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[quote]Personally I wont mind a McCain presidency, I think he'd be OK.  As for Amtrak he's a supporter, and may even have enough vision to try to expand or at least overhaul the system.[/quote]Hmm, I wish this was true.  But his rhetorics so far has shown the opposite.  Surely, he doesn't mind "overhauling" Amtrak.  The only problem that it means different things to different people.  Actually, he did come up with some positive actions once in a while.  Shortly after 9-11, McCain introduced some kind of a security bill that would specifically provide funds to protect Amtrak from "railroad terrorists".  Also, during the 2002 crisis he offered an encouraging word that we must do everything possible to prevent a shutdown.  But, as far as supporting some nice pro-Amtrak legislation, it seems that under McCain it would be much harder to make it through than, say, under Clinton or Obama.  But you never know... Maybe McCain as a President would treat Amtrak more favorable than McCain as a Senator.  I hope so... But the anti-Amtrak reputation that he has made so far does not make him look as a big supporter of passenger rail.  Therefore, it is imperative to let him know that we are interested in having Amtrak.  It is also imperative to keep our legislators aware that Amtrak is important to us.  [quote]I'm not sure that the overnight business traveller is a good target market for Amtrak.  This business was lost to air and auto in the early 50s and improvements in speed, comfort and cost in air and auto travel since then have probably worsened the competitiveness for rail - which has no better speed and no better cost structure than it did in the early 50s.[/quote]First of all, traveling 500 miles by car, especially for one person, is currently much more expensive than traveling by train.  I guess, flying from New York to Toronto, Montreal, or Pittsburgh, is unlikely to be cheaper than traveling by train.  The only reason I hear from business travelers who prefer to fly over these distances is that it saves them a day.  Now, if overnight service was [i]available[/i], it would have its market.  That's why I'm saying that Amtrak has to work in this direction.  Trains are already competing with planes within the Northeast Corridor.  If more overnight trains with LD-style amenities become available for distances of 500-600 miles, these trains would very well compete with planes, too.  The point here is to serve as many business travelers as possible.  Of course, true long-distance trains (over 800 miles) are not meant to compete with aviation - they have rather different purpose.  Planes provide fast point-to-point transcontinental service, while trains serve numerous locations along the way, where airline service is not available. By the way, since this thread is about presidential candidates (or rather about politics in general), I'm curious where most of you guys live and who your legislators are.  I live in New York, and my address is represented by Congressman Nadler.  I still have to find out if he is pro-rail.  Of course, both NY Senators are pro-rail (and, if Hillary does become President, her substitute is likely to be pro-rail, too).  If you find out that your legislatiors don't like Amtrak, please takes special care to make them aware that you don't share their view.
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