I did not mean to offend you, Dave.
There is a possibility that Andy Muller will organize a train to visit the Gorge originating at a more cooperative and appreciative town on the railroad.
The thread being an amusement has absolutely zero to do with the train or the Gorge being amusements. They are not, period. But you are entitled to your own opinion and entitled to speak your own version of the English Language.
And the thread is not an amusement for me. I am much too concerned with passenger train operations and health of railroading in general. But in this case I can see it as an amusement for others who are hobbyist but less concerned and still speak the same Englilsh Language as I speak.
The lawyers? I'm sure they think it is FABULOUS! The more contentious and drawn out the better.
Yes, it is interesting. And I think we can all agree that it will be a shame if this money dispute really kills off the train for good. Very sad.
Would the lawyers of the two sides both consider it amusing?
If you find it both amusing and educational, then you also find it interesting/
I am glad to know that. Possibly Middelman is also glad to know that.
Happy 115th Aniiversary of the New York Citiy Subway.
This thread may be educational, but it's also amusing ...
Yes, but all travelers boarding trains use the Town's services, so the tax, if needed, should be applied to all, and to those boarding buses, who also use the town's services.
If the train to Lehigh Gorge was just a train ride, and nothing else, you would have a point in calling it an amusemnent.
But it is not primarsly a train ride. It is a train to a destination, Lehigh Gorge. Where people view one of nature's awsome views. Aren't most of the travelers on the other trains also tourists? And should it make a difference as to who they are, anyway?
i would not have any problem with a fairly-applied travelers' tax. And possibly Andy Muller would have no problem, also.
I think once the Surface Transportation Board gets involved, the Town's game will be over, because the Town is clearly labeling a transportatoin service a common-carrier railroad is providing as an "amusement."
Overmod-- "Extremely fair" indeed! I have no idea how it came to be but someone must have flagged something and another someone made a decision. Really it was not my money. Long ago water under the bridge but if the State of Pennsylvania needs $200 in a pinch I will be there!
daveklepper Midland, I won't disagree with your post, except that there is no reason to tax the one particular train, which has a destination, Lehigh Gorge, and not tax the other trains. And there is no reason to tax the trains without taxing the buses and just possibly taxis, although as you pointed out, the taxis probably pay a tax to the town already. I stand firmly by that. Thanks. If you don't believe that charging an "amusement tax" to see a great work of nature isn't trivialization of that work, you have every right to that opinion.
Midland, I won't disagree with your post, except that there is no reason to tax the one particular train, which has a destination, Lehigh Gorge, and not tax the other trains. And there is no reason to tax the trains without taxing the buses and just possibly taxis, although as you pointed out, the taxis probably pay a tax to the town already.
I stand firmly by that. Thanks.
If you don't believe that charging an "amusement tax" to see a great work of nature isn't trivialization of that work, you have every right to that opinion.
I have a hard time following wour logic, when you generalize all trains (as if this tourist train was the same as the NEC), however, you split rhetorical hairs on the term "amusement", even with a venn diagram showing all the permutations you think fit. They already seem to tax everything associated with airplanes, so if you think the should start taxing all trains, you could send your suggestions to the government.
They charge an amusement tax to pay for town services the train riders use before they get on the train, not for the privilege of looking at scenery. You already submised that national park fees are to pay for facility maintenance.
There is a parallel with exemption from VAT; it's easier to operate under the presumption that the tax is collected fairly 'from everyone' and then on a case-by-case basis refund any sums that don't apply.
Note also that the taxing jurisdiction had the usufruct of your $200 during the time before it was refunded ... but that's likely not part of the reason.
Note that it was the responsibility of the company running the trade show either to note to Pennsylvania that 'foreign entities' not subject to sales tax were participating ... or to note to you that sales tax was not indeed payable and direct you to the appropriate forms to send in to establish that long before any revenue changed hands. It would be logical for a tax agency to pull up the 'attending' list of sellers (which probably did not include nationality explicitly) and write form letters merged from those data that would ensure 'compliance'. It was, I think, extremely fair of them to return that money unsolicited.
Back in the 90's I booked a spot at a trade show in Pittsburgh. I was sent several clearly worded letters in advance of the show from the State of Pennsylvania that I had to collect sales tax on the products sold and would have to apply for a permit and number to do so. This I did of course. I was sent reminders that the sales tax must be collected and how and where to remit it to.
