Republicans say they will destroy Amtrak.

[Dinner]

In the 1970's the Congress nationalized all of the priviately owned passager rail way companies in the US, many of them where in bankruptcy, and formed Amtrak as the American national railway company. From the beginning Amtrak was required to maintain and continue to run all existing passager rail lines even if those lines generated a lose. During the 1970's and 1980's Congress provided a subsidy to Amtrak in recognition that Congress's mandate that all rail lines continue to be oppurated, including the money losing lines, and so Amtrak continued to exist. However, the amount of money Congress supplied was never enough to invest in new trains, cars, stations, and was barely enough to maintain the rail tracks themselves in working condition.

Starting in the 1990's the newly Republican controlled Congress drastically cut funding to Amtrak and demanded Amtrak turn a profit. The Republicans did not repeal the congressional mandate that Amtrak continue to maintain and oppurate unprofitable rail lines since this would have offended representatives from rural states. Now the Republican controlled Congress is declaring that Amtrak is a complete failure and in light of the largest budget deciet in history, a defiet almost entirely created by massive Republican tax cuts and massive Republican spending increases, Amtrak will be closed and it's assets closed.

In my mind there is something wrong and immoral to intentionally set an institution up for failure and then say "See! State run companies can't compete!". If Amtrak were allowed to cut the unprofitable routes then Amtrak could easily become a profitable company, but, Republican law makers have recieved millions of dollars from the Airline companies who all feel they will benifit from Amtrak's demise.

Does anyone else feel this is the wrong way for the country to go? In light of how bad the air line system has become post 9/11 shouldn't we be working towards creating more ways to travel and not less? Isn't it in the national interest to have a functional railway system?

Here's the link. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3107667.stm

EDIT: Link updated.

[Az]

I think this is not the right link....

[Az]

But we communists have known this for a very long time. When capital influences politics, nothing good comes out. Even Adam Smith knew this.

[mrmitchell]

Republicans are pigs. Get over it.

On a more serious note, yes, Amtrak has promise if they'd do more than just **** around with it and use it as a pawn in some political game.

[SlowwHand]

It doesn't matter, Azazel.

Why shouldn't a profit be expected?

[mrmitchell]

SlowwHand, if the government mandated you to build a large housing project to house 500 people and gave you seventeen cents and a bottlecap to do it, would you be able to?

It's the same principle here.

[Kidlicious]

The market has already shown that rail can't compete against air travel. That's why the private companies went bankrupt. I don't see how Amtrak could possibly make profit.

[Timexwatch]

I doubt airlines will pick up that much money from a potential demise of Amtrack. The people who take the train will continue to do so.

Besides, the only routes that make money are on the DC-NYC-Boston Corridor. Amtrak will continue to operate that line for the foreseeable future.

I would favor regional rail setups, but people in America continue to have hardons for cars, regardless of gridlock. The trains that run into NYC and DC are a godsend.

[Dinner]

So how would I fix Amtrak? I would first nationalize all rail way lines in the country and create a new federal agency which would be something of an FAA but for trains. The federal government would then be responsible for maintaining all the nations rail way lines just like it is responsible for maintaining interstate highways, airports, sea ports, many canals, and the like. Next individual priviately owned companies would be authorized to oppurate trains on the rail way lines just like individual airlines are authorized to fly into certain air ports.

Such an approach would inject a great deal of competetion into the industry thus keeping down prices, but, it would remove the single biggest problem priviate rail companies have had in the past. That being how to continually pay for maintaining tens of thousands of miles of track.

What do you think? Is my idea workable?

[mrmitchell]

Sounds great. I mean, the car companies don't have to pay to upkeep the roads, do they?

[Arrian]

Amtrack SHOULD be gotten rid of.

Profitable railroads are indeed possible. But not under government control/mandate.

The absurd restrictions you mention (maintain all sorts of unprofitable routes) are government directives that a private company wouldn't have to deal with.

I'm not defending the idea of cutting funding + demanding improvement, and then crucifying Amtrak for failure. I am, however, saying that Amtrak needs to go. Pronto.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

They use the same track as freight. How much maintainance do they pay?

[Arrian]

However, if you insist on government interference, then the government-funded track upkeep makes sense so that RR's can compete on a level playing field with other forms of transportation... though there are tolls roads out there...

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

If one RR can't make profit, how are many RRs going to make profit. No way.

[Proteus_MST]

There´s more to a functiuoning Railway System.

I think, Trains are much more cleaner from an Environmentalist Standpoint than Planes.
So it would be a reasonable thing to have a functioning Railway System.
It would even be reasonable trying to atract more customers to use trains for short Distances, so you can cut down the Numbers of Flights.