Big problem here is that the freight railroads are all being run like vulture capital operations. They own the trackage, so it’s their responsibility to maintain it, and it’s not like they don’t have the money. Norfolk Southern’s profits (not revenue, this is after costs) Sept 30 2022- Sept 30 2023 were over 8 billion dollars. Union Pacific did $14 billion in 2022. They can afford to maintain their shit, but they’re not; they’re just letting their tracks and rolling stock go to hell and shrugging when it blows up. Just flat out not paying your cost centers is not a thing a sane business does if it wants to keep doing business for long. I’m convinced that the major rail carriers long-term plan is to just not pay to repair a goddamn thing until the rail infra is completely broken, declare bankruptcy, and then sell it to the government. The government will make CONRAIL 2 (see: CONRAIL, which is what happened the last time they pulled this shit), spend an ass-ton of taxpayer dollars fixing this bullshit, and then sell it back to the privates for pennies on the dollar because of FrEe MaRkEt EfFiCiEnCy.
In America, socialism is something you only get once you become a powerful enough capitalist enterprise. The state produces the means of production and then just hands it over to you while you collect profits. Another great example of this is the thousands of miles of dark fiber optic cable buried in the US that ISPs refuse to connect at the “last mile.” Why spend a bunch of money giving everybody fiber when they’re already paying you a kidney every month for shitty rural DSL?
Big problem here is that the freight railroads are all being run like vulture capital operations. They own the trackage, so it’s their responsibility to maintain it, and it’s not like they don’t have the money. Norfolk Southern’s profits (not revenue, this is after costs) Sept 30 2022- Sept 30 2023 were over 8 billion dollars. Union Pacific did $14 billion in 2022. They can afford to maintain their shit, but they’re not; they’re just letting their tracks and rolling stock go to hell and shrugging when it blows up. Just flat out not paying your cost centers is not a thing a sane business does if it wants to keep doing business for long. I’m convinced that the major rail carriers long-term plan is to just not pay to repair a goddamn thing until the rail infra is completely broken, declare bankruptcy, and then sell it to the government. The government will make CONRAIL 2 (see: CONRAIL, which is what happened the last time they pulled this shit), spend an ass-ton of taxpayer dollars fixing this bullshit, and then sell it back to the privates for pennies on the dollar because of FrEe MaRkEt EfFiCiEnCy.
In America, socialism is something you only get once you become a powerful enough capitalist enterprise. The state produces the means of production and then just hands it over to you while you collect profits. Another great example of this is the thousands of miles of dark fiber optic cable buried in the US that ISPs refuse to connect at the “last mile.” Why spend a bunch of money giving everybody fiber when they’re already paying you a kidney every month for shitty rural DSL?