Is It Time To Nationalize The Railroads?
In These Times - "We demand that Congress immediately begin a process of bringing our nation’s railroads under public ownership,” reads the statement from the UE general executive board.
For-Profit Railroads Caused The Disaster In East Palestine
Socialists Alternative - People in East Palestine, Ohio were told it was safe to return home after a Norfolk Southern train derailment left their town covered in a heavy toxic smoke and flames, and coated in highly flammable chemicals. But far from returning to the town they’d left only days before, residents reported returning home to an apocalyptic world, with thousands of dead fish floating in the river and collapsed animals in their once lively backyards.
To Prevent Future Rail Tragedies, We Need to Nationalize the Rail System
In These Times - Corporate greed [is] turning railroads into banks to extract billions and billions of dollars from what should be critical infrastructure.
Railroads: How Well Do Private Ownership and Public Safety Mix?
Sierra Club Illinois Chapter - Perhaps even more distressing, shipments of hazardous and security-sensitive cargo—military bombs, rockets, warheads, torpedoes, mines, grenades, ammunition, projectiles, and even fireworks used as distress signals—can be embargoed and held by private railroad companies on privately owned property.
Nationalize the Railroads
Jacobin - You cannot run trains competitively. Railways — like agriculture or the mail — are at one and the same time an economic activity and an essential public good.
Rail Workers Want Tracks Publicly Owned. Is That So Radical?
Governing - “Since the North American private rail industry has shown itself incapable of doing the job, it is time for this invaluable transportation infrastructure — like the other transport modes — to be brought under public ownership,”
America’s highways are nationalized; why not its rail?
The Gazette - "...Amtrak does not have jurisdiction the rail upon which its trains run – instead, the track is privately owned, with those private freight rail firms “hosting” Amtrak trains on their track. For years now, this arrangement has been a frequent cause of delays for American passenger trains as freight railroads have illegally prioritized their own operations rather than make way for passenger trains..."
Why Railroad Workers United wants US rail infrastructure publicly owned
Freightwaves - We believe that the rail industry should be growing for the future prosperity of our nation and for the future sustainability of transportation. Traffic volumes should be going up to take a lot of this [truck] traffic that is destroying our highly expensive, highly subsidized highway infrastructure. …
Railroad workers say nationalization of rails is what democracy looks like
Peoples World - For the railroad workers, democracy is impossible without economic justice and their push for nationalization is itself a fight for democracy.
Strike Settled. Now Let’s Nationalize the Railroads
The New Republic - But rail freight’s market share isn’t expanding; it’s shrinking, and rail service is getting crappier, because the financiers who control the industry expect an obscenely high return on investment. At its heart, that’s what this week’s labor dispute was about. It’s time to think about nationalizing rail freight.