Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Public Transportation, an Entitlement?
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
Since some of you might have misunderstood me, let me put it in less eloquent terms: <br /> <br />1. Somebody, somewhere will want passenger trains. If it's not the govt. it has to be the freight railroads. Why? Because short of the states paying billions of dollars to build new rail, commuter operators must first start running on existing lines. They have to train their employees to the standard of the host RR, or else hire freight crews to run passenger service. <br /> <br />2. As political pressure increases, the railroads will be reobligated to run passenger service, or else resurrect Amtrak. They are considered a public trust and are subject to reasonable user demands. <br /> <br />3. Railroads can't pay much for the track they need. They compensate by maximizing their operating efficiencies with few alternate routing options. They are now running out of routing options. <br /> <br />4. Open-access rails would lead to political jockeying in the event that the infrastructure company was govt bonded. The RRs would not accept liability for deferred maintenance leading to derailments and slow orders. <br /> <br />5. The imbalance in govt subsidies has caused the RRs to be undercapitalized as they spend money keeping up with other transport modes. <br /> <br />6. Passenger trains are what spur triple-tracking and advanced signalling. You have to run passenger trains without timetable interruption and you need infrastructure improvements. Dual-use infrastructure investment helps freight RRs with route flexability, line density, and real estate investment. <br /> <br />7. The meltdown is here. The expansions may be too late. Where will the money come from? WIll the govt give money outright, or will they require some sort of public-use benefit in return? Let the RRs contract passenger service. They have no choice, if they expect to get any kind of subsidy for freight at all. <br /> <br />8. The NEC is the best test-case. <br /> <br />9. HIghspeed rail is nearly impossible politically without the prior investment into incremental increases in line density: in other words, local commuter trains over established lines built to solve a need, rather than building new lines disconnected from their operating costs just to please politicians. <br /> <br />10. I'm not anti-access, I'm anti-stupidity.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy