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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

But if I'm being honest, trying to rustle up some additional "normal" freight rail recievers in the Chelsea/Somerville zone would prob be easier than doing that. If you can do so, you just run the existing local daily, and this (*maybe*) becomes another task for it.

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

10 truckloads ~ 3 carloads, so you'd probably need another several customers before CSX would be willing to run a dedicated train. Presuming you found that and you could get T to play ball so it can do the run + switching within a single crew, then maybe it'd work

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

we need to put the "value" back in "value engineering"

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

That said, it's exactly the kind of fun experiment that we *ought* to try out--we've got little in the way of good models for rail traffic development in this country. Unsure whether CSX would play ball, but if somebody could find a few reefers and spur money...

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

Generally speaking, this kind of ultra-short-haul freight is sensitive to ops design (fewer switching moves = better), car cycle times, consistency, and of course volume. Given that there isn't a daily freight to Boston anymore, it may be a bit of an uphill climb...

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

This is a fun one. Reminds me a lot of the Monoprix experiment in Paris www.researchgate.net/figure/Conce...

Figure 4 : Concept of supply chain used by Monoprix in France

Download scientific diagram | Concept of supply chain used by Monoprix in France from publication: The Use of Rail Transport as Part of the Supply Chain in an Urban Logistics Context | Rails, Logisti...

www.researchgate.net

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

Some of which is a problem orientation issue, some of which is a mandate issue, and some of which is a predictable consequence of letting railroads scream “reporting burden” way too much

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, and I’d specifically single out operational knowledge of the network as being a key difference. The 2010s-20s FRA would never commission the breadth and depth of research into rail operations *drivers* as the 1970s did

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

And it’s not just the northeast, either. Seattle lost its best route east because the BN was in a cost-cutting mood throughout the mid-1980s!

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

If the 1970s were the golden age (or really, moment) of rail planning, the 1980s were quite literally the opposite. Many of our worst capacity, network, and institutional planning decisions emanated from the simultaneous withdrawal of any public framework around rail + deregulation cost pressure

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

For sure! Plenty of examples there in the energy space too. But I think it’s probably fair to say that their incentive structures and risk calculations are much more soluble than private-market firms, esp given the tendencies of current-day capital markets

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

I’m alive(ish)

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

(Conversely, I’d also love to know how WMATA’s own access rules and resource constraints impact timelines here. But that’s prob even harder to find out!)

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

On the last point: a theme in electrification lit is that RRs have often found electrification to be nominally remunerative, but extremely sensitive to assumptions about power availability, fuel prices, costs, regulatory path etc. If only we had a means of reducing/financing that uncertainty! Gosh!

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

So hard to say without more knowledge of what, exactly, is going on (alas). Would love to know how WMATA is pricing this outage though—direct costs? direct costs + lost revenue? Both + something else? That kind of disruption should carry a large disincentive.

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

+1!

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

But yeah, overall I’d say that the OP’s take is a bit disingenuous. We wouldn’t have the modern NEC without freight <> pax separation; we *would* have electric freight had it not been for the absence of any financing vehicle that could provide risk mitigation

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 2d

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: both of these shortcomings rather naturally flowed from the decision to set up both CR and Amtrak as *independent* money-making enterprises in an already fractured railroad environment

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Reposted by Uday Schultz

Steven Lucy @slucy.bsky.social · 9d

This is insane. ICE raided an apartment building in South Shore (a 90%+ Black neighborhood) at 10pm, using chainsaws to gain access and throwing flash bangs.

According to witnesses they just handcuffed everyone, with people who weren’t arrested being held for over five hours.

Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 9d

“‘I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other…He said, “f*** them kids.”’

[…]

’They had the Black people in one van, and the immigrants in another van.’” abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

ICE agents raid South Shore apartments; Trump says Chicago could become military training ground

ICE agents raided a South Shore apartment building overnight as the city braces for a possible military deployment.

abc7chicago.com

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 10d

u shld!! great subject material

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 10d

heh yeah. need to exercise it from time to time

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 10d

hello from the central valley

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Reposted by Uday Schultz

David Schleef @trafficfurnitur.bsky.social · Sep 2

I created stringline diagrams for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit schedule, following up on discussions about why SMART can't run a 30 minute Takt. It's currently running a 32-minute Takt after opening the Novato Downtown and Petaluma North infill stations.

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Reposted by Uday Schultz

Alex Wolford @thetexanrhino.bsky.social · Sep 3

New story about trains and corporate mergers, and why you should never ever stop spending money on the railroads. medium.com/p/c6ab8375d4f0

Who are the Railroads For?

On Mergers, Electrification, and Nationalization

medium.com

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · Aug 18

inb4 "logistical and input cost pressures will continue to increase grocery prices faster than the rate of inflation for the forseeable future. we recommend further study to identify potential synergies in the structure of regional grocery supply chains."

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