What Union Pacific and the media aren’t telling you about the Baker, CA, train derailment

1. We used to run this exact ore train back when it came over Donner/Feather River (OISST, OISRM/OSTIS, ORMIS) but I never had over 106 cars, 13k tons. We always ran 3×2 on loaded westbounds and 3×0 on the eastbound empties which was plenty of power.

2. This is what happens when republicans deregulate industries…..Most recently trains and banks

3. I attempted to hire on with UP as a brakeman in October and was kicked out of the program four weeks from my start date in March when they found that my epilepsy is controlled with medication (I’m seizure-free since ‘09, driving, and an ag equipment operator). They left it up to me to discover that their self-regulating medical policies not only fly in the face of 2005 FRA medical findings, but they pretty much don’t recognize the ADA (UP Health and Medical Services’s unregulated policies allow them to easily screw over long-term employees without any recourse). The government needs to step up and crack down on this Gilded Age mentality that has taken root. If these Class 1 roads feel that federal agencies and employees don’t matter, then it’s time for change.

4. There is a lot of … weird things coming from this guy…. half-truths… slight mis-directions… there is nothing inherently wrong with long trains.. even 300 cars. Even the conspiracy stuff about reopening lines, come on… he knows how rail works… if main lines are down, it adds a LOT of time and cost to 'go around' … if they even can reasonably. The real issue here is more the middle stuff (10 minutes or so of this whole thing?)… the reinvestment into the system. Longer trains DO require longer passing sidings, do require longer yard leads etc. The rails themselves need better inspection. I mean look at the high-speed rails we've installed recently in Florida, New York…. versus the horrible tracks Amtrak runs on going from Florida to New York. It is the investment that is lacking. Last bit is interesting, but complicated… down here north of Miami there is quite literally a rail company that is purely for the farming area to collect from it all and get to the CSX terminal. But that said, the federal government really doesnt do a great job either… look at the state of the interstate system and its bridges. And I'm not sure the media hasnt been telling us this…. thats all i've heard from the derailments… the horrible state of infrastructure in this country.

5. we need to stop making excuses for the financial criminals running this country

6. Regulate rail. Regulate aviation. Regulate interstate trucking (no wonder drivers abandoned that industry or that new drivers don't stay long). The race to the bottom is not helping our nation, just the rich parasites. As for train length, mandate shorter trains. Business owners don't have to like it. FUCK 'EM. If they had ethics this shit wouldn't happen. However rail will never be nationalized because the public are morons and the industry can afford to buy legislators.

7. FDR was used in the Depression to introduce Socialism. Social Security = Socialism. Public ownership is good because people who are concerned about the business would be running it, re-investing capital. Expensive, but better.

8. are there (as many) truck crashes with consumers goods….as train derailment?? and what a out environmental impact?? some rich are destroying the present system of rail,and trucking. until these owners and their government partners and stock market partners and bank partners are detained( for )overly aggressive business moves, and lack of using capital for upkeep; thus causing bad maintenance and accidents and environmental damages until they are jailed for their crimes…..this all will continue on and on………..Ecclesiastes 3:14,15

9. merger can be a sign of weakness. to cover the theft they needed to merge and distract workers and the public.

10. Biden Cancels Keystone XL Pipeline and Rejoins Paris Climate Agreement
    In a burst of climate orders, the president also ordered federal agencies to begin the process of reinstating environmental regulations reversed under the Trump administration.
    IT IS ALL OBAMA AND JOE BIDENS FAULT 100% THIS USED TO HAPPEN BACK WHEN CARNEGIE RAIL BARON RULED THE LAND, AND THEN CAME JOHN D ROCKEFELLER WHO PUT ALL THESE TOXIC CHEMICALS INTO PIPELINES THAT HAD 25,000% LESS LEAKS AND SPILLS AND PROBLEMS!!!!
    Did you know? One of the charitable organizations established by John D. Rockefeller, Sr. was the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, founded in 1909. Less than 20 years after its creation, the Commission had achieved its primary goals, the successful eradication of hookworm disease across the southern United States.
    In 1864, Rockefeller married Laura Celestia “Cettie” Spelman (1839-1915), an Ohio native whose father was a prosperous merchant, politician and abolitionist active in the Underground Railroad. (Laura Rockefeller became the namesake of Spelman College, the historically black women’s college in Atlanta, Georgia, that her husband helped finance.)

    In 1865, Rockefeller borrowed money to buy out some of his partners and take control of the refinery, which had become the largest in Cleveland. Over the next few years, he acquired new partners and expanded his business interests in the growing oil industry. At the time, kerosene, derived from petroleum and used in lamps, was becoming an economic staple. In 1870, Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, along with his younger brother William (1841-1922), Henry Flagler (1830-1913) and a group of other men. John Rockefeller was its president and largest shareholder.

    Standard Oil gained a monopoly in the oil industry by buying rival refineries and developing companies for distributing and marketing its products around the globe. In 1882, these various companies were combined into the Standard Oil Trust, which would control some 90 percent of the nation’s refineries and pipelines. In order to exploit economies of scale, Standard Oil did everything from build its own oil barrels to employ scientists to figure out new uses for petroleum by-products.

