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Top-level
 In case anyone is wondering: yes, this is how train robberies operated in the Old West. Slip the switch after the locomotive passes by, passenger cars are stuck there. They could rob everyone and get away before the locomotive could even stop and reverse back to the passenger cars. And in case you were also wondering: yes, this tactic is still used by people stealing UPS packages from trains in various American cities today. 20 comments
This actually comes from railroad workers talking in comments on a fb group. I just made the meme for them. They were like "those trolley memes are stupid, we have to do this in our railyard like once a week when some intermodal runs loose." It's a really dramatic demonstration of the fallacy of the zero-sum game. I wish David Graeber was still alive to read it. He loved real-life analogies like this. @sidereal wtf what railway is this, first time I’ve heard of anyone doing this 💀 “kicking cars” is pretty metal but forcing them fucking derail because cars “run loose” is actual insanity. brothers this is why we have switcher locomotives. this shouldn’t even happen when a line is sitting without a locomotive. not unless they’ve let the car air reservoirs bleed out, which does happen after some time - and is why they’re supposed to set handbrakes on some of the cars.   @opendna @sidereal yea pretty much lots of cargo moving around, intermodal yards are usually where boxes get loaded onto cars, eventually get pulled to a shunting yard to get organized by destination in a long train. never heard great things about management from any line tbh, once described as the “Eye of Sauron”. Railroaders do have a lot of rules and the saying “every rule is written in blood.” most of the time the rule helps avoid fatal injuries while on the job. @opendna @haifisch @sidereal this is your public service announcement that there is no, and never has been any, Tragedy of the Commons. Even Garrett Hardin walked back the concept. Commons were always managed. What there has been and continues to be is greed and selfishness that attempts to abuse the existing regulatory and mgmt structures. @PaulDavisTheFirst @haifisch @sidereal You're not wrong, historically. ...but the idea creates the behavior. MBAs are not like normal people. They act as if Econ models and parables are morally-imperative laws of nature. In France, their are securities forbidding to slip the switch when the tramway is not entirely gone. Sorry for these railroad workers to have to work with an old infrastructure.  @denisbloodnok Depends. Actually killing them when the train jackknifes would cause problems- but yeah, in general the best way to rob a train has always been to find a point (aha) where it isn’t going to be going very fast and forcing it to stop. And trains back then didn’t exactly speed down the line by modern standards.  @sidereal Are the thieves cutting the locks on switches, or are they doing this in CTC areas? |
Gregory's Server
“this tactic is still used by people stealing UPS packages from trains in various American cities today.”
@sidereal [citation needed]