The railroad system is so safe y’all. Trust us. It’s the workers fault and the consumers fault if anything is broken or neglected. We’re entirely without fault!!
Big problem here is that the freight railroads are all being run like vulture capital operations. They own the trackage, so it’s their responsibility to maintain it, and it’s not like they don’t have the money. Norfolk Southern’s profits (not revenue, this is after costs) Sept 30 2022- Sept 30 2023 were over 8 billion dollars. Union Pacific did $14 billion in 2022. They can afford to maintain their shit, but they’re not; they’re just letting their tracks and rolling stock go to hell and shrugging when it blows up. Just flat out not paying your cost centers is not a thing a sane business does if it wants to keep doing business for long. I’m convinced that the major rail carriers long-term plan is to just not pay to repair a goddamn thing until the rail infra is completely broken, declare bankruptcy, and then sell it to the government. The government will make CONRAIL 2 (see: CONRAIL, which is what happened the last time they pulled this shit), spend an ass-ton of taxpayer dollars fixing this bullshit, and then sell it back to the privates for pennies on the dollar because of FrEe MaRkEt EfFiCiEnCy.
In America, socialism is something you only get once you become a powerful enough capitalist enterprise. The state produces the means of production and then just hands it over to you while you collect profits. Another great example of this is the thousands of miles of dark fiber optic cable buried in the US that ISPs refuse to connect at the “last mile.” Why spend a bunch of money giving everybody fiber when they’re already paying you a kidney every month for shitty rural DSL?
It’s difficult to see because of the compression noise but it looks like the train is on the tracks. The tracks are just so covered with ice it looks like there are no tracks. Snow and ice are nothing to a train, leaves on the other hand can make tracks dangerous.
I’ve seen a documentary about a train making a year long route around the entire world during ice age and it was still able to break though the ice. This is just bad engineering.
Dean Koontz is kind of like the RC Cola of horror/suspense novelists:
See RC Cola in the store
“Hmmmm, it’s been a while, but I THINK I liked RC the last time I got it”
Purchase and consume RC Cola
“I kind of wish this was a Coke, but it’s not that bad, might as well finish”
Several years pass, go back to step 1
As a side note, I LOVED Dean Koontz books back in the 80’s/90’s. They were fun and quick reads that are in the “high floor, low ceiling” realm of books.
I tried, yo. I really tried to like it. When I first moved to Michigan everyone was trying to give it to me all the time saying it’s the best, but I just can’t. Now, their Cherry Soda? Yum.
Don’t need to go to the Carolinas for Cheerwine. I live in Indiana and got it in my grocery order a few weeks ago. I had never had it before. It was listed as “Cherry Soda”. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be cherry cola. Gross.
I’ve never had Jones, but “straight cherry flavor” sounds like exactly what I was looking for. I’ve never been a fan of cola.
On that note, while I agree with Dr Pepper being better than all the others listed, it doesn’t even belong on the list as it doesn’t have the slightest hint of cola flavor.
Think of it on a scale of 1-10. High floor means it’s not a stinker, so worst ranking would be in the 4/10 - 5.5/10 range. Low ceiling means it’s not going to be an all-timer, so the best ranking would be in the 6/10 - 7.5/10 range. Basically you’ll never HATE it, but you’re also never going to LOVE it.
Brandon Sanderson and Tim Patrick Rothfuss started signing each other’s books for awhile too. I read that Sanderson signs his and Rothfuss books at the airport bookstore when he’s traveling. I managed to find a few signed Sanderson books at the airport bookstore in SLC when I flew through there for a connecting flight once. I still have them on my bookshelf. No cross-signings though.
Yes, I had to think about it for a minute before I even came up with “Tim Rothfuss”. He used to be a household name, and then he just stopped writing. Idk what his deal is, but he did say once that he’s envious of Sanderson’s writing speed. I guess it takes him a long time to write a book, and it seems like he either got burned out, or ran out of ideas. I felt like he took some ideas from Jordan in the 2nd Kingkiller book. I met him once, walking around on the floor at Emerald City Comic Con. He seems like a cool guy. He spent like an hour talking to my sister at his booth after I ran into him. It’s a shame that I think you’re right. It doesn’t look like he’ll ever finish that trilogy.
Whoops! I just deleted my original reply because I thought I was replying to another conversation I’m having about Jordan and Terry Goodkind.
The author I’m referring to is Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series. The warrior culture that Kvoth goes to live & train with in the 2nd book seem to be almost a direct copy of Robert Jordan’s Aeil from the Wheel of Time series. That said, Jordan inspired a lot of writers, including Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson was able to finish Jordan’s epic 14 book story, when Jordan’s health started failing and he reached out to Sanderson to take over the project. Sanderson wrote (I think) the last 2.5 books in the series.
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