Four weeks ago, veteran former legislator Frank Kloucek said he doesn’t want to run for U.S. Senate against John Thune, even though he’d be a heck of a candidate.
As a demonstration of why we might want to work a little harder to get Frank over his hard-to-get-ness, the kolache campaigner connects Thune’s do-nothing-ness with the big ethanol train derailment in Kloucek’s bailiwick:
Kloucek says he has noticed multiple crossings in the area deteriorating. He says he and several people who live in south central South Dakota have brought up issues to BNSF and members of Congress.
“I told you so, John. We tried to get him to help us with the crossings down here last year in 2014. We’re very concerned; it’s time Burlington Northern starts putting money into safety and updating the railroad in South Dakota,” Kloucek said [Brady Mallory, “Thune on Rail Safety,” KELO-TV, 2015.09.21].
Hey, Brady: I think Frank intended for the headline to be “Thune off Rail Safety.” Beat that drum a little more, Frank:
“It’s never too late, but it’s time they get off the stick and start making these safety improvements to the rail like we’ve been asking for all these years,” Kloucek said [Mallory, 2015.09.21].
Come on, Thune! You’ve used your railroad lobbying experience to get big money for your old industry pals way back when you started in the Senate; why aren’t you jumping now when constituents ask you to get your corporate pals to invest in safety?
Kloucek may not be running for Senate, but he’s showing how Thune’s eventual challenger needs to tie Thune’s lack of achievement in Washington directly impacts South Dakotans.
The stretch of rail that failed near Scotland is owned by a private company. Is it not their job to make sure those rails are safe? Is it GOP de-regulation that allowed this to happen? I guess I am a bit uneducated when it comes to how all this works.
I am glad we’re not looking at the result of a pipeline supporter sabotaging the bridge and yelling, “See, I told you so!” I would not put it past some of the parties involved.
I have helped my frustrations with Thune a lot by changing how I define the term “constituent,” which is normally defined as someone who gives another the authority to act on their behalf.
Under Thune’s model, a constituent is a corporation and/or lobbyist who has purchased his services. Thune doesn’t even try to hide it anymore because he knows he won’t have a tough challenge for his job.
Well, maybe some day the Democrats can get their act together, put together a decent candidate and start kicking Thune where it counts a couple times every day for a couple years. It’s difficult, but think about it. Thune and Wadhams gave the strategy to Democrats on how to unseat a powerful incumbent when they got Daschle.
When the government was demanding the Railroad companies to do certain things, they almost went broke, in fact many did.
There is almost no money in pulling grain, cattle or what ever else we have to offer, they(the railroads) are not going to invest money into infrastructure that will barely break even. That means we (the South Dakota Tax Payers) are going to have to pick up slack with repairing or replacing worn out roads from the increase weight loads being hauled on them. It is a tough paradox.
Nothing defines red state failure like John Thune.
Kloucek has always been strong on railroad safety issues. He sponsored bills numerous times to require railroads to put reflective tape on their rail cars. You know, the kind of reflective tape we now see on most semi trailers. SD has a lot of railroad crossings without crossing lights, that can be deadly at night. Of course Republicans didn’t think saving a few lives was worth requiring railroads to spend a few bucks per train car for reflective tape. Instead they shouted, “You’re going to make railroads go broke!!!!”.
As we know, railroads are like any other large public (Wall Street) corporation. They are run by executive pirates who make sure they get their personal $100 million dollars regardless of whether the company prospers or fails. When was the last time Republicans complained as loudly about shareholders and employees getting screwed by inept executives like Carly Failorina as they complain about government requiring inexpensive safety measures? Go Frank!
That train was going ten miles and hour. That tells you that the railroad knew there were safety problems. That is also an inefficient speed.
If I remember correctly, Warren Buffett is one of he main shareholders in BNSF railroad. He did not invest in a company that is failing or he would not be that rich. So this part of his track just is not his priority.
But they are very able to suck money out of government. Sioux Falls wanted to spend $50 million of government money to move the tracks out of Sioux Falls. So after ten years instead of $50 million to move them which would have cost that much to build new track, they get $27 million from Sioux Falls to sell part of the rail yard. Politicians here can say that they got the job done by spending a lot of money and they did not get the tracks out of town and they got a little bit of land in a flood plain with no levee for ‘developement’ purposes. BNSF got a lot of money and no expenses of building any amount of new track.
Amazing what a politician will do to make it look like they did something.
The truth is much of the track (not all) is in poor shape. The reason is they trains don’t pull enough freight to make upgrading the rails worth the cost of upgrading.
To make it all worth while. businesses needs to locate next or at least close to rail and use them to bring raw materiel and ship out finished product.
No rail improvements can happen unless the feds give stakeholders money to do it putting Thune and Noem at risk to RINOism if they can’t couch their rhetoric to not look like socialism.
Republicants paint themselves into corners because they are all hypocrites.
The idea of two state-long east/west parallel freight rail corridors over Cretaceous shale within a few miles of each other is so asinine only the delusional can imagine it.
Two! Ha! There is barely enough traffic for one. The road bed on that one has been built by horse drawn equipment. The feds are not going to kick in any money. If want t the rail we are going to have to pay for it.
my grandmother came from scotland sd and her hubby’s father used horse (mule) drawn frisco blades, to scratch out sd railbeds, roads and dams.