John WR What I suggest, Paul, is that is not really a question of turning back because here in the US much of the transit we used to have no longer exists. I've used public transit all of my working life. I certainly agree with you that going into my attached garage and getting into my car to go where I want is a lot easier than walking two blocks to the bus stop in all kinds of weather. I'm not talking about taking children along or going shopping (beyond one bag of items). I'm just talking about getting to school or to work. But when you look at what you can save by having one car rather than two, well the money begins to add up. And when you look at what you can accomplish on a bus or a train that adds up too. And maybe--just maybe--given the problems of obesity in our society some people are beginning to ask if always choosing the easiest way is really a good idea. Using public transit builds in a certain amount of exercise into our lives. Perhaps that is not the worst thing. But I do think you are right and many people will choose the easy way no matter what. I'll try to stay off my soap box now.
What I suggest, Paul, is that is not really a question of turning back because here in the US much of the transit we used to have no longer exists.
I've used public transit all of my working life. I certainly agree with you that going into my attached garage and getting into my car to go where I want is a lot easier than walking two blocks to the bus stop in all kinds of weather. I'm not talking about taking children along or going shopping (beyond one bag of items). I'm just talking about getting to school or to work.
But when you look at what you can save by having one car rather than two, well the money begins to add up. And when you look at what you can accomplish on a bus or a train that adds up too.
And maybe--just maybe--given the problems of obesity in our society some people are beginning to ask if always choosing the easiest way is really a good idea. Using public transit builds in a certain amount of exercise into our lives. Perhaps that is not the worst thing. But I do think you are right and many people will choose the easy way no matter what.
I'll try to stay off my soap box now.
I indeed have access to a pretty good bus transit, which is a lot closer on the home side that that chilly hike I had from Davis Street in Evanston, Illinois, and the bus drops me off a block from work.
Thanks to the Federal Government's transportation policies (the complaint is that the policy bias in government policy is against public transportation), the bus is free. Parking my car at work costs 800 dollars/year for starters and the gasoline alone for just the trip to work and back runs 500 dollars.
And as you are so gracious to remind me, I am an aging person eating and not exercising myself towards obesity and running up everyone's taxes as I approach Medicare enrollment.
So I have a transit option to get to work, the bus is free, and I am at a $1300/year cost disadvantage as soon as I turn the ignition key. Not only that, I was using the bus after Katrina, not that I could not afford the gasoline but as a good citizenship-thing in the face of a supply crunch. I commuted to my undergrad school on a daily basis and ran my life around that, serving in the Northwestern University Associated Student Government, but always with an eye on the clock towards the C&NW train and Nortran bus (Metra and PACE for you young people) schedules at Davis Street.
I told the story of how we were a one-car-that-Dad-took-to-work family and Mom would take me along shopping to Marshall Fields on Michigan Avenue, which was an all-day transit outing and way to keep the kids engaged when school was out.
Your soap box remark about "choose the easy way no matter what", where do I begin. So the ultimate advocacy argument in support of trains or other public transportation modes is that the vast public out there is morally defective?
What I am trying to say about automobiles is that having lived and held jobs in Illinois, Michigan, California, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, experienced everything from (what is now Metra), CTA, (what is now New Jersey Transit), MBTA (Boston), New York City and Tokyo subways, the Northeast Corridor passenger service, the western long-distance trains, the Chicago-Detroit "Wolverine" corridor service, having been aculturated to public transportation from childhood through young adulthood, having lived in urban, near-big-city suburban, remote suburban, exurban, and college-town settings, having lived in commuter rail as well as freeway suburbs.
I currently have free bus service, not just to work, but anywhere in town. I have heeded the Siren call of the automobile. Paul, Paul, open the door! Sit down, isn't the seat comfy? Please, please, turn the ignition key. Ooooo, that's good, now place the transmission selector in Reverse. Feeling better already?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
John WR Paul, You ask "How did we abandon the public transit lifestyle?" While the popularity of the automobile is beyond dispute that popularity was enabled by government policies to build a free road system while cutting back and failing to develop public transit.
Paul,
You ask "How did we abandon the public transit lifestyle?"
While the popularity of the automobile is beyond dispute that popularity was enabled by government policies to build a free road system while cutting back and failing to develop public transit.
I asked my wife that question, and we have a pretty good bus system, and for us, the bus is free whereas gas and parking cost us serious money.
A lot of us have been-there done-that with respect to running one's life by a bus or commuter train schedule. My wife told of being there and doing that as a graduate student, that is, until the great Madison, WI bus strike. A person adapts to other ways to getting to school or work.
