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A disclaimer of sorts: though I've been lurking for a while, this is the first time I've posted to this forum, since professional considerations prevent me from revealing my identity...and I'm loathe to post anonymously or with an alias. I will say that I've worked as both an agreement employee and as an officer in the engineering departments of several class 1 railroads. I'm afraid I take umbrage to Mr. Chessking's statements. I will agree with Mr. Hemphill that RR engineering departments take their jobs seriously; it's inappropriate to make a blanket statement that the field employees (to wit: "...small numbers of track crews, signal men, etc...") are the only ones who care about their work whilst the "corporations" (which, perhaps incorrectly, I interpreted to be "management") remain blissfully ignorant, as Chessking seems to imply. In simple terms, there's a limited amount of cash available at budget time. Each department makes its case for some of that cash. While we may think that the operating, engineering, and mechanical departments are the only ones to need some of that cash, there are actually many more stakeholders eyeing a comparitively small pile of money. Don't forget the marketing, administrative, IT, legal, finance, and procurement departments, to name a few. Oh yes, investors are also looking at that cash as a way to recoup their investment. Even if the investors forfeited their share, there still wouldn't be enough money to bring the railroad network up to what I perceive to be your standards. Just how does one define "well maintained," anyway? (And, I can assure you that if the investors don't get some cash, the railroad will soon grind to a halt, long before the physical plant is made "perfect.") But, to help elucidate the situation, suppose our favorite engineering department gets a 15% budget increase this year. Where to spend the money? More tie inserters? Tampers? What about ballast? What about saftey glasses and raingear for the men in the field? Just how much time will be available to work on the track, anyway? None of these would prevent the broken rail that resulted from a bad weld that was made five years ago, unless money had been spent on additional rail inspection at exactly the right time, and in the right place. So, spend some money on rail inspection and forgo some ditching. But what problems will that cause? That said, many derailments are the result of a combination of factors: mechanical, engineering, and operating. The interaction between the many elements of the railroad, viewed as an engineering system, makes prediction of every single "incident" nearly impossible. I'm afraid that, after an incident does occur, hindsight often blurs an outsider's view of the complexity of the system. I can tell you that careful modelling goes on to optimze the available resources. And the results from that modelling must also pass the "sniff test" from seasoned railroaders before resource allocation decisions are made. But the fact remains that, in the case of many track caused "incidents," unless we were to be granted clairvoyance, we wouldn't have been able to predict them. But we do our best. The ride quality to which Chessking apparently refers ("smooth, trouble free ride") is important to only a small fraction of traffic. Coal, grain, paper rolls, coil steel, and automobiles tolerate rough track realtively well. Almost by definition, intermodal deals only with goods relatively insensitive to ride quality, or else the sensitive cargo is carefully paked in the trailer/container. The stuff that is intolerant of a rough ride goes solely by truck and thus can't be called intermodal (unless it comes off a ship). Long-distance Amtrak trains don't generally cover the expense of maintaining infrastructure to the standards required for relatively high speeds and a smooth ride. Indeed, ride quality is only one of many indicators of track condition. Since it's difficult and expensive information to accurately quantify, other metrics are generally used, and to much better effect. Lastly, if memory serves, I believe a locomotive manufacturer in the northeast actually built a steam engine with octagonal (or some kind of polygonal)wheels in the late 1800s. I don't recall reading that the experiment was ever reproduced...
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