This I did faithfully not wanting to get into hot water with the good people of Pennsylvania. Mailed them a money order for well above $200 collected. Sales figures, tax collected, all that jazz.
A couple of months go by and the State of Pennsylvania sends me a cheque back in the amount collected, with an explanation that since I was a Canadian company I was under no obligation to collect the tax. ...or something like that. There was some very un-clearly worded language explaining why I was being sent a cheque.
Never quite understood it all but no argument from me.
The State spent time and money sending me all these requirements along with some stern language and a bunch of hoops to jump through and in the end they sent me back the sales tax collected.
Ok fine, but what the heck? Kind of a license to collect free money. Never felt good about it.
Still stuns me a bit years later.
"Amusement tax" is a legal term of art; it doesn't reflect on the form of the 'amusement', only that the service provided is for entertainment.
Note that it is nominally charged to the person, and only incidentally collected by the railroad in this case. The "problem" for LG&N is that it has no way to actually collect the added tax from 'everyone who rode the train' now, but is being made technically liable for what it "should have" collected -- I find this not unusual when governments go after business similarly tasked with collecting sales tax on services, as is the case for my wife's cleaning business in Arkansas and, to a degree, Mississippi. They don't care whether you broke the tax out or added it to your price: they see a volume of business under their jurisdiction in their state, and charge according to that.
The discussion on RyPN is considerably farther advanced than it was 'last week', and I suspect as the situation evolves (RBMN recently announced 'new' Santa trains to Tunkhannock, which couldn't 'get' such trains before the Jim Thorpe bust-up ... so their statement that the Reading or Pottsville trains to Jim Thorpe would continue may be changing) we will see more of interest there. The general present consensus there appears to be that LG&N is, in fact, subject to the tax as constituted, and is unlikely to get out of liability for 'back taxes due' unless they can prove the tax inapplicable to them, which really would happen only in court. Expect Andy to actually provide a cent only when the double-toothpicks are encased in ice, for the duration of the appeals process and perhaps after.
In my opinion any sort of 'ride' that is taken only for pleasure, and which begins and ends at the same spot, counts as 'amusement' for purposes of an entertainment tax. That would be true even if there were a 'break' in the middle for a picnic lunch or restaurant visit. Horse and buggy rides like those we had in downtown Memphis don't 'count' the same as a taxi trip over the same route.
The taxi example proposed before is interesting if we apply Talmudic logic to it. It is clearly entertainment/amusement under the law as formulated if you hire a taxicab, ride around admiring the scenery, and come back to your starting point. But likewise, under the law, (1) it is the 'responsibility' of the patron, not the taxi company, to pay the 'amusement tax', and (2) there is no requirement for the taxi driver to ask 'is this trip for amusement only' (or document that it is) or state that an added surcharge to cover payment of this tax is due. Sure, you could put draconian restrictions in taxi and Uber agreements requiring every customer to state the purpose of the trip, and drivers to document trips and explicitly collect the added tax when trips are strictly for 'pleasure'. But it would become common sense to find ways around imposing the tax -- probably involving some break in journey that makes the 'out' and 'back' trips separately accountable and hence transportation to and from some legitimate destination -- and any attempt to enforce entertainment tax on for-hire vehicles might then become not worth the added revenue.
daveklepper Calling it an "Amusement Tax" is the trivialization. And don't the passengers on the other trains require the same services from the Town? And don't some of the freight shippers and receivers?
Calling it an "Amusement Tax" is the trivialization. And don't the passengers on the other trains require the same services from the Town? And don't some of the freight shippers and receivers?
Basing your argument on rhetoric is trivialization.
Freight shippers/recievers live in the local area and already pay property taxes to support their town.
For actual passenger trains, half the time people are getting on or off the train at their own town. The other half of the passengers are comming from the towns the locals are now visiting. It's reciprical.
