Could this be the beginning?
Starting around 6:05 or so, it delves into an underlying financial mechanic which really allowed the private business to succeed. This was the really interesting part to me as it further makes me feel that the Brightline could be a real feasibility project that gets this sort of thing to happen more often by rail operators.
I dream of a west coast high speed rail where I could take a train from Seattle to Los Angeles rather than having to make the flight.
|
Biden announces funding for high speed rail... like we'll ever see it happen
Look. I want it. I want to believe. But California is the perfect case to show that this won't happen. Especially through different Presidents. The next Republican president will undo this funding.
Additionally, $8 billion is nowhere near enough for this investment. It's off by a factor of 10, at least, I think.
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing $8.2 billion in new funding for 10 major passenger rail projects across the country, including the first world-class high-speed rail projects in our country's history. Key selected projects include: building a new high-speed rail system between California and Nevada, which will serve more than 11 million passengers annually; creating a high-speed rail line through California's Central Valley to ultimately link Los Angeles and San Francisco, supporting travel with speeds up to 220 mph; delivering significant upgrades to frequently-traveled rail corridors in Virginia, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia; and upgrading and expanding capacity at Chicago Union Station in Illinois, one of the nation's busiest rail hubs. These historic projects will create tens of thousands of good-paying, union jobs, unlock economic opportunity for communities across the country, and open up safe, comfortable, and climate-friendly travel options to get people to their destinations in a fraction of the time it takes to drive.
|
Hard-Fought Success on Rail Sick Days
Okay, not sleeping yet. My friend Bill posted this. Biden didn't back the rail worker striker, but since this team has helped keep the pressure and it seems the rail workers are getting what they want.
(Emphasis mine.)
After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. freight carriers finally have what they’ve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days.
This is a big deal, said Railroad Department Director Al Russo, because the paid-sick-days issue, which nearly caused a nationwide shutdown of freight rail just before Christmas, had consistently been rejected by the carriers. It was not part of last December’s congressionally implemented update of the national collective bargaining agreement between the freight lines and the IBEW and 11 other railroad-related unions.
“We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
“We know that many of our members weren’t happy with our original agreement,” Russo said, “but through it all, we had faith that our friends in the White House and Congress would keep up the pressure on our railroad employers to get us the sick day benefits we deserve. Until we negotiated these new individual agreements with these carriers, an IBEW member who called out sick was not compensated.”
|
"Freight rail strike averted, after frenzied negotiations"
I am extremely disappointed that both of my Senators voted in favor of this, forcing them to continue to work and not strike despite the ownership refusing to give them any sick days.
Check your Senators and how they voted.
|
Why rail barons are so ardently refusing paid sick days
Why do these rail barons hate paid leave so much? Why would a company have no problem handing out 24 percent raises, $1,000 bonuses, and caps on health-care premiums but draw the line on providing a benefit as standard and ubiquitous throughout modern industry as paid sick days?
The answer, in short, is "P.S.R." — or precision-scheduled railroading.
P.S.R. is an operational strategy that aims to minimize the ratio between railroads' operating costs and their revenues through various cost-cutting and (ostensibly) efficiency-increasing measures. The basic idea is to transport more freight using fewer workers and railcars.
One way to do this is to make trains longer: A single 100-car train requires less track space than two 50-car ones since you need to maintain some distance between the latter. More critically, one very long train requires fewer crew members to run than two medium ones.
Another way to get more with less is to streamline scheduling so that trains are running at full capacity as often as possible.
All this has worked out poorly for rail workers writ large. Over the past six years, America's major freight carriers have shed 30 percent of their employees. To compensate for this lost staffing, remaining workers must tolerate irregular schedules and little time off since the railroads don't have much spare labor capacity left.
In short, capitalistic slavery.
|
