I enjoyed this article in today’s Washington Post newspaper and thought you would as well.
Bob
I enjoyed it. Railroads has been struggling, but now their blowing up the freight competition.
I think they missed something… the lack of passenger traffic and why it is a necessity to meet future demands of it. The flying/driving era is coming to an end, and without a proper investment in passenger traffic now, it will be a disaster.
Graffen,
I don’t see the driving/flying era ending any more than I see passenger service becoming a major factor.
The Government, otherwise known as tax payers, is subsidizing Amtrack with BILLIONS of dollars every year.
This link describes the Amtrak or passenger service profitabilty.
Bob
Seemed like a good read, but then I read the last line…
“See how freight rail maintains our rail bridges.”
wat? [%-)]
I thought the forum wasn’t supposed to be political. Silly me.
Data from Brookings? That says something right there. 1.39 billion recently voted for Amtrak, while the FAA gets 15.7 billion? That’s more than 11 times as much. We could argue it, but I really don’t think this forum is the place for this discussion.
Acy, I agree politics shouldn’t be a part of this forum, but I don’t think of Brookings Institute as being political.
Below is a description of it’s goals and intent from Wikipedia. Brookings is as neutral as it gets.
The Brookings Institution is an American think tank based on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.,[2] in the United States. One of Washington’s oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development.[3][4] In the University of Pennsylvania’s 2012 Global Go To Think Tanks Report, Brookings is ranked the most influential think tank in the world.[5
“Brookings states that its scholars ‘represent diverse points of view’ and describes itself as non-partisan…” These are Brookings’ descriptions of itself. As for Brookings not being political: if it’s in Washington, it’s political.
Actually, I have no axe to grind here, and I personally happen to agree with Brookings’ findings more often than not. But the value of Amtrak in the National transportation milieu is a very complex issue, and I’m not sure they are the best people to analyze that. As I said, we’re getting perilously close to a political discussion here. The findings of the Inspector General regarding Amtrak food service costs was discussed several months ago in one of the Trains forums, and I tried to gently suggest the I.G.'s conclusions might have been based on some presumptive and possibly inaccurate data, but my views were largely ignored or dismissed by other respondents. They chose to accept the I.G.'s conclusions rather than acknowledge the notion that the I.G.'s office could make a mistake. As I said, if the issue and the people are in Washington, it’s political. At any rate, if this is to be discussed in a Kalmbach forum at all, I think it should be in Trains; not in the Model Railroader forum.
This thread started out on 6/10 as a general item on RR efficiency, with an implied emphasis on freight. This lasted through 6/11. On 6/12, the impact of passenger service was introduced. On 6/13, an anti-tax statement made it political.
So…if this thread were moved over to Trains, would it be more appropriate?
I can’t imagine that the only thing discussed about Amtrak on Trains is the various “generations” of equipment and such!
Here, we are a hobby-centric forum; Trains is more directly involved with news of the real thing…
But, cast my vote for hobby-related discussions here on this forum- we have plenty of alternative forums for other concerns.
Cedarwoodron
Maybe more appropriate over there. Some of those guys can beat a dead horse to the point that it dies again — not from the beating, but from sheer tedium. If you don’t believe me, check out the “Those Train Guys” thread. Sorry if this offends anybody over there, but I was driven to quote Popeye: “That’s all I can stands 'n I can’t stands n’more!”