What I am saying is that to get people back into transit, you not only have to make transit available, you have to make driving difficult or unavailable. What I am saying is that even those of us for whom transit was a central part of our lives, my student days, my wife's student days, Mom's young-mom days (our "mini-van" was the L-train), we find ourselves migrating to cars and not yearning to turn back.
This argument about pushing people off public transit -- you can provide free transit (the employee passes) and have a hard time dragging people back on.
In Canada public transit is far more popular than it is in the US. That is because government pursues a much more balanced policy of having diverse transit options. I live in Toronto A after the Toronto subway was built . When it was built land along the subway line was zoned for high rise apartments. As people moved into those apartments they rode the subway to work. These were middle class people who owned cars but take the subway to work.
I grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island. A block and a half from my home there was s street car line than ran from Providence to East Greenwich and just steps beyond that was a suburban station--just a platform--for a commuter train to Providence. My father had used both of them for work but when I was very young he worked at Quonset Point, a naval stations several miles south of East Greenwich. There was no transit; he had to drive. He needed a job so he did what he had to do.
Rocky Point was out local amusement park. I can remember in the late 40's all of the street cars were piled up at Rocky Point for a hugh 4th of July bonfire. Providence burned its transit system. Buses replaced the street cars but the system was smalled and the buses were wWhen ere less frequent. When Quonset closed he got a job in Providence but now there was no practical way to get there by public transit. He drove.
My father loved cars; he did not shed bitter tears because he had to drive. Then there was Uncle Gus--not my real uncle but an old family friend. Uncle Gus did not drive or even own a car; now, after the catastrophic loss of our street cars he was commuting over 2 hours each way. Now my father swung by his house to give him a lift.
My mom immigrated from Sweden and was more American than most Americans. She wanted her car. Since dad nmeeded the car to work she did her grocery shopping on Friday after he got home and did other things on Saturdays. But our neighbors did not. I can remember seeing ladies walking up to the corner bus stop every two weeks or so to take the bus to Providence to do their shopping. They would leave about 9, have lunch in the city and get back in time to fix dinner.
Certainly there were people like my parents. For them America was all about cars and going where ever you wanted when ever you wanted. But there also were people like Uncle Gus and our neighbors who took the bus to Providence to do their shopping. In Canada government provides public and private transit for all people. In the USA the government has pushed us off of public transit and into cars whether we want to get in them or not.
Sam1 Human behavior is a complex subject. Most of it is driven by multiple variables. Whilst government policies can facilitate or retard certain behaviors, saying that people opted for cars and suburban housing because of them is an over simplification.
Human behavior is a complex subject. Most of it is driven by multiple variables. Whilst government policies can facilitate or retard certain behaviors, saying that people opted for cars and suburban housing because of them is an over simplification.
I was born into a North Side Chicago neighborhood, but we moved to a suburb before I started school. I am thinking what initiated the move was that Dad's job moved out to the suburbs and he followed it.
I also remember that for most of my childhood, we had the one family car, which Dad drove to work. I remember shopping trips when I would accompany Mom. These must have been during summer or school break as I was school age at the time.
We would start out early in the day, and if I remember, there was a longish hike for a kid to the nearest suburban bus stop -- this was before the PACE buses, could it have been to the border of Chicago and suburb and the bus was CTA? There was a transfer involved to board the Ravenswood "L" train. My absolute favorite was the jump seat in the lead car opposite the motorman as the train driver was called. The L train was more fun than Riverview Park, the way the train accelerated from stops and braked for flange-screeching curves. If I wasn't too rambunctious, I was allowed to push the shopping cart in the store, and to me, it was an L train. "Montrose" -- better get the cart moving -- oh, slow down we are coming to a bend! "Harlem" -- better slow for this stop so Mom can put something in the cart.
Sometimes we took "the Loop", other times we transfered to "the subway." The ramps connecting the L to the subway line were a bit of a mystery to me, as to how the train made that elevation change in such short distance, but I guess it is the power of electric traction.
The day would be spent, maybe visiting the Art Institute (Mom's fave) or the Adler Planetarium (kid's fave). Or it would be spent shopping. At Marshall Field, where you could buy just about anything -- grownup clothes, kid's clothes for back-to-school (darn!), cooking pots, toys for Christmas or birthday, books, everything.
Heavily laden with bags and parcels (Mom, mainly), we would make our way back. For some technical reasoning I never fully understood, the trip back was not on the L but involved going to a bus barn that reeked of propane fumes, the environmentally friendly motor fuel of the day. We boarded a suburban commuter bus that took us directly to our suburb without transfers.
