CN and the Golden Ears Bridge

This one’s kinda funny and kinda sad. It’s an example of the stupidity of greed. Remember how Moya Greene brags about helping privatize CN and how their obsession for profits has seen a dramatic increase in derailments due to the longer trains and reduced brake maintenance? Not to mention the cover up of the sale of B.C. Rail.

The news did a clip on the CN’s obsession with profits. (It’s been deleted off youtube. I’ll have to inquire as to why. The corporate censorship continues.) but this is what happened after the CN derailment in the Cheakamus River in BC: http://www.ariverneversleeps.com/online/news.shtml and here's why: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070209/wfive_derailments_070209/20070210?hub=WFive

(OK The video is back on youtube now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C09txsoT1V0) (Oh no it's not. They took it down again. Bastards. Looks like it's time to call in Dr. Geist)

Well in keeping with their obsession and in keeping with their driving right over the public’s democratic will, they came out with the double decker trains. They would stack them on top of each other. Which to a banker would make perfect sense. In fact in the Prairies where the tracks are long and straight it would make perfect sense.

It becomes problematic in B.C. because of all the curves in the track and the steep inclines and declines. I am told B.C. is the only province where the train tracks have more than a 7 percent incline. As a result the longer trains are more prone to derail and if you raise an object’s centre of gravity going around a corner you increase the likelihood of it derailing. I sure hope they don’t stack any of those toxic chemicals on top of each other going by the Cheakamus.

Ya know how they spent all that money on special railway cars that would carry double stacked containers? Well here’s the deal. They’re building a new bridge over the Fraser River called the Golden Ears Bridge. The onramps to the bridge on the south side of the river go over the CN train tracks. Only they built it too low and a double stacked railway car won’t fit under it.

I’m sorry if I find that humorous but I do. It is another example of poor planing yes but more importantly corporate greed defeating itself. It’s sad because the railway could definitely help off set transportation costs. Unfortunately we see that the railway was built with exploitation of Chinese immigrants and that heritage of exploitation is determined to continue in a self defeating spiral to you know where. Cheers.