    Rockefeller’s enormous wealth and success made him a target of muckraking journalists, reform politicians and others who viewed him as a symbol of corporate greed and criticized the methods with which he’d built his empire. As The New York Times reported in 1937: “He was accused of crushing out competition, getting rich on rebates from railroads, bribing men to spy on competing companies, of making secret agreements, of coercing rivals to join the Standard Oil Company under threat of being forced out of business, building up enormous fortunes on the ruins of other men, and so on.”

11. IMHO, the engineer should have ridden it to the grave. but more so, should have known there would be problems with lack of braking and overloading, refusing to haul it without more engines.
    it seems there's a great lack of education, knowledge and hands on experience in majority of all railways these days, everyone relies upon sensors, data and computers to tell them what to do and those I can say are rarely ever correct to be trusted.
    also, at this point I think tampering is occurring and many of the issues are being caused by said tampering, be it human err, computer hacking, radio traffic or physically done on purpose.

12. We need to take a relook at Roadrailers. Best of both worlds!

13. You can have 2-300 car trains. If your Infrastructure was built from scratch. Like the iron railroads in Canada or AUS.

14. Agora nós Descubrimos o meio de combater com nossa arma S .viu .#

15. Why aren't you reporting on the derailment that didn't happen in Sacramento recently?
    Local Fox News reports showed the torch-cut rail, that a guy walking his dog discovered.

16. As long as you have a Warren buffoon owner idiot as your head it is a house divided within a house…and it doesn't get any better in pokie.

17. Former La Grande conductor here. 16000 ton soda ash trains common here. Extra power nice to have for dynamic braking effort sure, but the real reason is to get up a grade. Problem with these trains is massive tons per car. This crew would have been required probably to tie hand brakes on every car before recharging the air system as pee the rules. Cima hill is one of the most unforgiving mountain grades in the country. See the November 1980 tie train runaway for an example

18. STOP with wanting the government owning everything and the rail system.
    You want that move to a socialist / communist country to see what it is really like.
    MORE CORRUPTION and GRAFT.

19. Weight regulation IMHO would be smart but the government owning the rails, HELL NO.
    LOOK HOW BAD OUR ROADS ARE IN the USA.

20. I have been working in the US railroad industry for over 55 years. In 1980, the Staggers Act rescued railroad corporations, not rail transportation. I saw back then what is happening now. I have been considering solutions for decades and have finally come upon an idea I think can be implemented.

    Paul Lindsey was spot on in his observations of how to fix rail transportation.

    Although public ownership is a good idea, it will be a non-starter in our political environment. However, public control is within reach. Public control can eventually become public ownership in this arrangement. The "nationalization" of the railroads in 1917 was not really nationalization. It was regulation. The government did not take property, and paid the owners for the use of it. We can use a similar arrangement now.

    We are locked into private ownership of the rail network for now. It was a conscious decision that Congress made over a100 years ago. Railroads are private, everything else is built and operated by government agencies.

    Please help achieve government control of the railroad network, opening it to any qualified entity that wants to provide rail service. Click
    https://actionnetwork.org/letters/toll-roads-for-trains?source=direct_link&
    and send a letter to Congress and the Surface Transportation Board to create an open access Toll Roads for Trains of the US rail network.

21. I am on board with with everything EXCEPPT making freight rail public I vehemently oppose that period!!!

22. create a crisis then step in and take over.

23. Tictoc account???

24. The problem is that the industry controls to politicians and the regulators. Warren Buffet owns the BNSF he donates to both parties and uses government against the unions. .

25. No train should be that long? If UP could get away with it, they'd do it with one switchman and a remote control pack? I'm a former amtrak conductor.

26. With everything based on stock prices in these mega corporations railroads, the only thing that will get the board of directors attention is if the combined costs of these accidents exceeds the extra profits gained by cost cutting measures.

27. I agree with 99% of what your guest said

28. The railroads are but one segment of industry that suffers from the same affliction, which is being traded on the stock market. Everything comes from these greedy ticks sucking the life out of companies. Short-sighted and deadly.

29. Great interview! The only issue I had was him talking about or something like the government maintains and leasing track or government being trainmasters? We have a ton of people in government right now who constantly want more and more power and who make law, knowing NOTHING of the commodity or object they regulate! Somehow, they can do it? They hold their jobs in government even when they destroy what they are supposed to protect. Let's get a different answer, maybe privatize different aspects of railroading? Government sucks!

30. Maybe the railroads need to experience the inability to continue to move trains due to their own management .

31. While riding a welded rail train in the late 1980's on the Union pacific System a train crew pointed out a new interstate bridge that was destroyed by a runaway ore train . This was a couple of years after the derailment and the right of way still looked like a war zone . Ore was scattered everywhere and other than the new interstate overpass and railroad there wasn't any vegetation . The story was that an air hose in the trainline had collapsed inside and blocked the air . There was a new trainman on board the lead engine and when the derailment happened one of the trailing engines passed the lead unit and the new trainman got off the lead locomotive he just started walking and was asked where he was going and he sad he was going to find a job as railroading wasn't for him . Great podcast .

32. Mega thanks

33. Half a million pounds with only 5 units 😱😱

34. I was on scene in the 80’s when the Duffy street train derailed. Why hasnt those standards been improved. It was the same cause. Brakes and over weighted cargo @

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