closed threads, but I guess they now just delete it, with no courtesy notice to the poster. I thought it would continue discussion on crude-by-rail, however it seemed to get stuck on pipeline politics, although I didn’t think it got out of hand. I don’t know if someone flamed in the 3 hours between my last post and the next time I checked and noticed it disappeared.
For what it’s worth, Considering this place is not a “no holds barred” community, I believe the forum admins are fairly lenient. Sometimes it seems they pull the cord a bit too soon, but when that happens, it’s just time to dust oneself off, and go onto the next topic. It’s not like discussion here is going to spawn public policy, so there really is no loss.
Before this thread gets deleted I’d like to say that the forum has been a welcome refuge from that “no holds barred” community. A community that is anything but that, where reasonable discourse and nuance have practically disappeared. Where neighbors are either “for or against”, “friend or foe”, “support or threat” to one’s prejudices.
I really appreciate this neighborhood, my neighbors, and the moderators.
There’s been an interesting version of this on Quora recently regarding their ‘be respectful, be nice’ posting policy. Some folks are complaining that they receive discipline or have their posts collapsed for calling out perceived trolls or overt racist/fascist/extremist supporters. The point being that in ‘hitting the yellow triangle’ to report those posts they just can’t keep from responding with some snarky message… which violates BRBN. And that is the difficulty in a community of friends: even when there is strong disagreement, friends remain civil.
Kalmbach has, in their way, tried to make this sort of point (and in some cases, albeit sometimes squirrelly, they have enforced it with moderation and bans). It is up to us to keep disputation civil, and to avoid the “usual sorts” of escalation that follow contentious ‘railroad-related’ issues that inherently involve politics or social issues.
Railroads are as much political entites as the Republican, Democrat and Liberterian Parties - they just don’t run candidates in their own name during elections.
Several times in the past when threads were locked, and moderators would comment on the action, they told us that we were perfectly free to start another thread on the same topic, and it would not be locked as long as it followed the forum rules. This point was made several times as a comment on the forum and in PMs to me by moderators.
So based on that policy offered by the moderators, I assume it would be okay to post a new thread on the XL Pipeline as long it does not violate forum rues.