p51 posted:Hot Water posted:In my opinion, it would just be better if the management folks (Mechanical Dept. or otherwise) on today's railroads would just say "No", without an intelligence insulting explanation behind their arbitrary reasoning.
Funny, while reading these silly excuses, that's exactly what I was thinking.
That said, people don't react well to absolutes. Everyone wants an exception for just them and I assume these ill-informed excuses are an attempt to provide an 'answer' for something that no answer will explain. The funny part is anyone being told this stuff probably knows the mechanics of such things as well (if not better) than the person making the excuse.
Exactly, i.e. the railroad person making the "excuse" generally is clueless! A perfect example was the reasoning behind the Burlington Northern not allowing the UP 844 and SP 4449 operation over BN trackage from Seattle, WA to Vancouver, BC, in order to attend the big "Steam Festival" (back in the late 1980s, I think). The BN "executive" explained, even to the inquiring media, that "Steam locomotives damage the signaling systems!".