It's called the Mansion House Bridge, and is at these Lat./ Long. coords.: N 40.86180 W 75.73741
It's 250 ft. long, the "retention" (retaining) wall is 500 (or 700) ft. long, the project was $4.1 million for the bridge plus $1.2 million for the wall, total $5.3 million, was financed by state grants (and maybe some others?), and did take 2 years to build:
https://wnep.com/2019/08/12/pedestrian-bridge-in-jim-thorpe-finally-opens/
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/entertainment/2019/08/that-new-bridge-linking-trail-from-cementon-through-jim-thorpe-is-opening-monday.html
https://delawareandlehigh.org/blog/big-bucks-made-for-big-connections-summer-2019-trail-gap-closures/
- PDN.
Flintlock76 - Yes, the Pennsylvania municipal elections (which occur in the 'off-years' from the federal ones) are this year. I have no idea who in Jim Thorpe is up for election, who is in the midst of their term, or who the competition is.
As to the $600K for flagging: Recently a significant rail-trail bridge was constructed across the Lehigh River at the southern end of Jim Thorpe. As I recall a long and high retaining wall was required for the trail's approach to the bridge on the NS side ("east"). Both the bridge and the wall were very close to the live track - which I'm pretty sure is NS. It may be that the only access for the contractor on that side of the river was over the NS track. On the other side the bridge and trail are close to the RB&N track. So maybe 2 flaggers were needed, 1 for each side. Or maybe RBM&N just had its train run at restricted speed, or some combination.
$600K sounds like a lot for a flagger, but it depends on how many days and how many hours were involved each day, and for which railroad. It was in all liklihood union personnel who were required to do the flagging for the NS track, since it is a 'live' track. So that money would have gone to NS. No idea of the speed limit, but it's not 10 MPH - 30 MPH is a good guess, with very limited visibility due to the curve around Mauch Chunk mountain there ("sleeping bear" in Native American, former name for Jim Thorpe). The 'on-duty' point was likely either Allentown or in the Scranton area, each of which is about 1 hour away by car. Take the base pay plus fringes plus overhead plus mileage plus any overtime [edit] plus travel time [end edit] and other mark-ups, and I'm told it's not uncommon for the cost to be around $1,000 per man-day. I don't know that the bridge and retaining wall took 2 years, but a year at least. I don't know the union status or pay rates of RB&M, but their on-duty point could be Port Clinton, which is also ~1 hour away. Also, most of that trail was paid for by grants - it's part of the D&L trail system, so it may have had mostly federal, PennDOT, and/ or PA DCNR funding, not mostly (or even much) of Jim Thorpe's.
All of which is to say, be careful about the assumptions here as to the $600K.
As other commenters have noted, this sure seems like a personality-conflict driven dispute.
Someone noted that the amusement tax is incurred where the ticket is purchased or the ride starts. I believe that is correct.
daveklepperNow, can you imagine the uproar if there were something called an "amusement tax" on a train ride or bus ride to and from the Gettysburg Battlefield?
https://ecode360.com/27357945
There was nothing offensive about Dave's diagragm, and as Euclid points out, it is still there. Not sure why Dave thought otherwise.
Flintlock76Well I for one didn't find Davids diagram offensive in any way, in fact I thought it was a pretty succinct way of proving his point on this topic. Whether anyone agrees with it or not is strictly in the "view of the beholder."
Ditto.
As to the 600,000 dollars for flaggers, that would be a safety requirement that would be a contract obligation for the governmental employees and/or their contractors working on or near the railroad. It must be done by a railroad employee who would be in communications with the dispatcher and/or the train personel to avoid accidents. Railroads have strict rules over access to their ROW's (With cause) and enforce them.
Well I for one didn't find Davids diagram offensive in any way, in fact I thought it was a pretty succinct way of proving his point on this topic. Whether anyone agrees with it or not is strictly in the "view of the beholder."
Back to the topic. I wonder if there's an election coming up and the mayor of Jim Thorpe thinks he needs a "scalp" of some kind. Depending on the impact of this the scalp may be his own.
daveklepper Careful use of words seems appropriate on this Forum. One gets enjoyment from a delicious carefully-prepared meal, but one hardly gets amusement unless conversation provides such. After much deliberation, I think a semantic chart for this issue might be appropriate, and here is the one I prepared, based only on my 87-years' life experience: I believe once the new bridge is open, the mine runs, the coal trains, will no longer run via Jim Thorp, close-by, but not in the town itself. Is the wine merchant in the town? I
Careful use of words seems appropriate on this Forum. One gets enjoyment from a delicious carefully-prepared meal, but one hardly gets amusement unless conversation provides such.
