So William Hays, is it your opinion that EVERYONE in NYC is on welfare? Talk about uneducated trolls… And I was stoopid enuff to reply.
Mr. Guse – have driven both alternatives --the high pressure nightmare that is I-44 where was almost rear-ended at the toll booth – and old US 66. This train ride sounds more like an experience than a competing mode of travel. As long as I pay the cost of my ride and don’t ask the taxpayers to subsidize me, if it makes Oklahoma pleasant for a Northwesterner like me, I’ll ride it (have grown children in OKC and Tulsa)
Bonus point question: How many Texas turnpikes have an 85 MPH speed limit? If you picked a number higher than one you are incorrect. Going north, the 85 MPH turnpike empties into an 80 MPH turnpike. The reason I use them both is I am never encumbered with Austin’s world-class miserable traffic on I-35 when I do. When I come to Oklahoma I take the Texas Eagle and the Heartland Flyer. Both operate at less than 85 MPH and both provide exactly the service I need. I believe Mr. Guse’s hypothesis is incorrect.
Actually, it was toward the end of the decade of the 1950’s that the writing on the wall became clear, the first real blow being the Milwaukee’s Olympian Hi, which was all the more remarkable since it was discontinued right before the start of Seattle’s world fair! Also, two prominent roads that stayed out of Amtrak, for different reasons (and different outcomes) were the Southern and the Rock Island.
Another casualty in the early 1960’s was the North Shore, which if still in place would be busy, to say the least.
Gues is trains equal to OBAMA . Everybody hates him.
Passenger trains have always had profitable and unprofitable routes. The big thing that happened in the 1960s that convinced everyone that it was impossible to make a profit wasn’t mail, it was the Penn Central.
Why? Because the PC essentially wrecked the NEC for decades. Today it makes a profit, but it’s required decades of work by Amtrak and a new generation of travellers who weren’t brought up to believe trains were inherently unreliable, slow, and filthy.
This doesn’t mean, before anyone misreads the above, that passenger rail before 1968 was completely profitable. It wasn’t. Between the laws banning urban development, the absurd property tax system, the over-regulation of fares and routes, and panicy railroad executives deliberately undermining any route they thought might become unprofitable so they could petition to get it shut down as fast as possible, the system was in poor health. But there was never any reason to believe that the system in the North East and a few other corners of the country couldn’t pay for itself even if there were problems elsewhere. If Stuart T. Saunders had been interested in railroading, rather than building a non-railroad conglomerate, maybe things might have turned out differently.
Re: Guse’s comments
If you don’t like what he has to say then scroll past it. He has as much right to comment as anyone else and, in fact, I often find his viewpoint interesting and STIMULATING even though I often disagree. Keep those cards and letters comin’, ya hear.
One point Mr. Guise makes that nobody called him on is that even if the speed of NEC trains was infinite: that is board in NYP and literally that instant you arrive at Philly, Baltimore, DC, Boston, etc, and the fare was free, the northeast turnpikes would still be backed up. Why? Because there are a LOT of people who live far enough from any station Amtrak serves traveling to destinations far enough from any station Amtrak serves to make the length of the trip to and from your origin and destination station longer than it would take to simply drive, even with the traffic and tolls. And this says nothing about departure/arrival time convenience of car travel, and how much luggage you may be bringing along. Perhaps you’re taking a dresser or sofa to Aunt Tilly’s house or need to make a last minute trip to Granddad’s house to help him with something he’s no longer capable of doing.
Trains are great when you can spend the time onboard being productive or taking a nap as opposed to having to be alert behind the wheel for hours watching the white dashes go by while trying to avoid the big trucks. Oh yeah, those big trucks are on the road too, many of them going to or from a rail freight yard, so more trains aren’t going to get rid of them either.
As for profitability, for passenger trains to be profitable, they need to be able to have enough paying passengers paying fares high enough to cover all costs. That’s tricky. But if you can make up your losses by having value added services that are profitable to make up the difference. To accomplish either of these, you need to operate in a very high density travel market or have very desirable onboard services, or travel to a very popular destination, or on a route that is spectacular enough to attract the crowds, or think of some other thing to really attract those willing to pay the cost. Think outside the box on this one, and listen up Amtrak: take advantage of volunteers who just like trains, advertise heavily in communities
@WILLIAM S ENSINGER - You appear to be under the misapprehension here that the debate is about whether to ban cars or ban trains. The people here arguing that Guse’s absurd anti-train rhetoric have said nothing about banning cars - we’ve argued for train subsidies, and we’ve argued people shouldn’t be forced to drive, but NOBODY has argued that form of transportation should be outright banned.
Guse can make as many pro-car comments as he wants - and posters here aren’t going to tackle them any more than we’d tackle the “I like chocolate cake part” of “I like chocolate cake therefore we should bring back slavery”.
I worked for WATCO years ago, and the company had and has an amazing record of making money where no one thought anyone could. The Southeast Kansas (which I believe is now merged into the South Kansas & Oklahoma) was a basketcase when it was acquired from the AT&SF, both infrastructure-wise and traffic-wise. Today it’s a viable property. Mr. Webb also founded the first contract switching company operation. These are but two examples.
WATCO and IP seems like an incredible combination.
If anyone can do it, it’s likely these two.
Go job, more passange train are better. Well done. I will be there if I can