Juniata Man Thank you Steven! VERY much appreciated! BALT; in our area it's a combination of yard congestion and mechanical issues - both locomotive and with individual cars in a train. Which goes directly to your earlier comment that that block swapping can negatively impact railcar mechanical inspections. And I'll blame psr for reducing locomotive mechanical shop forces with the resulting negative impact on locomotive servicing. CW
Thank you Steven! VERY much appreciated!
BALT; in our area it's a combination of yard congestion and mechanical issues - both locomotive and with individual cars in a train. Which goes directly to your earlier comment that that block swapping can negatively impact railcar mechanical inspections. And I'll blame psr for reducing locomotive mechanical shop forces with the resulting negative impact on locomotive servicing.
CW
I don't know if it's PSR or just bean counters, but maintenance on wheels seems to be getting much worse here along the UP West line. Metra too. So many flat spots..
Trains Forum members, please enjoy your now name-game-free thread.
Also, I want back the hour it took to accomplish that. Oh, how I miss the "delete post and all children posts" function. Sigh...
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
SD60MAC9500 Euclid SD60MAC9500 Euclid SD60MAC9500 Euclid So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place. No it won't. Trains size will not be reduced under automonous operation. Even with a "crewless" train you'll want to keep economies of scale in your favor to remain in competition.. The only economy of scale for monster trains is moving more cars per crew cost. Otherwise, monster trains cost more to operate due to more mechanical problems and delays. So, if you reduce or eliminate the crew, economic advantage of monster trains drops. If it drops low enough to not be able to offset the added cost of breakdowns and delays of monster trains, there will likely be no economic advantage to running them. Then too, the railroads will be in sharp competition with trucking with its fundamentally quicker delivery. If railroads want to take business from trucking, they will have to speed up their service. Monster trains slow down service. PSR style freights were not created to just cut crew cost. PSR cutting train starts created the side effect of cutting crew cost. You are not looking past the human element.. Some of the key features of PSR, RoW rationalization, and in theory increased capacity which has happened for the most part. Equimpent cost do not go away just because you eliminate a crew. Capacity cost do not go away just because you no longer have a crew. Car utilization cost does not go away just because you do not have a crew.. PSR has it's hiccups and will continue to have them as the focus on OR remains.. For now.. I do agree that there are more costs to railroading than just crew costs. But I don't see how a great increase in train size lowers those costs. It might if they were monster unit trains. You mention car utilization. How do monster trains lower the cost of car utilization? How do they lower the cost of capcity, as you say? The increase in size creates capacity with the rolling stock instead of CAPEX going toward the physical plant. PSR pre/swap blocking keeps cars moving instead of dwelling in a terminal. Boxcars for example probably only get 1 turn a month. If PSR can double that to 2 turns a month then you lower the cost associated with your boxcar as its greater velocity creates more capacity and improves on the ROI in your boxcar fleet. The more loads you can get per month means less idle time sitting empty not producing revenue miles.
Euclid SD60MAC9500 Euclid SD60MAC9500 Euclid So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place. No it won't. Trains size will not be reduced under automonous operation. Even with a "crewless" train you'll want to keep economies of scale in your favor to remain in competition.. The only economy of scale for monster trains is moving more cars per crew cost. Otherwise, monster trains cost more to operate due to more mechanical problems and delays. So, if you reduce or eliminate the crew, economic advantage of monster trains drops. If it drops low enough to not be able to offset the added cost of breakdowns and delays of monster trains, there will likely be no economic advantage to running them. Then too, the railroads will be in sharp competition with trucking with its fundamentally quicker delivery. If railroads want to take business from trucking, they will have to speed up their service. Monster trains slow down service. PSR style freights were not created to just cut crew cost. PSR cutting train starts created the side effect of cutting crew cost. You are not looking past the human element.. Some of the key features of PSR, RoW rationalization, and in theory increased capacity which has happened for the most part. Equimpent cost do not go away just because you eliminate a crew. Capacity cost do not go away just because you no longer have a crew. Car utilization cost does not go away just because you do not have a crew.. PSR has it's hiccups and will continue to have them as the focus on OR remains.. For now.. I do agree that there are more costs to railroading than just crew costs. But I don't see how a great increase in train size lowers those costs. It might if they were monster unit trains. You mention car utilization. How do monster trains lower the cost of car utilization? How do they lower the cost of capcity, as you say?