That mode of shopping and transportation to get to the shopping (taking public transit to get to a Downtown location to patronize a mega-retailer ), one might as well talk about horse drawn carriages. My parents were also frugal European immigrants, and maybe using public transportation for shopping was a habit that was already going out of style back in the day.
I also remember getting home milk delivery, but that ended when Mom figured it was cheaper at the grocery store. I remember making bicycle trips to get fresh bread from a local store, but milk was purchased by making automobile trips out to the supermarket.
How did we abandon the public transit lifestyle? I guess part of it was moving away from Chicago and the near suburbs, one of the more transit friendly venues apart from New York or Boston. The other thing is that it creeps up on you. You try bus commuting for a while, and my employer gives out a free bus pass -- it is called Transportation Demand Management or the Federal Government's War on the Automobile. For all I know, that bus pass is payed for partly out of gas tax money under the carrot and stick approach the Feds use to try to encourage public transportation. That pass mainly sits in my pocket. I've been there done that, taking either the C&NW train or Nortran bus (now Metra and PACE) to commute to Northwestern University as an undergrad, combined with a heart healthy 20 minute forced march hike, in every kind of weather Evanston has to offer.
These days, and in the aftermath of high gas prices, I am doing spousal car pooling. It saves maybe only one third on gas because the spousal drop-off adds a third leg to the trip. I combine the work trips with the grocery shopping along the route home. I tried that with bus transportation post the Katrina gas supply worries, but I guess I am old and soft and have reverted to the car.
I don't get to call in sick on my job -- you "play with the pain" of a bad sore throat or the malaise of a mild fever and stand in front of your classroom sections, so I avoid crowds such as rush hour bus service -- off peak, not so bad.
Can we unroll the last 40 years of getting progressively used to driving as the default way to get to our destinations?
Paul Milenkovic ontheBNSF High speed rail can work over longer distances a trip from Chicago to NY would be about 3-4 hours by high speed rail, it would be longer than flying yes but you save time by going to a city center directly and avoiding baggage check. The rail routes do not go city center to city center by the way the crow flies. The 16 hour Twentieth Century and Broadway Limited schedules averaged 60 MPH. 4 hours by rail would require 240 MPH average. Not 200 MPH peak speeds but 240 MPH average -- how would you do that, with the France 350 MPH World Speed Record, with a specially hot-wired electric locomotive pulling 4 cars, with continuous electric arc warming up the contact shoe on the pantograph? Yes people expressed a preference for cars and suburban houses because of distorted government policies rather than individual and social preferences, wind and solar would make it on their own if the government stopped oil, gas, and coal subsidies outright, 3-4 hour HSR from Chicago to NYC is practical in everyday service, and there are dead space aliens kept in a deep freeze by the Federal government in Nevada.
ontheBNSF High speed rail can work over longer distances a trip from Chicago to NY would be about 3-4 hours by high speed rail, it would be longer than flying yes but you save time by going to a city center directly and avoiding baggage check.
High speed rail can work over longer distances a trip from Chicago to NY would be about 3-4 hours by high speed rail, it would be longer than flying yes but you save time by going to a city center directly and avoiding baggage check.
The rail routes do not go city center to city center by the way the crow flies. The 16 hour Twentieth Century and Broadway Limited schedules averaged 60 MPH. 4 hours by rail would require 240 MPH average. Not 200 MPH peak speeds but 240 MPH average -- how would you do that, with the France 350 MPH World Speed Record, with a specially hot-wired electric locomotive pulling 4 cars, with continuous electric arc warming up the contact shoe on the pantograph?
Yes people expressed a preference for cars and suburban houses because of distorted government policies rather than individual and social preferences, wind and solar would make it on their own if the government stopped oil, gas, and coal subsidies outright, 3-4 hour HSR from Chicago to NYC is practical in everyday service, and there are dead space aliens kept in a deep freeze by the Federal government in Nevada.
I suspect most people opted for cars because they are more flexible (comfort, convenience, etc.) than public transit and commercial transport. Equally important, they are generally more economical for carrying the family around town and across country.
Based on my readings, people flocked to the suburbs after WWII for better housing, schools, and quality of life. It happened in all developed countries. The tax code facilitated the buying of houses, although the benefits of being able to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes on Schedule A are not as great as it appears. The depth of the benefit depends on one's tax shield. Equally important, one can deduct these items on an urban house as well as one in the suburbs.