After much deliberation, I think a semantic chart for this issue might be appropriate, and here is the one I prepared, based only on my 87-years' life experience:
I believe once the new bridge is open, the mine runs, the coal trains, will no longer run via Jim Thorp, close-by, but not in the town itself. Is the wine merchant in the town?
I
This is what I thought Dave was referring to. If it is, it has not been removed from the thread.
Lithonia Operator Did the diagragm feature vintage Nazi aircraft attacking the emotions?
Did the diagragm feature vintage Nazi aircraft attacking the emotions?
If only there was a train emoticon, then that would have been ok
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Dave,
If that was your bubble diagram of human emotions, I thought it had everyting to do with the topic here which is strongly based on the definition of "amusement." I am amazed if that was too much of a departure of topic.
I had a semantic diagram on this thread that was removed by the Moderator because it both included words having zero to do with the subject and led to discussions, semantic, both possibly further afield and even boardering on violating the rules about political discussions. I have no problem with the removal, and will try to preserve my usual care in the future.
But he diagram did point out the proper word to describe the feeling when looking at a great work of art, eithe rnatural or man-made (or even a super-elegant Beaver dam or spyderweb): Awe
And one usually has enjoymen with awe, but can have sadness as well.
Certainly Lehigih Gorge gives both awe and enjoyment. And Big Boy climbing Sherman Hill with a long freight.
Awe and sadness: A yard fiilled with steam locomotives heading for scap. A military cemitary.
Now, can you imagine the uproar if there were something called an "amusement tax" on a train ride or bus ride to and from the Gettysburg Battlefield?
Lithonia OperatorWhat am I not getting here?
That it probably wasn't the town's, but the state's money involved, and that the flagging was required by law. All RBMN did was provide the personnel; I think; any other 'contractor' would likely have been paid the same. I do think this could be 'looked into' further, but it seems to be obvious to me that if the town had wanted to do the job of flagging with its own people, it easily could have.
When I said the tax collection was in 'response' to the $600,000, I was thinking more in terms of there being 600K in revenue, a substantial part of which was probably bookable as profit in that quarter, and some of the folks in town thought it might be time to see if any of that could be captured. That is pure speculation.
Lithonia Operator According to Ross Rowland's post on RyPN, the town paid RBMN $600K for a "flagger" during road construction. Say what!? The RR has run the passenger train for twelve years. That's 50K/yr. $50K/yr. is damn good money for a job flagging traffic, particularly when you consider the RR only runs about 6 months a year. And that assumes a 12-year construction site!! (Which clearly did not happen.) That's also (if accurate) six times what the town says the railroad owes them. Which would make it seem that Ross has a good point ... What am I not getting here?
According to Ross Rowland's post on RyPN, the town paid RBMN $600K for a "flagger" during road construction. Say what!?
The RR has run the passenger train for twelve years. That's 50K/yr. $50K/yr. is damn good money for a job flagging traffic, particularly when you consider the RR only runs about 6 months a year. And that assumes a 12-year construction site!! (Which clearly did not happen.)
That's also (if accurate) six times what the town says the railroad owes them. Which would make it seem that Ross has a good point ...
What am I not getting here?
I think that comment by Ross needs some clarification. The price sounds high, but there is no context by which to judge it. Just how much flagging was done for $600,000?
He also implies that this was somewhat of an overpayment, a gift to the railroad disguised as a payment for flagging. He implies that this gift was a quid pro quo soften the cost of the new tax on the railroad. So, I think his comment raises many questions that need answers.
Lithonia OperatorBoth links brought me to the same letter, which I believe may be the first one you referenced.
Sorry if that happened. I kept editing that post as I came across different details. The letters are on the RBMN website (www.rbmnrr.com/news)
Notification of closing LGSRy:
https://www.rbmnrr.com/happenings/2019/10/16/lgsr-to-cease-operations-november-25-2019
Rescheduling of Santa Trains:
https://www.rbmnrr.com/happenings/2019/10/18/reading-amp-northern-announces-new-santa-train-schedule
Both of these will produce a PDF copy if you click them, and it's possible to cut and paste text from that version.
The whole affair sounds like a personality conflict.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
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