SD60MAC9500 Euclid SD60MAC9500 Euclid So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place. No it won't. Trains size will not be reduced under automonous operation. Even with a "crewless" train you'll want to keep economies of scale in your favor to remain in competition.. The only economy of scale for monster trains is moving more cars per crew cost. Otherwise, monster trains cost more to operate due to more mechanical problems and delays. So, if you reduce or eliminate the crew, economic advantage of monster trains drops. If it drops low enough to not be able to offset the added cost of breakdowns and delays of monster trains, there will likely be no economic advantage to running them. Then too, the railroads will be in sharp competition with trucking with its fundamentally quicker delivery. If railroads want to take business from trucking, they will have to speed up their service. Monster trains slow down service. PSR style freights were not created to just cut crew cost. PSR cutting train starts created the side effect of cutting crew cost. You are not looking past the human element.. Some of the key features of PSR, RoW rationalization, and in theory increased capacity which has happened for the most part. Equimpent cost do not go away just because you eliminate a crew. Capacity cost do not go away just because you no longer have a crew. Car utilization cost does not go away just because you do not have a crew.. PSR has it's hiccups and will continue to have them as the focus on OR remains.. For now..
Euclid SD60MAC9500 Euclid So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place. No it won't. Trains size will not be reduced under automonous operation. Even with a "crewless" train you'll want to keep economies of scale in your favor to remain in competition.. The only economy of scale for monster trains is moving more cars per crew cost. Otherwise, monster trains cost more to operate due to more mechanical problems and delays. So, if you reduce or eliminate the crew, economic advantage of monster trains drops. If it drops low enough to not be able to offset the added cost of breakdowns and delays of monster trains, there will likely be no economic advantage to running them. Then too, the railroads will be in sharp competition with trucking with its fundamentally quicker delivery. If railroads want to take business from trucking, they will have to speed up their service. Monster trains slow down service.
SD60MAC9500 Euclid So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place. No it won't. Trains size will not be reduced under automonous operation. Even with a "crewless" train you'll want to keep economies of scale in your favor to remain in competition..
Euclid So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place.
So U.P. plans on one ground roving conductor in charge of several autonomous trains with no human engineers. This will abruptly end the era of monster trains and their broken knuckles, which will be good news to the roving conductors. This will be the ultimate solution to the war between labor and management over crew size. It will also be the ultimate solution to the crew fatigue problem by allowing the roving conductors to rove closer to home, so they can sleep at home every night. It will also usher in the era of short, fast, and frequent trains with their agility and flexibility to live up to the true implication of Precision Scheduled Railroading. Finally all the pieces fall into place.
No it won't. Trains size will not be reduced under automonous operation. Even with a "crewless" train you'll want to keep economies of scale in your favor to remain in competition..
The only economy of scale for monster trains is moving more cars per crew cost. Otherwise, monster trains cost more to operate due to more mechanical problems and delays. So, if you reduce or eliminate the crew, economic advantage of monster trains drops. If it drops low enough to not be able to offset the added cost of breakdowns and delays of monster trains, there will likely be no economic advantage to running them. Then too, the railroads will be in sharp competition with trucking with its fundamentally quicker delivery. If railroads want to take business from trucking, they will have to speed up their service. Monster trains slow down service.
PSR style freights were not created to just cut crew cost. PSR cutting train starts created the side effect of cutting crew cost. You are not looking past the human element.. Some of the key features of PSR, RoW rationalization, and in theory increased capacity which has happened for the most part. Equimpent cost do not go away just because you eliminate a crew. Capacity cost do not go away just because you no longer have a crew. Car utilization cost does not go away just because you do not have a crew.. PSR has it's hiccups and will continue to have them as the focus on OR remains.. For now..
I do agree that there are more costs to railroading than just crew costs. But I don't see how a great increase in train size lowers those costs. It might if they were monster unit trains. You mention car utilization. How do monster trains lower the cost of car utilization? How do they lower the cost of capcity, as you say?
The increase in size creates capacity with the rolling stock instead of CAPEX going toward the physical plant. PSR pre/swap blocking keeps cars moving instead of dwelling in a terminal. Boxcars for example probably only get 1 turn a month. If PSR can double that to 2 turns a month then you lower the cost associated with your boxcar as its greater velocity creates more capacity and improves on the ROI in your boxcar fleet. The more loads you can get per month means less idle time sitting empty not producing revenue miles.
I agree with all your points about striving for the best plant utilization. Get the best productivity out of the investment. But why run one 300-car train rather than three 100-car trains? Where are the statistics that show that the longer the train is, the more productive it is? Why would increasing the number of cars in one train make those cars more productive, or increase track capacity, as you say?
What I am hearing about monster trains breaking knuckles, suffering delays, waiting for track space, running out of crew time, etc. leads me to conclude that plant productivity drops as trains get longer. The only point where productivity increases is that the number of cars in one train can be increased indefinitely without adding more crewmembers. So, the crewmember cost per car drops as trains get longer. Yet this one benefit is not nearly enough to offset the ponderous disruption and unforeseen complications of running monster trains.
I believe the best way to increase plant productivity is to revert to shorter trains, and more of them. Shorter trains flow with the plant productivity capacity. Monster trains disrupt the flow. Shorter, faster trains also provide the best customer service, which was one of the great selling points of PSR before the industry redefined it.
Automation, and PTC, will work together to increase track utilization by running more trains closer together. This is the modern method knocking at the door of old thinking.
ns145 Juniata Man Improved velocity is theoretically what enables a railroad to improve car utilization. The faster a car moves loaded, the faster it can be emptied and set into another customer for loading. If PSR actually worked that way... As mentioned elsewhere, my son works for a Class 1 in train service. It has become a weekly occurrence for him - either as part of the originating crew or as part of a relief crew, to be called because a train couldn't cover one crew district within 12 hours. His employer will burn two crews to cover less than 100 miles and three crews to cover less than 150. And it hasn't been at all unusual for a relief crew to sit for a full 12 hours before being relieved themselves. And the delays associated with these re-crews translate into slower transit times and degraded velocity. I have come to believe that PSR attempts to juggle so many "balls of change" that they all end up being dropped. CW I am by no means a fan of PSR, but my own observation of recrews on the local NS Decatur-KC line is there are far more days when things run to plan than not. So in a given week, month, or quarter there's a huge number of crew starts that have been eliminated. And, frankly, before PSR there were lots of days when things went to Hades in a Handbasket with recrews. Things have never run very smoothly on the railroads that I have observed over the last 40 years. Why do you think so many customers have bailed over the years? The ones that are left are forced to stay due to the transportation economics of the goods that they ship.
Juniata Man Improved velocity is theoretically what enables a railroad to improve car utilization. The faster a car moves loaded, the faster it can be emptied and set into another customer for loading. If PSR actually worked that way... As mentioned elsewhere, my son works for a Class 1 in train service. It has become a weekly occurrence for him - either as part of the originating crew or as part of a relief crew, to be called because a train couldn't cover one crew district within 12 hours. His employer will burn two crews to cover less than 100 miles and three crews to cover less than 150. And it hasn't been at all unusual for a relief crew to sit for a full 12 hours before being relieved themselves. And the delays associated with these re-crews translate into slower transit times and degraded velocity. I have come to believe that PSR attempts to juggle so many "balls of change" that they all end up being dropped. CW
Improved velocity is theoretically what enables a railroad to improve car utilization. The faster a car moves loaded, the faster it can be emptied and set into another customer for loading. If PSR actually worked that way...
As mentioned elsewhere, my son works for a Class 1 in train service. It has become a weekly occurrence for him - either as part of the originating crew or as part of a relief crew, to be called because a train couldn't cover one crew district within 12 hours. His employer will burn two crews to cover less than 100 miles and three crews to cover less than 150. And it hasn't been at all unusual for a relief crew to sit for a full 12 hours before being relieved themselves. And the delays associated with these re-crews translate into slower transit times and degraded velocity.
I have come to believe that PSR attempts to juggle so many "balls of change" that they all end up being dropped.
I am by no means a fan of PSR, but my own observation of recrews on the local NS Decatur-KC line is there are far more days when things run to plan than not. So in a given week, month, or quarter there's a huge number of crew starts that have been eliminated.
And, frankly, before PSR there were lots of days when things went to Hades in a Handbasket with recrews. Things have never run very smoothly on the railroads that I have observed over the last 40 years. Why do you think so many customers have bailed over the years? The ones that are left are forced to stay due to the transportation economics of the goods that they ship.
When I was working I had access to system wide recrew reports for CSX. I put together a simple system to keep track of them by division. The last year I worked (2016) there were in excess of 20K recrews for the year, down from over 32K in 2015.
The biggest cause of recrews was congestion on individual territories. When a area became congested, recrews for that area increased exponentially.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I am by no means a fan of PSR, but my own observation of recrews on the local NS Decatur-KC line is that there are far more days when things run to plan than not. So in a given week, month, or quarter there's a huge number of crew starts that have been eliminated.
Good point JM.
To borrow a book title about the collapse of two once prominent lines, that's "No way to run a railroad."