Most of the so-called subsidies for oil, gas, and coal are tax code deductions that are available to all business organizations. According to the Tax Foundation, 85 per cent of the deductions available to the aforementioned businesses are available for all businesses.
There are several industry specific deductions, i.e. immediate expensing of equipment and accelerated depreciation for high risk activities that are unique to the extractive industries, but they are pennies on the outputs.
I don't know of anyone in the electric energy business who believes that wind and solar are ready for prime time without significant subsidies. They could be more competitive, however, if the government placed a carbon tax on fossil fuels.
Wind and solar require back-up generation unless people are willing to have their electricity shut-off for extended periods of time when the wind stops blowing and the sun does not shine. It is not likely to happen; most people get upset if the power is cutoff for an hour. If the cost of the back-up generation is included in the cost of wind and solar, which it should be, the true cost of these sources of energy go up significantly.
daveklepper Higher speed rail is necessary, but High Speed rail may not be. With moderate upgrade, a ten or twelve hour Chicago - NY operation with most people expected to board and/or detrain at intermediate stops should be a viable operaton, with trains operating every two hours from both end points from 6AM to 2pm, 4 pm from NY to Cleveland only, 6 and 8pm to Buffalo only and 10pm and Midnight to Albany only. From Chicago, 4 pm to Buffalo only, 6 and 8pm to Cleveland, and 10pm and Midnight only to Toledo. And the morning would see early departures in both direcitons from Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Tolledo to provide the every two hour service. After this coach and business class corridor service is established, a deluxe overnight service can be tried expeerimentally..
Higher speed rail is necessary, but High Speed rail may not be.
With moderate upgrade, a ten or twelve hour Chicago - NY operation with most people expected to board and/or detrain at intermediate stops should be a viable operaton, with trains operating every two hours from both end points from 6AM to 2pm, 4 pm from NY to Cleveland only, 6 and 8pm to Buffalo only and 10pm and Midnight to Albany only. From Chicago, 4 pm to Buffalo only, 6 and 8pm to Cleveland, and 10pm and Midnight only to Toledo. And the morning would see early departures in both direcitons from Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Tolledo to provide the every two hour service. After this coach and business class corridor service is established, a deluxe overnight service can be tried expeerimentally..
From Boardman's mouth to your ears.
I could go for that. Frequent day trains serving corridors stiched together on some of the long-distance routes. Maybe you could achieve crew economies -- crews shuttling between city pairs along the route and no crew dorms, no sleepers, cafe-car or even meal carts instead of full diner meal service, maybe even single-locomotive consists.
I rode the Shinkansen back in 1986 to a scientific conference in Kyoto. A snack pedler came through the coach, calling out "Eyes-cweem! Sahn-weech! Koh-koh koh-roo!" My speech-science colleague turned to the rest of us in our travel group and said, "She is speaking English, offering ice cream, a sandwich, or a Coke for sale if anyone wants one, but I am heading for the cafe car to get us bento lunches."
Like Nathaniel Hawthorne's boss at Hawthornes "soft government job" described in the Custom House Essay "frame" to The Scarlet Letter, I guess I remember everything I ever ate. It was barbecue eel . Yum!
ontheBNSF The distance between Chicago and New York is about 789 miles and at 220mph that is 3.6 hours and at 190mph is 4.2 hours. What do aliens have to do with anything? The green energy that replaces coal and gas is thorium energy which can provide super cheap electricity that never runs out and can be labor-less and thorium has been held back governments and other factors.
The distance between Chicago and New York is about 789 miles and at 220mph that is 3.6 hours and at 190mph is 4.2 hours. What do aliens have to do with anything? The green energy that replaces coal and gas is thorium energy which can provide super cheap electricity that never runs out and can be labor-less and thorium has been held back governments and other factors.
What space aliens have to do with this is that HSR on that schedule and with economical levels of track, wheel, and bogie (truck) maintenance would require some level of technology and material science known only to the aliens. Or maybe mag-lev.
For all practical purposes, green power means wind turbines as the most deployable and close to economic break-even alternative. Trouble is that thorium-atomic power would require a TVA-level government committment to get off dead center. Maybe the Federal government should make such a committment, but many people do not regard nuclear energy as green.
Remember that civilian nuclear power is a spin-off of the nuclear Navy submarine and ship program, civilian airliners are a spinoff of Boeing's high altitude jet powered bombers, cargo, and tanker aircraft.
And the modern Diesel electric locomotive that vanquished steam power is a spinoff of the WW-II submarine program.
