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TRAINS EXCLUSIVE: Wisconsin terminates Talgo maintenance contract
We all like trains but it makes no sense to spend so much money on a service so few will use.Look at CA and IL they are out of money but can’t help themselves.If the states go bankrupt there will be no money to help the really needy that live there.Electoral politics also known as voters are learning that they are much more willing and able to make the tough fiscal choices that are needed to prevent our states and country from becoming the new Greece.
Walker set all this in motion by killing the Milwaukee-Madison high speed rail line. I just completed a “Lake Shore” rail/bus Albany-Chicago-Madison round trip, and the horde of UW student passengers lined up outside the Memorial Union waiting for buses on a Friday afternoon was massive–buses kept rolling up, filling, and more would come in to take their place. A rail link with Milwaukee was clearly an idea whose time had come, but Walker, in his infinite wisdom, killed it. Nice going, Governor. Don’t slam the door on your way out of office.
These just might fit in nicely with Michigan’s HSR project which is progressing nicely. And yes, Michigan Republican Governor Snyder supports High Speed rail.
These just might fit in nicely with Michigan’s HSR project.
The repercussions of the cancellation of the Hiawatha extension continue. This still gets me spitting mad because it has everything to do with electoral politics and nothing to do with transportation. Republicans against passenger rail because it connects city centers, which don’t have many Republican voters. Highway funds generally redistribute money from urban areas to low density sprawl areas with lots of Republican voters. That’s what the fight is about, not America’s infrastructure needs. Improving the Hiawatha, the Midwest’s most popular passenger route, is a no brainer.
How do you spell banana republic?
W I S C O N S I N :- )
This should be the opportunity for Minnesota to acquire the two sets, complete testing and contract with private shops such as CP’s in St. Paul to maintain. With Minnesota operating two added round trips St. Paul (from the rehabbed Union Depot) to Chicago daily without Wisconsin stops other than Milwaukee, the Minnesota benefit from these trains will be clearly demonstrated.
Given the Governor’s short sightedness in canning the whole Talgo project, the loss of Talgo on the remaining Milwaukee-Chicago service may not be such a loss. The former Milw Rd Hiawathas made that trip in 75 minutes with conventional equipment compared to the 90 minute service today from
Amtrak. Talgo’s big benefit is the ability to take curves at a faster speed than conventional equipment. Well there are not many curves of significance between the two cities so conventional equipment should be able to do likewise. However, having riden the Talgo Cascades between Portland and Seattle, their interiors sure beat the austere, utilitarian interiors of the Amtrak Hiawatha service.
Missouri should buy the trainsets for STL to Springfield service on the twisty former Frisco.
What this is really all about is a huge government subsidy to support transportation welfare for those who don’t want to pay for what they want, at the expense of those who are forced to be slaves to the government and pay for something they will never use and receive nothing in return. Way to go. Smart move. Now if the rest of the country followed this lead, the deficit would stop growing and start to shrink. That is real change.
Yes, slavery is legal in this country, despite what the Constitution says. If you pay taxes and receive less than what you pay for, you are a slave to big government, to support the big government along with the recipient class, who will always do its part every election to ensure the survival of big government.
If “high speed” trains were so important to the socialists, marxists, facists, and communists, they would pay for it themselves out of their own pockets without government taking it from somebody else. “High speed” is a relative term with no absolute meaning at worst, and a catch phrase at best. The first freight train in this country was faster than a horse and wagon, provided both were moving the same identical load. That alone would make the freight train a “high speed” train.
The good news here is that possibly the poorest designed locomotive ever aesthetic wise will not ply the rails. I would stop the project based on looks alone!
Thanks, Wisconsin. Amtrak Cascades needs those two trainsets.
Way to go Wisconsin. Throw $40 million away. Idiots.
Way to go Wisconsin. Throw $40 million away. Idiots.
Craig Zemke hit it right on the nose. Let those who ran as far from cities as their SUVs would take them commute or travel with $6 or $7 gas or STAY PUT–good riddance.
As a Wisconsin native living in Minnesota I always thought Wisconsin had its act together. Not anymore. Wisconsin has become such a joke to so many people nationwide for so many reasons.
I have hated Talgo trains ever since I first saw photos of them taken in Spain in the old Railroad Magazine in the mid-1940s. They are beyond "ugly’. What a mess this situation in Wisconsin has turned into.
Is Gov. Walker unable to do simple math?
Wisconsin GOP’ers would rather sit on their behinds and drink tea.