High Speed Trains And Stupid Solutions

BillLawrenceOnline.Com ^ | 8-10-10

[Tribune7]

The feds, since 1991, have had a plan of creating high speed rail corridors throughout the nation including one between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and since Obama took office $8 billion has been shoved into this opium-pipe dream with billions more expected although that hope may change come November.

Texas and the Sourth outside Florida haven't gotten much of this loot for some strange reason albeit Pennsylvania's not much ahead nabbing a paltry $25.6 million for the Keystone Corridor project.

Grand schemes like this would be great if resources were infinite and the simple building of it was the hardest and most expensive part. The real problems, however, start after the tracks are laid and the shiny new stations open, namely getting people to use it. Remember these things are being built not with the jaundiced eye of someone weighing the risks to his own time and money against the benefits of possible future rewards, but in accordance with starry visions of bureaucrats and trained academic parrots who have literally nothing to lose in the construction.

So the only way people are going to use this thing is by discouraging them -- them not including the bureaucrats and parrots -- from using alternatives namely the planes and automobile parts of the story.

[Tribune7]

ping

[BenLurkin]

"Remember these things are being built not with the jaundiced eye of someone weighing the risks to his own time and money against the benefits of possible future rewards, but in accordance with starry visions of bureaucrats and trained academic parrots who have literally nothing to lose in the construction."

[mountainlion]

These are harsh words against Green Willie’s dreams.

[Tribune7]

I don't have a prob with Willie's dreaming. I have a problem with government trying to make them come true

From the article:

Something else to ponder -- America's freight railroads are owned and operated by private companies. In Europe, they are owned and operated by government. In the 1950s, the percent of freight shipped was about the same. Today, about 38 percent of freight is shipped on railroads in the U.S. compared to 8 percent in the European Union. Maybe to make passenger trains viable again, we should get the government out of Amtrak.

[thesharkboy]

Paging Choo-choo Willie.

[sodpoodle]

The solution is to build personal Maglev vehicle/units that could be snapped into flatbeds, conveyed along the tracks and then converted back to wheeled vehicles for driving access roads & highways.

I’ll work on it.

[norraad]

"Trained academic parrots, I hate trained academic parrots." , Harrison Ford

[from occupied ga]

Nothing in there that anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature couldn’t figure out in a couple of minutes.

[exblockhead]

AMTRAK should expand the AUTO-Train car ferry concept to more routes. I believe it only runs on the eastern corridor to Florida.

[The Duke]

Here in Tampa we have a little game we like to play. We try to come up with scenarios when somebody would pay $30 for a one-way ticket on a high speed rail to Orlando when they could just take their car and reach their destination much sooner and at lower cost.

So far nobody's come up with a reasonable use case. I suspect that the only time our high speed train between Tampa and Orlando will see significant passengers is when it ferries a bunch of politicians on its maiden voyage (maybe we'll get lucky and it will hit an iceberg!).

[aumrl]

GREAT QUOTE !
Oh and I don’t have a problem when dreamers dream WITH THEIR OWN MONEY.

[sodpoodle]

Agree - it runs from Lorton Va. to Orlando Fl.

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/AM_Route_C/1241245666320/1237405732511

[mountainlion]

I thought it interesting that one passenger train displaced 4 freight trains. Most of the rail lines in the USA are freight designed lines. They are too rough for passenger service. A lot of the eco-natzies want to take over rail and make them upgrade to their Utopian view of what these wackos think should be. The majorities dreams do not mater to them.

[Verginius Rufus]

The problem with the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh route are all those mountains left there by the previous administration.

How many Philadelphians really want to go to Pittsburgh to catch a Pirates game (and can't drive there or are afraid of flying)?

[HospiceNurse]

High speed government union expansion!

[Tribune7]

I thought it interesting that one passenger train displaced 4 freight trains.

And that is worth repeating as well!!!

[Wuli]

“Something else to ponder — America’s freight railroads are owned and operated by private companies. In Europe, they are owned and operated by government. In the 1950s, the percent of freight shipped was about the same. Today, about 38 percent of freight is shipped on railroads in the U.S. compared to 8 percent in the European Union. Maybe to make passenger trains viable again, we should get the government out of Amtrak.”

You gave a great set of comparisons that point directly at the problem.

Passenger rail transport, ANYWHERE is a government boondoggle BECAUSE IT IS RUN BY THE GOVERNMENT.

It’s possible, POSSIBLE that passenger rail transport COULD be a profitable, private enterprise.

However, as long as it is created by and propped up by government, changes to (1) the manner of its operations, (2) the way prices of tickets are set, and (3) technology will never be allowed to be discovered by markets and market economics, to make rail passenger systems self-sustaining without government subsidies FOR OPERATING COSTS, as well capital investment.

[Buckeye McFrog]

so I could have a Primanti Brothers and a Geno’s Cheesesteak on the same afternoon?

[Paladin2]

The PA turnpike was largely built on a RR right of way.