President Bush, in his $ 2.75 trillion budget proposal has sounded the death knell for Amtrak with the elimination of the $ 1.2 billion annual subsidy. This is long overdue as Amtrak has not been viable for the last several years, I’m not sure that the wole endeavour wasn’t still born at conception.
Amtrak has never been viable, but that’s never really been the issue. Doubtful Bush’s budget attempt to kill Amtrak will be sucessful. Nixon and Reagan tried to “zero out” Amtrak many times in the past and never succeeded. Suspect Amtrak will get almost what they need to struggle through another year.
Not viable to WHOM?
So Amtrak share of intercity travel is 1% comapred to like 85% highways and 12% air and 2% bus.
Teachers represent about 2% of U.S. society with farmers a little less.
They’re insignificant?
Tell that to 25 million people that rode the system last year, despite Amtrak being attacked left and right.
Given Washington’s three decades of stiffing Amtrak when it comes to funding, actually decreasing rail funding in gigantic amounts while increasing highway and air funding (those aren’t subsidized, right!), it’s a miracle Amtrak has the market share it has now.
Record ridership. More than anytime in the past three decades.
Oltmannd made a succinct and accurate observation. Viability isn’t possible without funding, and funding doesn’t happen without political committment, and political committment doesn’t happen without popular support. Amtrak is a fine example of purgatory. Not a pleasant place to be.
OS
O.S.YOU DONT SEEM TO REALIZE THAT PEOPLE ARE SICK TO DEATH OF ALL THOSE OUTIN THE US WHO ARGUE A POINT WITHOUT LETTING ALL THE CORRECT FACTS ,OR ARE OF THE OPINION THAT WHAT IS GOOD FOR THEM IS GOOD FOR ALL .JUST BECAUSETHEY DONT USE AMTRAK NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED .YOU KNOW WHAT I DONT WANT MY TAX MONEY USED FOR THE HIGHWAYSOR AIRWAYS NOW WHAT IS TOUR REPLY SIR
To all those who suggest privatizing Amtrak I suggest they look at
all other countries and their passenger rail systems
HIGH speed trains, Frequent service, Up to date equipment,
dedicated tracks, maintenance facilities, I’m sure the list could go
on and on. All other countries realize the importance of
passenger rail and appropriate funding for same.
I say all other countries, perhaps this is a blanket statement
but what other largely populated country undercuts and
attempts to disolve its passenger trains as the U>S>
I DON T THINK MR BUSH REMEMBERS 9/11 WHEN ALL AIRCRAFT WERE GROUNDED AND PEOPLE COULD NOT GET HOME . NO WE DONT NEED AMTRAK OR THE THOUSANDS OF JOBS THAT IT HAS .CONSERVATIVES ONLY THINK ABOUT WAR
From what I hear, the fright railroads would like to see Amtrak gone from there roads anyway. With fright traffic at a high these trains are in the way arn’t they?
Don’t get me wrong I like having the passenger trains and think that more would be better. It’s a nice way to travel I took my family to Illinois form Kansas.
Also why are the cities restoring the old passenger depots if there is no intrest in rail travel?Take K.C.Mo Union Station.
Saturday 02/05/05 Amtrak #4 was held up in Topeka Ks. for at least 6 hours, some drunk tried to out run the Police and hit a big power pole and the wires droped on to the tracks shuting down the Topeka sub.
Yeah that is all that Bu***hinks about. War, at least he does something about suffereing unlike Bill Clinton who let over a 800,000 die in Ruwanda. Just because I am a conservative also doesn’t mean I don’t support Amtrak. There are a lot of conservatives who do. JFK sure as hell doesn’t though. Unless he is using it as a political vice. Please don’t use name calling here, as all it does is degenerate the thread.
Brad
I DONT USE THE FEDERAL AIRWYS WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM WITH MY TAX MONEY . ANY REPLIES FROM CONSERVATIVES OUT THERE
JUST CHECKED MY PREVIOUS REPLIES COULD NOT FIND ANY NAME CALLING AS I SAID DON T LET FACTS GET IN THE WAY
goduckies who is JFK AND WHERE WAS HE MENTIONED IN THIS THREAD
John F Kerry, since you called our conservatives, I called out him, since he is the Dem’s hero.
