they also followed the Plato Kant Hegel Marx, Lenin, present day Democrat, Hillary, Sanders and Soros Secular Progressive line that a select group of people were exempt and worthy of more unearned product for being the thinkers and leaders.

the passengers on the train were listed and described as to their reasons in the narrative. I took that to be the order of importance.

From my perspective and opinion, I do see the Hierarchical order of guilt.

Let's look at the situation. You had a mob of people, not in the sense of Rodney King mob, but a train car full of like minded looters and individuals who celebrate the looters, and political pull.

Only one person possessed the political pull to motivate the actions of the moron, Dagny's brother into doing what he knew better than to do.

Here comes the Hierarchy from my view.

A politician with pull playing on James Taggart's personal fear, and desire to stay in the good graces of the politicians, in this case, Kip Chalmers, who DEMANDED James get him moving.

Kip may not have exercised his political pull had the "mob" not encourage and stroked his self-important Ego, however, to prove his "pull" and importance coerced the disaster.

The Train was full of looters all sharing the idea that the successful MUST be forced to share the product of their labor in one way or another, so, in my opinion, the Hierarchical order is as follows:

The Mob, Kip then James who has no spine to stand up to anyone. James naturally subjugated his own personal authority and feeling of accountability by pawning off all decisions to an inexperienced subordinate.