BaltACD SD60MAC9500 The increase in size creates capacity with the rolling stock instead of CAPEX going toward the physical plant. PSR pre/swap blocking keeps cars moving instead of dwelling in a terminal. Boxcars for example probably only get 1 turn a month. If PSR can double that to 2 turns a month then you lower the cost associated with your boxcar as its greater velocity creates more capacity and improves on the ROI in your boxcar fleet. The more loads you can get per month means less idle time sitting empty not producing revenue miles. Block swapping is a false economy - in most cases - railroads have one movement per day between the various origins and the various destinations. If, for whatever reasons, a train does not make the schedule pick up of a block it is delayed 24 hours or more - just as if it had gone to a terminal and had missed its connection. Additionally by not working through a terminal, it does not get the mechanical inspection and attention of the terminal. If the block swapping takes place at a line of road wayside location - the switching necessary for the block swapping and necessary air tests will greatly eat into the capacity one thinks they have created with the oversized trains.
SD60MAC9500 The increase in size creates capacity with the rolling stock instead of CAPEX going toward the physical plant. PSR pre/swap blocking keeps cars moving instead of dwelling in a terminal. Boxcars for example probably only get 1 turn a month. If PSR can double that to 2 turns a month then you lower the cost associated with your boxcar as its greater velocity creates more capacity and improves on the ROI in your boxcar fleet. The more loads you can get per month means less idle time sitting empty not producing revenue miles.
Block swapping is a false economy - in most cases - railroads have one movement per day between the various origins and the various destinations. If, for whatever reasons, a train does not make the schedule pick up of a block it is delayed 24 hours or more - just as if it had gone to a terminal and had missed its connection. Additionally by not working through a terminal, it does not get the mechanical inspection and attention of the terminal.
If the block swapping takes place at a line of road wayside location - the switching necessary for the block swapping and necessary air tests will greatly eat into the capacity one thinks they have created with the oversized trains.
SD60MAC9500The increase in size creates capacity with the rolling stock instead of CAPEX going toward the physical plant. PSR pre/swap blocking keeps cars moving instead of dwelling in a terminal. Boxcars for example probably only get 1 turn a month. If PSR can double that to 2 turns a month then you lower the cost associated with your boxcar as its greater velocity creates more capacity and improves on the ROI in your boxcar fleet. The more loads you can get per month means less idle time sitting empty not producing revenue miles.
charlie hebdothe image won't show even though on Google.
Well, let's keep it about trains. I detect the natives getting restless.
try this two faced locomotive
If the motivation behind such crew reductions and "redeployments" is the spector of driverless trucks, let me assure that truly autonomous (driverless) trucks are still a long way off. And even so, the technology to bring about total automation will be expensive and make the cost of implementing PTC look like chump change in comparison. Sure, the internet is full of videos showing "look no hands!" driving on the highway... but there are very few (and I haven't found any) of a tractor trailer blindside backing itself off a crowded street, down a sloped alley and into a narrow dock.. hmm. I wonder why that is. One typical big city neighbourhood that springs to mind is Saint Henri in Montreal.. I would love to see a truck navigate itself through those crowded streets not to mention backing itself around parked cars and into a 1920s era dock. Driverless trucks are the boogieman being used to negotiate one person crews on trains. I'm not a railroader and thus have no dog in that fight, but labor is a much bigger chunk of the trucking pie than it is of the railroads' pie.. and we in trucking would consider an OR of 85 heaven.. 90 good.. 95..nothing to see here.. we're making money. It's not as simple or cheap as swapping Billy The Driver out for some software from Bestbuy.
charlie hebdo The appropriate CO avatar would be Janus.
The appropriate CO avatar would be Janus.
the image won't show even though on Google.
How about:
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1332370583137509376/7iRuAuNw.jpg
Railroad M&As?
EuclidI expect #3 to be in widespread development and testing starting as soon as 2025. Both U.P and C.N. have stated this goal of using autonomous trains, meaning the elimination of on-board engineers operating the controls. Most of the response in autonomous control is programmed as various inputs. Part of the inputs are from onboard and wayside sensors, and other parts are from human operators working in ground based offices, rather than on-board the locomotive.
I believe it is inevitable, too. All the tech necessary tomake it work might not exist today, but inevitably, it will. Better crossing protection. enhanced awareness, stuff like that.
Since crew labor costs would no longer be an issue, it wouldn't surprise me if they slowed all trains down to about 25 mph, added a few strategically placed sidings, and run the trains with perfectly synchronized meets, where no train actually stops until it reaches it's destination.
In fact, the first one to perfect such a system might win the derby, and become a nationwide logistics company, where the conventional railroads as we know them today would become REITs, leasing their plant to the holder of the intellectual property that makes it all work.
How many PRR & Amtrak passengers must have thought, as I once did, that this was the Juanita River alongside the tracks, until either a sign or common sense indicated otherwise?
