General Discussion

Yeah?

My original 71 Challenger got 10, maybe 12...440 Wedge with a 3/2 set up....looked like crap, ran like a bat out of ....you didnt really steer it, you just pointed it in a straight line, stomped the pedal, and prayed no one got in the way!

Gotta love the old lead sleds...and real Hi Octane.

Interesting-

My Mustang had slapper bars to keep the thing from burning all the rubber off'n the dang tires, remember the issues around Mustangs and no weight in the rear?---never mind the ever popular wheelie on Main Street. That 440 Wedge I thought was always a good looking and running engine. I had a 1969 Charger with it---and, yes, you did have that right---wasn't really much for roundy round trips but, boy, could she hustle.

 I was sitting in a restaurant and the TV had a news piece that detailed airline subsidies of unprofitable routes.  One 300-mile trip, with a ticket cost of $220, had a subsidy of $4,200 per seat.

This was on Fox News Channel, if I recall correctly.  That's a $4,550 airplane trip between city pairs in the backwater midwest.

Now THAT's a subsidy.

Edblysard, while I agree in principle about single-track lines constraining speeds, in actuality it is very untrue.  I remind us about passing sidings and CTC scheduling that make passenger trains actually go faster than freight on the same line.  Even the shoestring local commuter lines here in DC have spent mililons to build sidings and triple-track segments to make trains, for the most part, blow right past the freight.

Incidentally, why would you schedule a passenger train to follow a long drag heavy freight, anyway?  You'd schedule the train when it wouldn't be doing that.

aegrotatio:

 I was sitting in a restaurant and the TV had a news piece that detailed airline subsidies of unprofitable routes.  One 300-mile trip, with a ticket cost of $220, had a subsidy of $4,200 per seat.

This just illustrates the rediculous business model that the airline industry is now following. If you looked across that sector there are very few airlines that are 'profitable' enough to stay out of the ICU.

At one time one had to pay a princely sum to get an airline ticket. With the business model now in place you could get from here--being London ON to ----oh--say- Winnipeg MB for under $140. How is anyone going to make money on that without some kind of a taxpayer sponsered subsidy?

Do all readers of this thread know what the major USA (also possibly Canadian, definitely Israel, I believe some other "developed" coutries, but probably not Switzerland or Holland) are?   It happens to be what happens on the highways.  And for that reason alone I support High Speed Rail.   And for that reason alone, my Christmas card mailing to my many USA friends is going to include an adaption of something I downloaded from this Forum a number of years ago:

A Christmas Message from a North American Rail Freight Conductor

YOU MIGHT WANT TO USE IT ALSO!    WITH LOVE    

aegrotatio:

Incidentally, why would you schedule a passenger train to follow a long drag heavy freight, anyway?  You'd schedule the train when it wouldn't be doing that.

I've noticed that too.  They build a third track to the city only to run the stopping train 5 mins before the express, then the express uses the extra track to pass the local at rush hour.  Other then that trains just run once an hour.  They needed third track for that ?   And worse they won't run passenger trains on other lines until they get 3rd track there too.

blownout cylinder:

aegrotatio:

 I was sitting in a restaurant and the TV had a news piece that detailed airline subsidies of unprofitable routes.  One 300-mile trip, with a ticket cost of $220, had a subsidy of $4,200 per seat.

This just illustrates the rediculous business model that the airline industry is now following. If you looked across that sector there are very few airlines that are 'profitable' enough to stay out of the ICU.

At one time one had to pay a princely sum to get an airline ticket. With the business model now in place you could get from here--being London ON to ----oh--say- Winnipeg MB for under $140. How is anyone going to make money on that without some kind of a taxpayer sponsered subsidy?

Not just how rediculous a business model there is in the airline industry, but also how rediculous the arguement is against passenger trains subsidies! 

As a note, so that I don't duplicate a post, see my post in the Passenger Train discussin board thread about Don Phillips where I speak about comparing European and Asian railroading with US railroads.

aegrotatio:

 I was sitting in a restaurant and the TV had a news piece that detailed airline subsidies of unprofitable routes.  One 300-mile trip, with a ticket cost of $220, had a subsidy of $4,200 per seat.

This was on Fox News Channel, if I recall correctly.  That's a $4,550 airplane trip between city pairs in the backwater midwest.

Now THAT's a subsidy.

 

 

 Again one has to look at the facts.  I am going to go out on a limb as say that the above route was an Essential Air Service route. 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service

http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/X-50%20Role_files/essentialairservice.htm

With the exception of the Alaska routes, EAS routes are nothing but Congressional pork.