Now, this is blue-skying on my kind of scale!
More modestly, I would ask if something couldn't be worked out with the host railroad(s) to provide some kind of daylight service for northern Ohio. Amtrak's existing "service" -- four trains in the middle of the night -- thumbs its nose at what used to be one of the best markets for passenger rail in the country. (Just check out those old Official Guides.)
If long-distance passenger rail makes sense anywhere today -- and the 340 miles Cleveland-Chicago isn't even that long-distance -- it makes sense here.
As I have pointed out before, NY - Chicago via the Lake Shore route is a viable corridor market if you consider the intermediate cities and the demans for travel between them. NY - Buffalo has Empire service, and a similar Chicago - Todedo - Cleveland service should have a good proportion of the demand.
The gap Buffalo - Erie -Cleveland could have similar service with most traveling beyond endpoints.
The 4.2 hour trip time at 190 MPH would require that the train run non-stop between the two points and the ROW was such that the trains could immediately start accelerating to 190 MPH upon leaving the station. The right of way to support uninterrupted 190 or 220 MPH running will be incredibly expensive. A bit more realistic trip time estimate would be 4+ hours for 220 MPH non-stop running and close to 5 hours for 190 MPH non-stop running. Through in a couple of stops and trip times will probably go up another hour, but may result in a significantly higher ridership.
The thorium reactor has some possibilities, but has a lot of problems that need solving before it can be deployed. The most serious is that the fissile species, 233U, is chemically distinct from the fertile (232Th) material, which makes it a lot easier to separate out for weapons usage. One partial saving grace is that the 233U(n,2n)232U reaction makes the resulting Uranium an intense gamma emitter. The second serious problem is that the reprocessing needed to make the fuel cycle work will create a lot of fission product waste that needs to be properly stored and disposed of (albeit with relatively low concentrations of long lived actinide waste). With light water reactors, the spent fuel rods are adequate for multi-decade containment of the fission products and actinides.
- Erik
Railroad to Freedom
ontheBNSF I get tired or hearing about passenger rail subsidies. Amtrak's subsidy is far less then highway subsidies in terms of real dollars and expenses.
I get tired or hearing about passenger rail subsidies. Amtrak's subsidy is far less then highway subsidies in terms of real dollars and expenses.
That a person is tired about hearing about passenger rail subsidies does not do the cause of passenger train advocacy well. If something is argued that something cannot compete in the marketplace, and most people in passenger train advocacy reason that way about passenger trains, then it has to compete in a political marketplace. And money discussions enter into the political marketplace, whether it is trains or highways or healthcare or F-22 Raptor aircraft.
In the some 800 billion dollar ARRA "Stimulus" legislation, passenger trains came in for 8 billion - 1 cent on the dollar -- and that is from a pot of money that had not one dime for defense and came from an Administration that was as sympathetic to cause of passenger trains and a "balanced transportation system" as you are likely to ever get.
Yes, the 8 billion was capital, not operating subsidy money, and a lot of people in the advocacy community thought this was just a "down payment" and that a lot more money was coming from wherever that was coming from.
When the question was posed on this forum some four years ago on how to best spend and use the 8 billion in train money, I suggested that we need to treat this as a "one shot deal" and advocate for it to be spent where it had the most effectiveness in building popular support for trains whereas many others were in "the 8 billion is just a downpayment" mode and compiling extensive wishlists for The National Network.
If the analogy is draw between the precarious state of passenger trains and green energy in relationship to coal, oil, and gas, coal oil and gas are dense forms of energy in terms of the amount of land area involved in their primary production. They are also storable forms of energy, with great piles of coal providing reserves for power plants, oil being an easily transported and stored liquids. Gas probably less easy to transport and store, requiring a First World country infrastructure to make effective use, but it can be stored in the ground, either by keeping it in the primary formations or storing it in spend formations underground.
Wind and solar require collection over vast areas of land and the transmission of large and variable amounts of electricity over large distances. Wind and solar are not without environmental problems -- wind having a big visual impact on the landscape, an effect on bird and bat populations, and requiring scarce "rare earth" metals for compact and efficient electric generators. Solar photovoltaic is not exactly the cleanest process in terms of the chemicals to make solar cells, which also take non-trivial energy to manufacture. None of these modes is storable, economically and on a large scale using present technology. The best hope for storing green energy is in the storage batteries of a fleet of electric cars.