Proponents are advancing the causes of autonomous operation of the following:
Private passenger cars on public roads.
Private commercial trucks on public roads.
Private freight trains on private railroads.
I expect #3 to be in widespread development and testing starting as soon as 2025. Both U.P and C.N. have stated this goal of using autonomous trains, meaning the elimination of on-board engineers operating the controls. Most of the response in autonomous control is programmed as various inputs. Part of the inputs are from onboard and wayside sensors, and other parts are from human operators working in ground based offices, rather than on-board the locomotive.
I expect development and implementation of #1 and #2 to lag way behind #3. In this quest for autonomous operation, the railroads are way ahead of the road vehicles. With their PTC, and self-guiding system of flanged wheels running on rails, the railroads are already at 75% of way to the goal.
Road vehicles need to be steered with constant tracking adjustments. They interact with each other by using human judgement to keep them on the road. They rely on human judgement to prevent them from colliding with each other by adhering to operational rules and rudimentary traffic control signals. For autonomous driving, they need a vast amount of sensors to know where they are located and what potential traffic conflicts are possible at each instant. Sensing and controlling all of these variables is a fantastic technological challenge. If this smart driving vision is ever accomplished, it will probably end up requiring a national transition to “smart roads” as well as autonomous vehicles.
As this private vehicle, autonomous vision moves forward, it will likely evolve into a public system of cars, trucks, and roadways all being like a giant public mass transit system for passengers and freight. But all of that is at least a century away, if it ever happens at all. Meanwhile look for the very practical and reasonable goal of autonomous freight trains to materialize starting no later than 2030.
There was a final prediction question concerning how many major railroad companies will survive after mergers and acquisitions. My guess is UP, BNSF and one of the Canadian lines.
I agree with Jeff H. about autonomous trains and trucks. I'm pretty sure this won't be a significant thing soon, or maybe ever. In certain situations, like that Australian mining railroad, it makes sense. But I don't expect to see it in common use in my lifetime. (And based on genes and general health, I will probably get another 15 years or so.)
Still in training.
Flintlock76 York1 In the 1990s, some were predicting that within a few years, we would become a cashless country. The late, great Chicago journalist Mike Royko didn't think so, and he explained why in three pithy little words. "Off the books." Think about it.
York1 In the 1990s, some were predicting that within a few years, we would become a cashless country.
The late, great Chicago journalist Mike Royko didn't think so, and he explained why in three pithy little words.
"Off the books."
Think about it.
York1Of course, I'm no expert. On anything.
Me neither, but I've worked with enough electronic technology over a thirty year period to learn to never trust it 100%. I've seen too much.
I don't care what the tech-heads say, they love their toys too much.
ClassA Doesn't Amtrak run with just an engineer in the cab? Would having had two people in the cab possibly have prevented the 2015 Philadelphia train derailment?
Doesn't Amtrak run with just an engineer in the cab? Would having had two people in the cab possibly have prevented the 2015 Philadelphia train derailment?
It very well might have. Water under the bridge, considering the massive threads we had on that particular subject no point in going into it further.
York1In the 1990s, some were predicting that within a few years, we would become a cashless country.
SD70Dude My WAG: The change will start happening within 20 years. The railroads are already trying, though I doubt they will be successful in the next round of contract negotiations. Canada will be at least a few years later than the U.S, due to the lingering memories of the Lac-Megantic disaster.
My WAG:
The change will start happening within 20 years. The railroads are already trying, though I doubt they will be successful in the next round of contract negotiations.
Canada will be at least a few years later than the U.S, due to the lingering memories of the Lac-Megantic disaster.
They've been talking about it for at least the previous 20 years. I expect it to happen, but I think I'll only see the beginning of some trains, probably intermodals, being single person before I retire in about 10 +/- years.
The question boils down to politics. I doubt that railroads and labor will come to any agreement in the short term. Therefore, if the railroads want to push it they will have to go all the way through the process to get a Presidential Emergency Board to force the issue. I don't think they would do it with Democrats holding the White House.
They had an opprotunity during the last administration and were leery of going to a PEB. The chance was early on and with the focus on workers and jobs the RRs weren't sure what the outcome would've been. I think it was a lost opprotunity on their part, not that it upsets me that they didn't act.
Jeff
Never mind.
York1 John
This is off-topic, but it reminded me ...
New technology changes the way we do things, even if we don't want to believe it or accept it.
In the 1990s, some were predicting that within a few years, we would become a cashless country. I did not believe it, and I pointed out to others my expert opinion.
Now, I very seldom carry cash. We have one fast food place near us that is considering not accepting cash.
How long before autonomous cars, trucks, or trains are accepted as normal?
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