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What if the government stopped pork barreling our taxmoney and subsidized a national railroad upgrading? Putting concrete ties and crossing gates in all of the high-density traffic lines, using harder and more flexible steel for rail, improving locomotives, freight cars, Amtrak, and roadbeds? In other words, giving railroads fair competition with airlines and highways? If railroads could recapture the "delivery" market, aka lcl and express service, and could make trains go to speeds in excess of 200 mph safely, our tansportation system would be balanced: trucks and buses for short haul, railroads for oversized, high speed and long haul service, and airlines for trancontinental trips. <br />Is it ever going to be that way? Not likely. Americans are notorious for throwing away useful, but older ways of getting things done. And railroads have to spend about 2 times more money to keep in the black than other industries do. One thing is for certain: instead of downsizing routes, Amtrack needs to add more routes. In Amtrack's financial uncertainty, that seems crazy, but to compete with airlines Amtrack needs to work with the freight lines to get travel on the rails as fast and as easy as possible. Passenger trains were once profitable, and they can be again ,it would just take so much upgrading and money that no one of power wants to try it. For instance, why doesn't Amtrack have any thru trains in Chicago? there will never be any true transcontinental passenger trains in this country unless Amtrak stops thinking like a freight railroad and acts like a passenger line. Many other things, some already pointed out, need to be established on Amtrak trains. The problem right now is getting the money to do it.
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