The point is, that even if the Federal government decided to enter the energy market and "do the right thing" by social needs, the government would be doing something more like FDR's TVA -- large scale hydroelectric dams followed by coal and later nuclear power plants. To the extent that the government does things, basic research, tax breaks, etc. to help chemical fuel power, maybe it is doing the right thing for prosperity of the American people.
So the analogy is that rail transportation is centralized, concentrated and "batch mode" whereas automobile and highway transportation is decentralized, dispersed, and operated on demand. We all know what the drawbacks of automobiles are, but the centralized, concentrated, and "live next to the rail line, wait for the train to arrive" aspects of rail have drawbacks as well.
It is argued on David Lawyer's Web site that the automobile was more energy efficient per passenger mile than the rail modes it replaced (interruban with electricity generated from coal at low efficiency, the steam locomotive), but that the flexibility of the automobile facilitated such an explosion of transportation demand, a level of demand that was never served at the height of trains, that our energy usage has exploded.
To the extent of governmental complicity in all of this, do you suppose that the automobile suburb was a version of the wealthy person's commuter train suburb but with houses affordable to the masses? That the policy was to make a style of life enjoyed by rich people available to middle class people? Or maybe it was fear of the Bomb, that a dispersed suburban and exurban population was less vulnerable to cities being military targets?
To the extent that we can stuff the genie back in the bottle, maybe the way trains can be environmentally friendly is to make travel once again more inconvenient, inflexible, and costly, that we will revert to denser living arrangements to adapt to the limitations of trains. This came to a head when the then Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin went on a tour of Europe at the behest of the Talgo Company, saw the role trains have in Europe of shaping the urban spaces, and wanted the Madison, WI train station on East Wilson Street -- the passenger train advocacy people in town "went ballistic" -- I was there and attended a "town hall" that would have done the Tea Party movement proud. We love our trains, but we are not about to part with our cars, and what the advocacy community wanted was a park-and-ride out by Dane County Airport. Think about it, the train station was supposed to be "out by the airport" so you could drive there to take the train.
At the time of the Macondo Prospect oil disaster, one of my (male) engineering students was disgusted by this, characterizing it as "the worst environmental disaster, ever" and wondering what directs us to do such things (risk the exploitation of oil in deep water). I suggested that one of the social revolutions (of my) generation was to growth in women participating in the workplace. I suggested that the use of automobiles and the flexibility of where one could live and work greatly facilitated 2-income households. I know at least in many familes of my friends and associates, one partner in the household may have a nearby job and even take the bus or bicycle to work, but the other partner has found work at some considerable distance and benefits from automobile commuting. I suggested that the Macondo Prospect spill was bad but the demand for oil was not some senseless feature of our society -- it allows women in families to have more equal opportunity with men in holding meaningful jobs. The student reflected that he never thought of it that way . . .
Sam1 ontheBNSF Sam1 Amtrak does not pay any property taxes on its properties. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing taxes of any sort on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak. This includes property taxes. Have you read the financial statements for the Shinkansen and TGV? Do you understand the nuances of accounting in Japan and France? I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S. The aforementioned high speed lines were built with massive infusions of government money. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs were depreciated with the taxpayers wearing the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably. When the depreciated value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the capital structure to an independent third party. The value of the property being spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value. The independent third party infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the capitalized infrastructure, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would be possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can claim that it is making money. So too can the infrastructure operator. And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they probably could have told the taxpayers that they actually made money for them in the process. Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back. Amtrak could do the same thing. When the capitalized cost of the NEC, which is Amtrak's biggest investment, is sufficiently depreciated, it too will be able to claim that it is making money on the NEC. It can retain the properties or it can spin them off to a subsidiary and have both entities claim that they are making money. These two items have something to do with passenger rail. Whatever subsidies have been paid to or on behalf of airways, highways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it. In other words, what problem are we trying to solve? And were would passenger rail be the optimum solution? Freight railroads pay taxes on their infrastructure which is transferred in cost to Amtrak. All I am saying is that there should be a free market for transportation and that is where rail does best historically. I think you may be correct SNCF is subsidized but their tgv lines are profitable but their rural lines aren't. The JR group is a private corporation and they do make money on there Shinkansen lines but loose money on rural lines, they are required to divert money from Shinkansen lines to rural lines and they required fix there prices. My guess is that the JR group would be more profitable if they had less government oversight. Where something should be built should simply be a matter of supply and demand. Subsidies are important because they distort the market place. So just get rid of subsidies. For the most part high speed rail would be popular in trips of 100-800 miles. High speed rail can work in my opinion from say Chicago to NY but would also be good for Chicago to St. Louis. The freight railroads pay property taxes. They are prohibited by law from passing those taxes through to Amtrak. The SNCF and JR high speed lines earn an operating profit because the taxpayers ate most of the up front capital costs through depreciation for periods up to 25 years. So for them to say that they are profitable is a bit disingeneous. I have long advocated getting ride of the subsidies for all modes of transport, although it will never happen. If we did so, perhaps rail could cut it with moderate speed trains in relatively short, high density corridors. But it would be a tough nut to crack.
