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Electrification. Good for freight RR`s ??

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[quote user="henry6"] [quote user="Bucyrus"] How do you arrive at the conclusion that we need a virtual total transportation infrastructure repair or replacement?  You mentioned the capitalistic and socialistic sectors.  A trumped up transportation crisis demanding a national solution that is bandied about these days strikes me as a rather obvious ploy by that socialistic sector.    And what in the world are you talking about when you say that steel wheels and rails have never been fully exploited because they have been beset by ideologies rather than applications? [/quote] B, we've been down the ideological discourse on these points several times on several other threads here.  Working backwards, we abandoned rail technology in the 50's with the coming of the Jet Age and Space Exploration, thus the rest of the world's rail technology surpassed us with high speed, electric, and dual mode power...so today we import such technology rather than relying on our own manufacturers to produce suceh.  Next, private rail corporations are approaching the governments for aid in preparing for the future of their transportation niche.  And all the way up to the top, bridge and highway repair and replacement along with new build are all on the plates of transportation planners from D.C. down.  What it boils down to is that the ideological clash has to end and cooperation and coordination is imperitive to rebuild our ecnomic system to compete in the world economy,  [/quote] Yes we have been down this road before, but it bears further exploration.  How can you say that we abandoned rail technology in the 50s?  We (private railroad companies) abandoned passenger trains in the 50s because the public would not use them enough to make it pay.  The public preferred airplanes and cars.  If the public had a change of heart, and wanted to ride new high speed trains today in enough numbers to make them pay, we will get new high speed trains.  But I don’t look at the country as if we are just one big club that wants new high speed trains in case somebody wants to ride one, and therefore we should all chip in and pay for new trains for the club.  If you just set out to satisfy every want and need, the club will run out of money.   <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I really don’t understand why you believe that we need to redo our entire transportation infrastructure just because we changed to a new century number on the calendar.  I can understand the need for ongoing maintenance, but I don’t think that it is all worn out and/or obsolete, and therefore needs to be replaced today.   How are the private and public sector ideologies supposed to cooperate when the public sector imposes no limit upon itself, and every time it gets bigger, the private sector must by definition get smaller?  Fundamentally, you cannot blend them together.  Who decides how much socialism and how much capitalism we should have?
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