标题: Railways in America [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 2-13-2016 15:49 标题: Railways in America Railways in America | Doing the Locomotion. The second golden age of American railroads is drawing to a close. Consolidation may follow, Economist, Feb 13, 2016. http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... e-consolidation-may
("The [rail] industry already consists of three geographical duopolies—the West (where BNSF and Union Pacific dominate), the east (Norfolk and CSX) and Canada and its links to the United States’ industrial north (CP and CN)")
(b) "DURING the crisis of 2008-09, Warren Buffett made two big bets in the midst of the panic. He bought a slug of preferred stock in Goldman Sachs. * * * he bought the railway company [BNSF], which, naturally, was advised by bankers working for a certain 'vampire squid.' "
(i) slug (n): "a lump, disk, or cylinder of material" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slug
(ii) vampire squid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_squid
(Vampyroteuthis infernalis, lit. vampire squid of Hell; section 6 In popular culture)
(iii)
(A) There is no Latin or Greek word for vampire, because the word is somewhat recent. See
* vampire (n; etymology: mid 18th century: from French, from Hungarian vampir, perhaps from Turkish uber witch) http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/vampire
* vampire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire
("Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularized in the west until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe")
(B) English dictionary:
* teuthis (n; Ancient Greece): "a small squid" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teuthis
(C) The Latin adjective infernalis https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/infernalis
(English adjective: infernal)
(d) "Rail managers discovered their inner rottweilers. Hunter Harrison [1944- ; not dead yet], who runs CP (and before that was at CN, Canadian National), is eulogised by investors for his ruthless scheduling"
(i) Rottweiler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottweiler
(from Rottweil; A 2008 study surveying breed club members found that while Rottweilers were average in aggressiveness (bites or bite attempts) towards owners and other dogs, it indicated they tend to be more aggressive than average toward strangers)
* Thus there is a posting in the Web titled "Unleashing the Inner Rottweiler," to attack what one had perceived as unjust done to himself.
(ii) eulogize (vt): "to speak or write in high praise of : EXTOL" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eulogize
(e) "most firms spend bumper profits on share buy-backs to boost their stock price. Rail firms' resistance to this corporate crack cocaine is hard to explain, but may reflect the lingering presence in their boardrooms of gnarled railmen with a love of horn blocks and glad-hand connectors, rather than earnings-per-share enhancement."
(i) glossary of rail transport terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_rail_transport_terms
("Horn blocks[:] Plates lining the axlebox cut-outs in a locomotive frame to allow smooth vertical movement under control of the springs")
I did a brief research, and all I found in the Web is closely related to this, but none has an illustration of how this works, and for what purpose.
(ii) I fail to understand what "gland-hand connector" is, though it is a thing for sure.