OT: Amtrak Privatization

Of course many European cities have new active rail lines in the middle of city streets. They are tarmacked up to the rail except for a narrow slot for the wheel's flange. For example: George St, Croydon: https:goo.gl/ETirFs Back Turner ST, Manchester:

It used to be a joke about cars with narrow wheels getting stuck in the slot (see the film "Genevieve" about cars that were already veteran in the 1950s, and ISTR some Keystone Kops shorts). Nowadays that "pleasure" is mainly reserved for pushbikes.

It wasn't just some workmen, it was a friggin Mexican!- The trash agricultu ral industry in that area is swarming with them, all to save a friggin dime .

"On April 8, a lawsuit was filed by Amtrak and BNSF against Cimarron Crossi ng Feeders, LLC. It alleges employees of Cimarron Crossing Feeders left a K enworth truck ?unattended, out of gear, and without any brakes appl ied? while loading grain March 13 into March 14. According to the l awsuit, the truck from the Cimarron facility rolled downhill to the south, crossing U.S. Highway 50 and striking the side of the railroad tracks. The truck then came to rest on the tracks. According to the lawsuit, Cimarron C rossing Feeders then called for a tow truck to remove the Kenworth ? ?without permission or consent from BNSF,? which owns the tracks. [5]

The initial filing states that damages claimed are over $75,000 for each of BNSF and Amtrak. It also states that a specific employee of Cimarron Cross ing Feeders, one Arturo Carrillo, was working on loading the truck involved in the incident. It also claims that Cimarron should have known that the d amage to the track was a danger and yet they did not call Amtrak, BNSF or a ny Law Enforcement agencies"

Here was an even bigger one where a MORON, with full licensure by governing authorities, was too damned dumb to competently navigate a simple friggin channel!

"The towboat's pilot, Willie Odom, was not properly trained on how to read his radar and thus, owing to the very poor visibility in the fog and his la ck of experience, did not realize that he was off course."

The SHIT about not being "properly trained" is code for ...fill in the f_ck ing blanks.

Look at this nightmare

I initially had problems understanding what the issue is in the US.

In Central Europe, high speed rail competes with short range flights, not with cars. At short distances (up to 400 km) it is often faster to go directly from city center A to city center B, instead of traveling from city center A to airport A, then a security check, flight to B airport, (baggage claim) and then travel from airport B to city center of B.

After looking at some US rail maps, I was surprised how low speeds are available on most routes, no wonder that the rail is not capable of competing with aviation and in cases not even with automobiles.

How much of the US railway system is actually double-track ?

Without double-track system, it is very hard to run frequent passenger services (1-3 trains/hour/direction). With double-track, slow freight trains could be easier be fitted in, but of course freight train is better run during the night, when there is less passenger services.

During the day the freight trains should just sit idle?

So what ?

If you are transporting oil or steel rolls from a steel factory, who cares if it takes 3 days or 2 days ?

For containers with more urgent cargo, use shorter trains capable of running at similar speeds as personal service. Especially if the person service makes frequent stops, the average speed will become quite low, so the container service can run at speeds 20-40 km/h below person service top speed, without causing conflicts.

Sounds fine to me. Around the OJ trial time I took the train from New Orleans to California. Took three days, service was brutal, no food, no place to sleep, and cost substantially more than flying.

(And that was with the *subsidies.*)

Cheers, James Arthur

I live in a semi-rural area an hour's drive east of Phoenix, AZ (and its airport).

Thus, I mostly drive to service clients as far west as Santa Barbara (7 easy hours drive), rather than contend with drive to airport, park, take shuttle to airport, check bags, endure TSA crap, fly for 1-1/2 hours, retrieve bags, rent car, drive to hotel.

Then I have my own car, as much baggage as I care to have, can carry electronic gear with me and not be bound to airline schedules or crap.

Plus _many_ tech companies are bailing out of Californica and moving to Arizona or Texas to establish design centers.

I haven't had to fly anywhere for nearly two years... how pleasant ;-) ...Jim Thompson

And then there's the train wreck every few weeks ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Add in the benefits of Go-To-Meeting or Skype, and there's really not much need to travel at all.

