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[quote user="oltmannd"]   <blockquote> <div><img src="/TRCCS/Themes/trc/images/icon-quote.gif" /> henry6:</div> <div>   As for people leaving trains for planes and cars in the late 40's and early 50's the choice was made because of the extreme marketing efforts of the highway lobby companies, gas, automobile, etc. as opposed to rail.  AIr, well, we were indoctronated with how sexy it was to jet to foriegn shores for vations, and how businessmen could fly out at breakfast and be back home for dinner.  Of course, where we were not being told was that the train ride was paid for by the railroad while the auto and jet were being paid by local and federal governments.  But it was glitzy, sexy, dazzling, the thing to do rather than ride the train.  But the railroads also were to blame on several fronts;  They presented trains as they always had presented them, marketing and advertising brought nothing new.  And there also was the fact that long distance passenger rail had been a public relations tool as much as a transportation mode, the government was taking mail contracts away from railroads and giving the business to common carrier trucs, and rail management knew no passenger trains meant they could run freight trains with more freedom and frequency.  But to blame the public for shunning trains, I see the powers of government and big business were actually making the choice for the public, not giving them a chance to be able to make the choice.   </div> </blockquote>   You are totally discounting the introduction and marketing of streamliners as well as the last gasp of transforming passenger rail in the mid-50s  (e..g. Train X, Talgo, Keystone, Aerotrain,  etc)??? I believe RR passenger marketing departments were plenty savvy and streamliners were plenty glitzy, shiny and new. Automobiles are the "base load carrier" in all of the western world.  That's a fact not so much because Ford or GM are brilliant marketers or because Eisenhower was a dupe, but because they do a superb job of transport. Rail is just a niche provider - even in Europe.  People aren't just mindless sheep.... That said, I do believe that, policy-wise, the US should have pushed corridor development along in the 1950s and given the RRs some greater flexibility to decide routes, etc.  [/quote] This is an excellent response.  Too many people believe passenger trains lost out to a cabal of highway and airway interests.  In fact, as oltmannd makes crystal clear, the trains lost out to better technologies for the missions.  And not because people did not understand what they wanted.
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