Planes and Boats and Trains. Wrecks!

[jemcanada2]

A train on fire rolling through London, Ontario.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10441099/fre ... ndon-fire/

[AndyinPA]

That's amazing!*








*Not in a good way.

[bill_g]

The draggers** are gonna send some overtemp alarms to the cab fersure.

**Draggers is the nickname for automated detectors along the rail that try to determine if loads have shifted, or hanging off the sides, or worse. Hence the name draggers. They can be purchased with temperature detectors, axle counters, and overall length measurement as well. Their output is sent to a radio where a robot voice announces the results.

A train passes a detector triggering it to begin the process. It sends out a voice acknowledgement.

"Railroad Company Name at Milepost something something point something"

It stays shut up until the train passes. Then it keys up again.

"Railroad Company Name at Milepost something something point something - NO DEFECTS, NO DEFECTS, LENGTH BIG NUMBER IN FEET, TOTAL AXLES BIG NUMBER, CLEAR.

Generally, if the engineer wants to replay the message, he can send a signal over the radio that will command the dragger to repeat it.

If there a problem, the dragger will repeat it many more times until the engineer commands it to stop. He'll be getting permission to stop, or to proceed to the nearest siding depending on the report.

[johnpcapitalist]

No surprise that the rail tracker is Europe. US rail companies don't like folks paying attention to where their trains are. They claim it is for security purposes but it more likely that they follow their old habits of not paying attention to the rest of the world, even their own customers.

Amtrak has a tracker, and Metra (the NE Illinois commuter line) has updated theirs recently though sometimes the UP lines are off (yes, Union Pacific gets that way). Obviously, passenger rail has a greater use for online train tracking.

The NYC mass transit systems have real-time train trackers that provide details to your phone. It's pretty cool.

I'm surprised that the big railroads in the US aren't providing real-time tracking data to show the triumph of their "precision scheduled railroading" strategy that is supposed to make the trains run on time... Oh, wait...

[northland10]

I'm surprised that the big railroads in the US aren't providing real-time tracking data to show the triumph of their "precision scheduled railroading" strategy that is supposed to make the trains run on time... Oh, wait...

Since Hunter Harrison was at Illinois Central before arranging to have it swallowed by CN, on behalf of Illinois, I feel compelled to apologize for that mess he has foisted upon the world.

I have read various sales jobs touting the greatness of PSR and how it will help all sorts of areas, but the only results I have seen are reducing costs and using the cash for stock buybacks to increase the stock price. Efficiency and safety are not of their concern, despite what they claim in the sell job.

The Norfolk Southern CEO had lousy timing by taking on the position shortly before the Palestine crash. I have been hearing good things about his work in dealing with that issue and fixing all the issues with safety and customer satisfaction caused by the relentless cost-cutting. I have heard it referred to as PSR 2.0, and it could actually work to bring value while not destroying the company (listen up, Boeing). Because of this, Ancora is trying to push him out.

I am really disliking stock buybacks.

[johnpcapitalist]

I'm surprised that the big railroads in the US aren't providing real-time tracking data to show the triumph of their "precision scheduled railroading" strategy that is supposed to make the trains run on time... Oh, wait...

I have read various sales jobs touting the greatness of PSR and how it will help all sorts of areas, but the only results I have seen are reducing costs and using the cash for stock buybacks to increase the stock price. Efficiency and safety are not of their concern, despite what they claim in the sell job.

I am really disliking stock buybacks.

As a former Wall Street professional, I hate buybacks too. I would be delighted if they were outlawed, or if they had significant tax implications, say a transaction tax of 4x the amount you spend.

Certain industries that are capital intensive but slow growing (railroads, aerospace, numerous others) do buybacks because they don't have the margins or the growth rates to seduce Wall Street like most tech stocks did in the go-go years of Silicon Valley.

Buybacks are the easiest way to guarantee stock price increases over the short term, and they work until either the macroeconomics of the industry suck enough or management's poor execution sucks enough that multiples on the stock (the price/earnings multiple, EBITDA multiple, etc.) compress and all that money you spent goes to waste.

Multiple compression = a reduction in the amount that investors will pay for a unit of financial performance. If your business is doing well, either in absolute terms or relative to peers, investors might pay a price/earnings ratio of 20x. But if you suddenly start sucking wind, the multiple investors are willing to pay might decrease dramatically -- if you miss a quarterly forecast and guide down expectations for future revenue/earnings, the P/E multiple might compress from 20x down to 12x. And the way back to that 20x is a long one.

At the same time you're spending all that money to placate Wall Street over the short term, you could be missing opportunities to make major investments that will position you well over the long term. For railroads, that might include redoing all your trackage to support faster trains, electric trains, etc. which would support huge growth 20-30 years from now. There are tons of big bets in aerospace that would also pay off huge, but nobody can afford to make them because of all they spend on buybacks.

I don't track market structure stuff like I used to, but I have a suspicion that nobody's really paying attention to the aggregate effect of buybacks (and mergers & acquisitions, while we're at it) on overall market risk. Buybacks remove shares from the market, and if mutual fund inflows (i.e., your 401(k) contributions) remain relatively constant, then money is chasing fewer and fewer shares to buy. This may have the effect we've seen of markets shrugging off potential recessions and other exogenous shocks in the short term, but that in turn probably increases the risk of a major meltdown over time where the entire market could get wiped out like it did in the Great Depression nearly 100 years ago.

[Volkonski]

New deep-water channel allows first ship to pass Key bridge wreckage in Baltimore
The Balsa 94, a bulk carrier sailing under a Panama flag, passed through the new 35-foot (12-meter) channel headed for St. John, Canada.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... rcna149369

The first cargo ship passed through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore on Thursday after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, halting most maritime traffic through the city’s port.

The Balsa 94, a bulk carrier sailing under a Panama flag, passed through the new 35-foot (12-meter) channel headed for St. John, Canada.

Its voyage marked an important step in the ongoing cleanup and recovery effort as salvage crews have been working around the clock to clear thousands of tons of mangled steel and concrete from the entrance to Baltimore’s harbor.

The ship is one of five stranded vessels expected to pass through the new, temporary channel, including one loaded car carrier. Other ships are scheduled to enter the port, which normally processes more cars and farm equipment than any other in the country.

[chancery]

California Boat Captain Is Sentenced to 4 Years in Fire That Killed 34
Jerry Nehl Boylan was found guilty last year of “seaman’s manslaughter” for abandoning his commercial diving ship when it caught fire in 2019. The fire killed 33 passengers and one crew member.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/c ... =url-share

The NTSB report is chilling. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pag ... MM047.aspx

A rare prosecution under an unusual statute, The Seaman's Manslaughter Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1115. It applies to ship's officers, owners, managers, inspectors, etc., as well as corporate management, and requires only simple negligence for a conviction.