I actually have one client of almost ten years, multiple projects, who I've _never_ met face-to-face. ...Jim Thompson

It's highly amusing to me that the rights to the name of one of the most prestigious US airlines of all time is now owned by a podunk New England shortline railroad.

I've always felt it rather unfair that while airports and highways get tons of federal subsides thrown at them with the rationalization that they're "public infrastructure" projects, the passenger rail system has always been expected to stand completely on its own.

Look, the whole reason Amtrak exists is because by the early 1970s, private rail companies couldn't turn a profit hauling passengers around. Nothing magically changed the day after Amtrak took over in 1973 or whatever.

The US airline industry has managed to operate at a net loss of something like ~$50 billion over the 30 years since deregulation. The argument from the major carriers is always the "No True Free Market" argument: "we would be profitable. Really! If only taxes were lower. If only fuel costs were less."

Yet somehow Delta keeps grunting along on taxpayer largess.

A liberal cynic would argue that the ire against Amtrak is simply a form of organized class warfare by the "limousine Conservatives": it's no great secret that, at least in the red states, the passenger rail system is used primarily by low-income citizens and people of color.

You may have paid more than a plane ticket for your unpleasant trip in the 1990s, but usually a round-trip coach fare between say Chicago and New Orleans is significantly less than a flight, though more expensive than a bus.

I haven't looked at the airports, but if you think Amtrak stands on its own you're living in a parallel universe.

Google has all sorts of stories on how Amtrak spends $16 making hamburgers and sells them for $9.50. Taxpayers chip in the rest, $7.50 for every $9.50 hamburger Amtrak sells.

They're bureaucrats--not smart enough make hamburgers, much less run a railroad.

It exists because the feds regulated the railroads to death, whereafter they had to be subsidized. It's the tao of big-gov't, the natural progression.

Ronald Reagan summarized: "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

Lots of stuff magically changed. Suddenly the railroads didn't have to do anything that made sense, and losing infinite sums was fine.

The feds promised a temporary take-over to get passenger rail in shape. They swore it'd make money and then they'd turn it loose ... because feds *know* how to do things. But like federal dependency programs generally, it turned into a permanent sinkhole. And here we are 45 years later, worse off, and impossibly in the red.

Cheers, James Arthur

A freight train can be a mile long. The train represents a huge capital cost as well as the capital cost of the entire rest of the railroad, not to mention the operating costs. The money from passenger service is a pittance compared to the income from freight. So if it takes twice as long to generate income from your investment, you are cutting your return on investment in half! Anyone in business will want to reduce the time it takes to earn income so they can earn *more* income.

There is no such thing as freight that runs at similar speeds as passenger service. Heck, there are plenty of locations where extra engines are required to get over a hill at all much less at passenger speeds.

Why do people want to try to tell an industry how to run their business when they know nothing about it?

On what tracks? Doesn't it make sense to run trains that are designed for the tracks they're running on?

AFAIK, Budd cars are still being used on commuter rail lines (i.e. those specifically used for passenger traffic. You don't want to be mixing them with heavy freight.

Who owns the tracks? Hint: It's not Obama.

I believe NYC is still running Budd cars (or the equivalent, anyway). The ones on the Harlem line, anyway, were diesel electric. Diesel to the Croton-Harmon station, where they switched to electric (diesel isn't a great idea in the tunnels).

Have you even looked at the population densty of the US? It's simply not high enough, outside the NE corridor, to sustain passenger rail.

Because they're designed and built for freight. Freight doesn't have to travel att 400MPH.

Probably not much. It's not needed.

It doesn't make any sense, so it's not done. There's a reason that passenger rail has failed everywhere outside the NE corridor.

What a silly question. The answer is obvious:

The worldwide network of international undersea tunnels between the secret military facilities under the abandoned WalMarts with the plumbing problems can be used under direction of the precedent to protect national security.

Having many tracks in good repair will be necessary for FEMA to move the boxcars with shackles between population centers and detention facilities to keep us safe.

The answer is easy: the freight railroads are responsible for the tracks when it's business as usual, right up until the point an Amtrak train derails due to their shoddy maintenance or work practices, at which point Amtrak is on the hook for the bill.

It works that way because the freight railroads paid Congress for it to work that way.