Brad
Well we should support both, and since a lot of commerce goes through those planes, our economy would come to a screaching halt if we didn’t.
Brad
Kerry did have his chance to show support for passenger rail at the time of the funding of the Boston Big Dig. If he had been a sincere proponant of balanced transportation, the critical missing North Station South Station link would now be in place.
Whoa…tempers rising on this thread. Expect some push back from senators (both [D] and [R]) on this matter; that always happened in the past whenever they tried to zero out the Amtrak operating budget.
People are more complex than the stereotypes and loudmouths you hear on the radio or see on TV talk shows. Most conservatives I know are not opposed to Amtrak; some even ride it. There are bigger issues out there…
Hello all,
Once again, Amtrak is on the block. You know what? It has been that way pretty much from the inception of this so called National Passenger Railroad Corporation. There has never been a meaningful period of time when Amtrak was not being denied a place at the table. I place the blame squarely on the Congress of this country. Not the Presidents, but the legislators who pander to this or that group in hopes of remaining in office. That is not to say Presidents haven’t had their share of the blame - but the Congress has let this idea of a slapped together network fester from thet onset. Just do a bit of research and you will see for yourselves. Who appropriates? Too many of these legislators haven’t a clue regarding the subjects they vote on - believe me - the volume they deal with would choke a healthy horse. That’s not an excuse for them, simply the truth. In reality, the damned interns are the ones who provide the “input” that either floats or sinks the ship.
We have not had and do not have a national rail transportation plan. There simply is nothing on the table for the U.S. to continue into the 21st century with a high speed rail initiative that will work. Where is the progress with Maglev? How come the high speed rail plans for the midwest are once again mired down. Why? Because of the lobby interests that tie up our tax dollars elsewhere. This is not Democrat vs Republican - so get off the dime with that nonsense. This is just the system as we know it and and have known it all of our adult lives. Money talks and the rest walks, as the paraphrase goes. Amtrak’s appeal just hasn’t generated the voices, along with the promises of cash (in the form of big donations) to get these legislators off their pontification stands long enough to understand exactly what the ramifications of their actions will be.
My crystal ball isn’t worth a hoot, but I picked the Patriots to win and even though I live in the St. Louis area, I suspected the same for the R
You must remember though that all those other countries have rail systems that are either government owned and/or open access. They also have tax policies that discourage the use of private vehicles, such as gas taxes that are far above what is needed for transportation infrastructure maintenance. They use most of their gas taxes for their general budgets.
Although taken as a matter of fact, the concept of “no money making passenger trains” has not truly been tested. A private rail passenger operation would have to conform to any other business model, e.g. provide a product or service that people will pay for at a price that exceeds the cost of providing that service. If indeed there are viable rail passenger corridors, ones in which it is more beneficial for the traveller to take a passenger train than it is to either fly or drive, then that rail passenger service should be able to make money. If the costs of maintaining a rail right of way was equalized with the costs of highway and airport maintenance, who’s to say a private rail passenger service could not make a go of it?
Is this accurate enough? Years ago I heard this was fine for single track lines, but the GPS was not detailed enough to tell if a train was on the main track or a siding, so its utility was limited for meets (except when there was wide separation between the tracks)
QUOTE: Originally posted by tomtrain
“Global positioning program to allow positive train control throughout the country fully funded.”
“Is this accurate enough? Years ago I heard this was fine for single track lines, but the GPS was not detailed enough to tell if a train was on the main track or a siding, so its utility was limited for meets (except when there was wide separation between the tracks)”
Clinton ordered the variability insertion in GPS to be deactivated - thus allowing civilian usage to have the same accuracy as military GPS usage. With the use of off-the-shelf differential GPS systems - current commercial accuracy is sufficient for legal land surveys - so the use of GPS in multitrack situations has been vastly improved - but this still would not improve Amtrak.
dd