John Oliver's show about US freight train ops

[OldEastRR]

The Dec 10 episode. Pretty eye-opening. The show is "Last Week Tonight". You can find it on the internet.

[Jesse6669]

The Island of Sodor video is (very darkly) hilarious.  A bit salty so if you're sensitive to cursing.. be warned.  Watch the out-takes for shots of the model makers building the dioramas at the end. 

The report is actually decent for a news product, with a few factual errors but not bad IMHO.  From a modeling perspective, it appears they used multiple scales of TtTE rolling stock and some 3D printed "faces" to get different expressions for the locos.  I also got a kick out of the reference to the old Ringo Starr as the Conductor on the tv series. 

I read the original Rev. W. Awdry book of Henry the Green Engine when I was a child, and I am here to say Henry did get out of the tunnel.  Gordon broke down while pulling an important train and Henry was allowed out of the tunnel to save the day!

[bnsfdash8]

Youtube link:

[Missaberoad]

Railwire link: 

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=57038.0

[wm3798]

He could have gone on for another hour.

• The decimation of local economies as major shop and yard facilities are closed
• The physical limitations of over-length trains is covered, but what about the physics?  (empty rack cars string-lining on a curve, etc.)
• The massive stripping of cash from the companies to redistribute wealth to share holders in a pretty out of balance fashion.
• The perception (hard fact?) that replacing an entire town and paying funeral expenses and settlements is more profitable than just running a safe operation.

And let's not forget the very real impact on railfans.  It used to be you could hang around trackside and see several trains over the course of a couple of hours.  Now you're lucking if you see one in half a day, and the only thing moderately interesting about them is the DPU might be a standard cab.

Late stage capitalism pretty much sucks the life out of everything to make sure the top tier just gets richer.  Vive le dividends!

I see the happy talk coming from the current CEO of CSX, but I don't really see any movement toward more practical operations.

Lee

[DirtyD79]

Governor: Send more trains!

[Chris333]

Wish I wudda heard about this sooner