ontheBNSF Sam1 Amtrak does not pay any property taxes on its properties. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing taxes of any sort on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak. This includes property taxes. Have you read the financial statements for the Shinkansen and TGV? Do you understand the nuances of accounting in Japan and France? I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S. The aforementioned high speed lines were built with massive infusions of government money. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs were depreciated with the taxpayers wearing the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably. When the depreciated value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the capital structure to an independent third party. The value of the property being spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value. The independent third party infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the capitalized infrastructure, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would be possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can claim that it is making money. So too can the infrastructure operator. And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they probably could have told the taxpayers that they actually made money for them in the process. Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back. Amtrak could do the same thing. When the capitalized cost of the NEC, which is Amtrak's biggest investment, is sufficiently depreciated, it too will be able to claim that it is making money on the NEC. It can retain the properties or it can spin them off to a subsidiary and have both entities claim that they are making money. These two items have something to do with passenger rail. Whatever subsidies have been paid to or on behalf of airways, highways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it. In other words, what problem are we trying to solve? And were would passenger rail be the optimum solution? Freight railroads pay taxes on their infrastructure which is transferred in cost to Amtrak. All I am saying is that there should be a free market for transportation and that is where rail does best historically. I think you may be correct SNCF is subsidized but their tgv lines are profitable but their rural lines aren't. The JR group is a private corporation and they do make money on there Shinkansen lines but loose money on rural lines, they are required to divert money from Shinkansen lines to rural lines and they required fix there prices. My guess is that the JR group would be more profitable if they had less government oversight. Where something should be built should simply be a matter of supply and demand. Subsidies are important because they distort the market place. So just get rid of subsidies. For the most part high speed rail would be popular in trips of 100-800 miles. High speed rail can work in my opinion from say Chicago to NY but would also be good for Chicago to St. Louis.
Sam1 Amtrak does not pay any property taxes on its properties. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing taxes of any sort on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak. This includes property taxes. Have you read the financial statements for the Shinkansen and TGV? Do you understand the nuances of accounting in Japan and France? I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S. The aforementioned high speed lines were built with massive infusions of government money. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs were depreciated with the taxpayers wearing the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably. When the depreciated value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the capital structure to an independent third party. The value of the property being spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value. The independent third party infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the capitalized infrastructure, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would be possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can claim that it is making money. So too can the infrastructure operator. And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they probably could have told the taxpayers that they actually made money for them in the process. Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back. Amtrak could do the same thing. When the capitalized cost of the NEC, which is Amtrak's biggest investment, is sufficiently depreciated, it too will be able to claim that it is making money on the NEC. It can retain the properties or it can spin them off to a subsidiary and have both entities claim that they are making money. These two items have something to do with passenger rail. Whatever subsidies have been paid to or on behalf of airways, highways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it. In other words, what problem are we trying to solve? And were would passenger rail be the optimum solution?
Amtrak does not pay any property taxes on its properties. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing taxes of any sort on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak. This includes property taxes.
Have you read the financial statements for the Shinkansen and TGV? Do you understand the nuances of accounting in Japan and France?
I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S.
The aforementioned high speed lines were built with massive infusions of government money. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs were depreciated with the taxpayers wearing the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably.
When the depreciated value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the capital structure to an independent third party. The value of the property being spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value.
The independent third party infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the capitalized infrastructure, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would be possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can claim that it is making money. So too can the infrastructure operator. And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they probably could have told the taxpayers that they actually made money for them in the process. Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back.
Amtrak could do the same thing. When the capitalized cost of the NEC, which is Amtrak's biggest investment, is sufficiently depreciated, it too will be able to claim that it is making money on the NEC. It can retain the properties or it can spin them off to a subsidiary and have both entities claim that they are making money.
These two items have something to do with passenger rail. Whatever subsidies have been paid to or on behalf of airways, highways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it. In other words, what problem are we trying to solve? And were would passenger rail be the optimum solution?
