Name: Nassuel Valera
Article title: “On the wrong track”
Source and article date: The Economist. May 4th, 2017.
• What was the chosen article about?
New York’s railways are in terrible shape. Essentially, how train tracks that are in need of much deserved maintenance are being the cause of train derailments and the loss of millions of dollars, causing delays of about a week, which lead to lost economic activity, such as delayed passengers costing their Manhattan employers for every hour delay a sum that goes beyond $10m, and Amtrak losing fares which pays for operating costs. In addition, for every derailment more damage is caused to the train tracks, thus having to close them down to make some quick not-so-good repairs to later on have them
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Amtrak is an odd entity which has its board appointed by the president and receives funding from Congress. Since the funding comes annually, Amtrak struggles to have a multi-year capital plan, causing Amtrak to not have capital to do much beyond basic maintenance. Meanwhile repairs backlog at $28bn, and tunnels and tracks needing upgrades all over the region. Also, a proposed Gateway tunnel would help ease the pressure on the network, at a cost of $24bn, linking between Newark, New Jersey and NYC under the Hudson river. Where the federal government agreed to split the cost with New York, New Jersey and Amtrak. But very little federal money has been spotted yet. Are facts that the author denotes within the article.
Furthermore, the subway is still operating on a 1930s-signal system, damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 has not yet been repaired. Another storm, a tunnel crack or a high-speed derailment would be horribly catastrophic. Therefore, the rails are not the only thing in need of an update, but the system
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But the main focus would be steered towards where the budget to do such maintenance and repairs can be obtained from, since the federal government hides and only wants to deliver funding annually.
• How does the article specifically relate to the material on the subject as it was covered in your assigned reading in the textbook (be sure to include page numbers where relevant)?
This article goes back to the first few definitions that were encountered as the BUS& 101 class started such as profit, loss, and business, as well as others terms we got in the know of not so long ago, making this article lay in the General Economics topic. Where the author refers to the North-East Corridor (NEC) as the only part of Amtrak that turns into profit, thus making Amtrak not only be a corporation, but a business at it’s core since it’s looking for a profit. In addition, the current situation of the railway system seems to need some accounting help to manage the money that it receives from the Congress. Nevertheless, the knowledge obtained from the class helps to see this article and the issue from an entire perspective I did not have before. An accounting and business
When time came to build the transcontinental railroads, the government had given about 150 millions of acres of land for the railroad development, which would greatly influence transporta...
It is their task to find all affected stakeholders involved and make sure to meet their needs. It is also important that they increase their public relations. When an incident like this happens, the public rarely will remember the small details that it wasn’t even Amtrak’s fault. All that will be remembered is that Amtrak had a huge crash that killed 47 people. It is important for Amtrak to recognize this and work towards having customers forget and see the new regulations in place to help prevent this from occurring again in the
The transcontinental railroad was a 1,800 mile railroad linking Omaha, Missouri with Sacramento, California. This railroad was built through varying environmental conditions including grassy plains, desserts, and mountains such as the Sierra. The railroad revolutionized transportation in the nineteenth century (Galloway 4). The First Transcontinental Railroad was built in the 1860s in order to connect the Eastern and Western coasts of the United States. In the book The Railroads, statistical data describes that “In 1830, 23 miles of railroad track were being operated in the United States; by 1890 that figure had grown to 166,703 miles, as cities and villages were linked across the lan...
...g I can use for my final paper when I include evidence about the environmental impacts of the trains on the city. I also liked this source because of how it talks about these organizations competing to bring more money into the city, which shows that they are positively impacting Chicago's economy.
The Transcontinental Railroad was the largest project the United States had ever seen. Due to lack of technology, the enormous size of the project, and the environmental conditions, the railroad seemed to be an impossible task. This construction project posed a huge challenge to those working on it. The railroad’s route would span nearly seven hundred miles into desert and unexplored country. People had never traveled so far west before and there were no established cities there. Workers had to set up camps that were often disorganized and filled with crime. The railroad would pass through mountain ranges at extremely high elevations. Workers would blast through the granite of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges, making only inches of progress everyday. Hunters used railroad lines to hunt buffalo, which was the main source of Native American food at the time. Between 1875 and 1885, northern and southern buffalo herds had been wiped out. Native Americans became upset when railroad companies seized their land. This resulted in many attacks on construction crews and the deaths of many engineers. When the workers weren't at work or asleep, they were at war with local tribes. Many workers kept loaded rifles at hand in the case of an Indian attack. The crews kept on working though, and by 1869 were laying track at an impressive rate How...
