Don't let Bu***ake our Trains

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ndbprr

Let's see. I think I'll take the train on my next business trip from Chicago to Milwaukee or Detroit. All I have to do is find some way from the 'burbs into downtown Chicago (1-2 hours), get a train and find some way (probably a cab) to get to the customer who is now in the 'burbs of either city. Then I need to reverse the whole process to get home. In the two hours it takes me to get into CHicago I could be in Milwaukee at my customer or 1/3 of the way to Detroit. What you have all missed is that without good access to the train station it ain't never gonna fly. When people lived in the city and could jump on a bus, streetcar or subway it was easy. It would cost me a minimum of four times driving time and probably reduce my efficiency by at least a factor of two. Take the train? Sorry guys it is an early 20th century mode of transportation whose time has come and gone. Luxurious - could be. Efficient - nope. you want an efficient system then find a way for the business man to load his car on some type of rail vehicle, have access to internet, e mail and computer service and get to milwaukee in 20 minutes, St. Louis in and hour and a half or Detroit in two hours. We are probably talking some type of mag lev sled that would be preprogrammed to a certain route. That I would ride and the cost would justfy itself becasue of the productivity increase not decrease and you don't need to go through security and wonder if the Middle Eastern guy tarveling with you is up to no good..

I have to agree in general, but take my case, which is worse because of the miles that I travel. I live on the west coast and 90% of my meetings are in Washington DC. Any single day meeting takes three days now, One for travel to DC, one for the meeting and one to travel back. I would love to take a train, but no one in their right mind would allow nine days for this.

To be fair, it was the 20th Century mode of travel for about sixty years and really dropped off after 1960 or so. Remember the 707. I rode the Mopac from St. Louis to Texas in 1962, and it was still great to get on a train and travel, but again, the jets were taking over and the Interstate highway system was not done yet . After Amtrak in 1971, the freight railroads have made sure no one really wants to travel again on their railroad tracks. In the corridors where they own the track, I know it is better. The airlines get the benefit of money being subsidized today and even they are broke.

[Ham549]

For trips over 400 miles a train is not efficient. Also Amtrak could have grate service except Uncle Sam helped other travel industries stay ahead of Amtrak instead of letting the industry deal with it’s self. If the government left things alone the airlines, bus lines, and train lines would all be able to compete on an equal bases. But by destroying the competitive atmosphere by giving airlines and such money and leaving railroads to fend for them self’s it got so bad that railroads didn’t want to run passenger trains. This led to the formation of Amtrak a railroad given old crappy equipment to start with (while the competition had the newest stuff) made to run on mostly other railroads lines with low speed limits and told to make money. It was set up to fail. Unlike other countries that stuck to there railroads and have something to brag about Germany, Sweden, France, Japan, and even to some extent Canada.