Republicans say they will destroy Amtrak.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Lines connecting LA to Vegas, SF to Reno, San Diego up the coast to Santa Barbara, and maybe another going from San Diego up the center of the state to Sacramento (thus tieing the whole system togeather) would be a good send. In order to compete though the trains would have to go at least 200mph and there would have to be experse trains as well as communter trains (I hate having to sit and wait at every stop).

I still think a regional approach would be the best. If California and Nevada see the need and have public support then they should get together and make it happen. Wouldn't regional control over such things be better than centralized?

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Odin


Pressure from the Iron Union I bet. Modernization usually results in job cuts. Luddites.

So when did American conservatives start to care about the union? I heard some other big companies, like International Paper asked for government subsidiries after 9/11. I can't recall if they actually got it, but even their hope for it made the Bush administration look like a communist government. Why would the world biggest land owner ask for government money?


Out of topic: I am a conservative myself and I stayed out of the union for the first 5 years of my employment. But for some peculiar reason, huge companies in Sweden prefer the employees to to join the Union. I guess it speeds annual salary discussions up a bit if they can discuss with a group instead of an individual.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre


So when did American conservatives start to care about the union? I heard some other big companies, like International Paper asked for government subsidiries after 9/11. I can't recall if they actually got it, but even their hope for it made the Bush administration look like a communist government. Why would the world's biggest land owner ask for government money?


Out of topic: I am a conservative myself and I stayed out of the union for the first 5 years of my employment. But for some peculiar reason, huge companies in Sweden prefer the employees to to join the Union. I guess it speeds annual salary discussions up a bit if they can discuss with a group instead of an individual.

Edit: sorry again, I did not want to post a new message, just edit a typo in the last one.... Wrong button...

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Well, considering that the densely populated parts of the country subsidize most of the rest of the country, they can give a little back on trains. If the Feds didn't redistribute taxes from the rich states (the ten states with half the population) to the poor states, most of the country would be fubared.

Your cities would starve before the week was done if the rest of the country stopped making the food and kept your city trucks off the rurul interstates. So until the cities are self sufficent don't start with that stuff.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So when did American conservatives start to care about the union?

When they learned they could get some votes from them.

[Chemical Ollie]

It's your count that votes...

But if it weren't for the autocensor, I would spell it differently...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Who? Cheney?

[Ned]

I say junk Amtrak. Clearly its mere existence prevents the introduction of modern high speed trains that could operate at a profit. The role of government should be limited to facilitating right-of-way rights through the power of eminent domain.

IIRC, passenger trains became unprofitable in the first place both due to competition from air travel and due to government regulations. Obviously, long distance travel is more efficient by air. It makes no sense whatsoever to continue to operate long distance rail travel. However, one of the reasons Amtrak was formed was precisely to keep these long distance trains operating!

I presume that private companies will purchase and keep operating profitable lines. But they should be free to do so without government regulations that make no sense from a safety or health point of view, but which exist simply to increase the income of union members.

Obviously, the less the government interferes with railroad operations the better. Hopefully, this is one of the lessons we learned from this fiasco.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Odin
I think trains will stay unpopular until they start building maglevs, they are faster and don't make as much noise as conventional trains.

Oh yes.
We are currently discussing about routes where we can install a Maglev here in Germany. The Problem here is the same as with AmTrak: Funding. As it is very dificulty to find profitable routes. The Rebublic grants Subsidies for the county that builds one, but still the county has to pay most of the costs to build and upkeep it, so money is a large issue. ALso my own county (NRW) applied for the subsidies but backed of, as it came clear, that it wouldn´t be as profitable as expected (NRW is very densely populated with small Distances between Train Stations and a good Train network, so the MagLev couldn´t play out it´s Strengths (Speed) here. But maybe Bavaria will build one.

I think it is very strange not yet to have a MagLev in Germany, as we already installed one for China