Railroads first appeared around the 1830’s, and helped the ideas of Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion; however, these were weak and didn’t connect as far as people needed, thus causing them to be forced to take more dangerous routes. On January 17th, 1848, a proposal was sent to Congress by Asa Whitney to approve and provide federal funding...
The growth of the railroad was one of the most significant elements in American economic growth, yet it hurt small shippers and farmers in many ways. Extreme competition between rail companies necessitated some way to win business. To do this, railroads would offer rebates and drawbacks to larger shippers who used their rails. This practice hurt smaller shippers, including farmers, because often times railroad companies would charge more to ship products short distances than they would for long trips. This is known as the “long haul, short haul evil”.
“At a news conference in Washington, the president and chairman of Amtrak, Thomas M. Downs, said the derailment had been caused by the removal of bolts that hold a 36-inch-long connecting bar to two pieces of 39-foot-long rail” (Mydans, 1995, para. 18). “Amtrak executives said that the derailment was an act of sabotage that could have taken one person only 10 minutes to carry out” (Mydans, 1995, para. 16). The most interest part is that whom ever moved the railroad tracks left no traces of their work other than the letters and had to know the wiring system of the railroad track. The railroad track has sensors in it so that if it moves the conductor knows to stop the train or find out what is wrong up ahead. The next part of this that makes no sense is that Amtrak says that one man can move 39 feet rail 2 degrees which weigh roughly 130 pounds per yard (Wabtec, 2017). There is absolutely no way that one man jumped the track wiring and then moved 1690 pounds of track in ten minutes. Moreover, the area that the train was derailed was in the middle of nowhere. The closest road was 38 miles away. Two decades later the FBI has not been able to figure out who committed this crime and has offered a $300,000 reward for information to capture the terrorist. This paper will discuss two possible suspects that could have derailed the train Sons of the Gestapo and a government conspiracy
Seavoy, Ronald E. "Railroads." An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present. New York: Routledge, 2006. 188-200. Print.
The railroad played a major role in forging the history of many countries including the United States of America. The railroad began to bring people to places that before then where only accessed by weeks of dangerous travel over harsh and deadly terrain. The industrial revolution had ushered in a completely new era. The new era was one of mass production, supply and demand, and new requirements of industry. The growth of industry had created new demands for transit, trade, and more robust supply lines. The railroad boom across the U.S. had spread and proceeded to grow the economy quickly therefore, many people began using the rail roads just as quickly. The rail market continued to grow and by the 1860’s all major cities within the United States were connected by rail.
The Transcontinental railroad could be defined as the most monumental change in America in the 19th century. The railroad played a significant role in westward expansion and on the growth and development of the American economy (Gillon p.653). However, the construction of the transcontinental railroad may not have occurred if not for the generous support of the federal government. The federal government provided land grants and financial subsidies to railroad companies to ensure the construction. The transcontinental railroad contributed to the formation of industry and the market economy in America and forever altered the American lifestyle.
Question at Issue - How are the engineer and railroad negligent? What could have been done by the engineer and railroad company to prevent the accident? Would more training have invoked a different preventative response from the engineer? Are the current railroad safety regulations sufficient? Are there any warnings on the road before it curves towards the track? If you didn’t know the area would you clearly be able to spot a train? What if a car was stalled on the tracks? Would a train
The Editors of Publications International, Ltd. (2008, May 19). Railroad Expansion. Retrieved September 26, 2017, from http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/railroad-expansion9.htm
Whenever we are reminded of NYC, we think of Times Square or The Status of Liberty. However, we always forget what is right under our noses; the NYC subway system. I like to think of the subway system as a labyrinth because of it’s intricate network of passages that guides us to all over NYC. Just by looking at a map of the subway system overwhelms me because it is so hard to imagine how much work was put into making this beautiful yet complex structure. An average New Yorker may ignore the daily lives in the subway system but if you look closely you can see multiplicity of events taking place.
...beginning of the growth of a nation. The first two decades of railroading were a period of experimentation and rapid industrial development. They soon became a must for the rapidly developing world. They were used for employment, the carrying of freight, and transportation in all parts of America. Americans became dependent on railroads and they were improving them whenever they could. It can be said that Americans would never know a world without railroads again. The invention of the railroad drastically changed the way the United States came to be. The railroad, like any other great invention, evolved from something small to a technological advancement. Railroads started out going about 5 miles an hour, and now go an average of 80 to 100 miles an hour. The evolution of trains wasn’t just then; they are still in the process of getting better and better every day.