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A 14-year-old took home $10,000 for his award-winning investigation into train derailments. Here's what he found.
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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This kid just got 10k for saying rail infrastructure is failing due to a lack of maintenance. Specifically the springs at junctions. The main failing here in the US though is that rail maintenance falls to rail companies that have little financial incentive to spend the money on safety. That may be changing, however if the federal government just hands over money with inadequate oversight it will just enrich the companies.
https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/fact-sheet-rail-safety
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-us-rail-system-works
https://www.publicrailnow.org/site/assets/files/1036/putting_america_back_on_track_final_6-30-24_single_pages.pdf
The worst part of this is that that money is not just wasted, it's used to lobby politicians to make it worse.
And to be clear, the railroads don't need more money, back when Biden banned Warren Buffet's railroad from striking, I did the math, they could afford to double their work force, giving them all half the year off, and pay each one of them 100K/year, and still give the shareholders multiple billions a year.
Not to mention the inflationary effects of shareholders skimming a set percentage in profits off everything that gets transported over rail. If the government ran it at cost, a huge drag on the economy would be removed.