What are "essential" airline routes and how do they differ from "essential" railrouts, both freight and passenger?  Where are the hooters who always show up here denouncing the subsidy a train might get?  Wouldn't this subsidy be just as foolish?  Or do we concede there is no level playing field when trains and boats and planes and trucks are concerned?

henry6:

What are "essential" airline routes and how do they differ from "essential" railrouts, both freight and passenger?  Where are the hooters who always show up here denouncing the subsidy a train might get?  Wouldn't this subsidy be just as foolish? 

Yes they are just as foolish,  The big difference is that of the couple of thousand domestic flights out of the lower 48 that operate every day, only 107 of them get the goverment essential subsidy to operate.  I would love to see ONE Amtrak route that does get a subsidy.

schlimm:

BaltACD:

As it stands now, airlines are receiving a subsidy from all forms of government to sustain their operations....subsidies that are not acknowledged for what they are.

 

Very true...of course this forum's resident accountant disputes that b/c of claiming the airlines only should be responsible for 30% of all the government funding..  And if that is so, then we sure are heavily subsidizing corporate business jets.

35% is a better number:

 "On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only 35 percent, or just over 30,000 of those flights are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings. "

http://www.natca.org/mediacenter/bythenumbers.msp#1

n012944:

schlimm:

BaltACD:

As it stands now, airlines are receiving a subsidy from all forms of government to sustain their operations....subsidies that are not acknowledged for what they are.

 

Very true...of course this forum's resident accountant disputes that b/c of claiming the airlines only should be responsible for 30% of all the government funding..  And if that is so, then we sure are heavily subsidizing corporate business jets.

 

35% is a better number:

 "On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only 35 percent, or just over 30,000 of those flights are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings. "

 

http://www.natca.org/mediacenter/bythenumbers.msp#1

Indeed..and almost all of that travel is really non essential. 100 years how many flights were there? And how much high speed rail was there? Apart from some medical advances and progress on gender and racial equality, the quality of life 100 years ago was as good as or better than it is today.

Ulrich:

Indeed..and almost all of that travel is really non essential. 100 years how many flights were there? And how much high speed rail was there? Apart from some medical advances and progress on gender and racial equality, the quality of life 100 years ago was as good as or better than it is today.

Relative quality of life between 1909 and 2009 would be a topic in and of itself.  Folks living on "subsistance" farms (where you raise what you need to live and little more) might consider our lives today a little better.

The fact is, regardless of how "essential" the travel is, it's occuring.  We would do well to find ways to do it better, which may well involve high speed rail.

For that matter, there was plenty of "non-essential" rail service even in 1909.  The Raquette Lake Railroad was built almost exclusively to carry the rich and famous of the day in their private cars to their great camps in the Adirondacks.  Granted, it was built with private money, but I'm not so sure it would have existed without an infusion of money from both its original builders or the NYC, which took it over soon after it was built.

And we all know that passenger service has never been much of a money maker.  The only industry on the RLRR was some limited logging and ice cut from the lakes during the winter.

The RLRR quit in 1933, by which time folks could reach the Raquette Lake area by automobile.

schlimm:

"A bankruptcy judge in Chicago ruled Tuesday that a federal agency can take over United Airlines' pension plans, allowing the carrier to walk away from nearly $10 billion in unfunded liabilities, the largest pension default in U.S. history.

It helps United clear one of the biggest financial hurdles in its 29-month effort to exit bankruptcy protection. The airline's pension funds are short $9.8 billion, but the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will pick up only $6.6 billion of that, meaning current and former employees will lose more than $3 billion in retirement benefits."

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a government sponsored insurance plan designed to insure private pensions.  The participants, including United Airlines, pay premiums to cover their defined benefit pension plans.

If the participating organization declares bankruptcy, the PBGC assumes responsibility for the pension.  Any participant, including a railroad, would be treated equally in case of default.  United Airlines received no more favorable treatment than any other company insured by the PBGC.

Some of the folks who participate in these forums appear to think that the way to promote passenger rail in the U.S. is to neuter the airlines.  It is not going to happen anymore than American's are going to give up their cars in most instances to take a train or bus.  Air travel is the only practicable form of transport for business travelers, as well as many others, for distances greater than 250 miles. 

I believe that there is a market for rapid, frequent passenger rail in high density corridors up to 250 miles, but beyond that most people who are time constrained - most of us are - will fly.