Train derailment and chemical spill in Ohio

Did they have coach seating before? I would not want to be on some of those long runs with coach seating.

 

Some railroads used to use old sleepers as camp cars. Norfolk Southern's most recent series of camp cars was profiled in the video below, which is 15 years old, but indicative of what it was/is like. I'm not sure if NS still uses them or not.

The father of a childhood friend worked MOW for Conrail and Amtrak from the 1970s to the 1990s, and they frequently overnighted in similar camp cars. After seeing this video, I was puzzled at why, after sleeping in those things, my friend's dad actually enjoyed going camping in a camper in the Poconos. Five years of minor league bus travel made me never want to get on a bus ever again.

 

We've already incurred plenty of government costs. County, state, and federal. For which no one will ever be reimbursed.

Add the cost of the cleanup. The cost of the residential relocation if necessary. If it's a matter of taking the railroad to court, even as a class action, it could take decades for restitution.

The cost across generations of cancer clusters, if any, to be borne in some cases by private insurance; in some cases by that restitution from the railroad (unless it declares bankruptcy); and in many case by Medicare and Medicaid.

Again, we're all on the hook for the hidden costs of Norfolk-Southern running lean.

 

Privatize profit.

Socialize loss.

 

Sperry Rail Service operates self-powered track geometry cars to some remote locales, and the cars include living accommodations.

Separately, NS was the railroad a few years ago that got into a literal shitstorm with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers over its use of trash bags instead of flushing toilets in locomotives. To the surprise of no one the filled bags began showing up on the tracks, along the right of way, and in trees. So NS started numbering the bags, to trace them to specific locomotives. Sooner than later the train crews wiped the floor with the railroad over that issue.

There's an old saying, "The railroad is the only business that after it hires you, spends the rest of your career trying to fire you."

 

It gets worse in northeast Ohio. NS crewman killed in Cleveland when a dump truck hits a train outside a steel mill.

 

Norfolk Southern: Doing Things The Penn Central Way!

 

No surer sign of the apocalypse than posting about railroad camp cars on a sportswriters board.

 

The thing is, if you got every poster together in a convention hall, we'd have a pretty broad base of knowledge on everything from advanced baseball stats to economics to which railroads forced their locomotive crews to shit in plastic bags. It's a rich tapestry.