I will be the first to admit I know very little about how railroads operate.?ÿ I was reading the news this morning and ran across an article about a Newark, NJ Amtrak employee being charged with stealing"several dozen" chainsaws from his employer.
While not particularly newsworthy I noticed he was (among other things) being charged with theft of government property.?ÿ I guess that would make Amtrak a government agency??ÿ I looked it up.
Sometime around or before 2015 SCOTUS ruled that Amtrak was a government agency.?ÿ Apparently this all had to do with how Amtrak operates with federal subsidies as compared to private freight rail carriers.?ÿ I had no idea.
This may not be news to folks that are familiar with the inner workings of rail carriers but it was news to me.
Was there a good 036 stihl in the bunch?
did you happen to get his number?
😉
just kidding!!
N
The real question is, why does a railroad need do many chainsaws?
I've never understood how they knew that my box was in that boxcar. Same with the trucking industry.
Here's an example of the train-truck interface near me from a few years ago; it seems like yesterday.?ÿ https://myfox8.com/news/train-collides-with-tractor-trailer-in-jamestown/
It's not really funny, but can you imagine what it looked like at the instant when an Amtrak train hit a trailer loaded with 20 tons of lime? The truck had stopped for a red light with his trailer across the tracks. There's now a separate synchronized stoplight before the tracks, but memories are short, so it's ignored by many people.
?ÿ
Amtrak probably crashed enough times where the government had to bail (purchase) it out.?ÿ heh
Amtrak is a government agency?ÿ the same way USPS is. In other english speaking countries these are called Crown Corporations. They are created by the government but they are semi independent, and are not under the control of presidentialy appointed and senate approved cabinet members.?ÿ
They are often still accountable to Congress when Congress appropriates funds for them.?ÿ