Freight railroads pay taxes on their infrastructure which is transferred in cost to Amtrak. All I am saying is that there should be a free market for transportation and that is where rail does best historically. I think you may be correct SNCF is subsidized but their tgv lines are profitable but their rural lines aren't. The JR group is a private corporation and they do make money on there Shinkansen lines but loose money on rural lines, they are required to divert money from Shinkansen lines to rural lines and they required fix there prices. My guess is that the JR group would be more profitable if they had less government oversight. Where something should be built should simply be a matter of supply and demand. Subsidies are important because they distort the market place. So just get rid of subsidies. For the most part high speed rail would be popular in trips of 100-800 miles. High speed rail can work in my opinion from say Chicago to NY but would also be good for Chicago to St. Louis.
The freight railroads pay property taxes. They are prohibited by law from passing those taxes through to Amtrak.
The SNCF and JR high speed lines earn an operating profit because the taxpayers ate most of the up front capital costs through depreciation for periods up to 25 years. So for them to say that they are profitable is a bit disingeneous.
I have long advocated getting ride of the subsidies for all modes of transport, although it will never happen. If we did so, perhaps rail could cut it with moderate speed trains in relatively short, high density corridors. But it would be a tough nut to crack.
The JR group doesn't receive government money. They did buy the system for below cost but the high costs can be blamed on typical government wastefulness. The Japanese government probably wouldn't have been able to sell the system at the ballooned cost. It should be noted that the JR group still is responsible for paying for some of that debt. As for France they do have TGV lines which have exceeded capital cost though you are right in saying most of the system doesn't make money. In a real free market high speed rail would be the most popular because people like convenience but lower speed rail would be popular for some things. High speed rail would also be most popular because it would cost more money in the future to build an upgraded system. High speed rail can work over longer distances a trip from Chicago to NY would be about 3-4 hours by high speed rail, it would be longer than flying yes but you save time by going to a city center directly and avoiding baggage check. I could see auto train service becoming popular on the low speed side of things. Low speed rail would also be popular for smaller communities, you could also use small vehicles too. Along with getting rid of subsidies I would get rid of super intense regulation like weight and emission requirements.
The SNCF and JR high speed lines earn an operating profit because the taxpayers ate most of the up front capital costs through depreciation. So for them to say that they are profitable is a bit disingeneous.
Amtrak does not pay any property taxes. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing any taxes on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train miles outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak. This includes property taxes.
I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S. But it sure helps with the claim that the trains are making money.
The Japanese and French high speed lines were built with massive infusions of taxpayer money for the infrastructure and the equipment. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs (infrastructure and equipment) were depreciated. The taxpayers wore the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably.
When the depreciated (book) value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the infrastructure to a third party. The value of the property spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value.
The infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the transferred assets, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would have been possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can show a profit on its operations. So too can the infrastructure operator! And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they could have told the taxpayers that they realized a gain on the transfer. Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back.
The two items mentioned above pertain to passenger rail. Real and imagined subsidies for the nation's airways, highways, waterways, etc. are irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it.
Paul Milenkovic northeaster Paul, you might find the following book to be of interest: The Shareholder Value Myth by Lynn Stout, she is a professor (Corporate & Business Law) at the Cornell Law School. The book was published just a few months ago and does explore the origins of the popular singular focus of a corporation. You talking to me? You talking to me! Why would I find such a book interesting? Because it would challenge my preconceived notions about things, and my preconceived notions need challenging? And I am interested, yes, even self-interested, in having my erroneous preconceived notions to be challenged? Um, have I ever viewed Amtrak as a for-profit corporation that needs to maximize shareholder (among the many corporate stakeholders) value? I have criticized the Amtrak subsidy? No, I have never ever criticized the Amtrak subsidy. I have criticized the advocacy community for making claims for the social benefits, where the amount of social benefit were small in relation to the amount of Amtrak subsidy required to bring them about. My main critique of things monetary in relation to things Amtrak is that since it is an axiom of passenger train advocacy that "no passenger train, anywhere or at any time past or present makes a profit", that is, until and advocacy claim is made that such a train indeed makes a profit subject to certain accounting, where such a claim has been made for some Shinkansen and TGV lines. OK, given that passenger trains can never make a profit except under such conditions that persons in the advocacy community claim that they do, that means that passenger trains require taxpayer money, but then so do a whole lot of other things -- national parks, public libraries, National Defense, health care for seniors, police protection, and everything. My claim is that just because something gets public money doesn't mean that the cost effectiveness in which it uses public money never comes under public scrutiny, and that the manner in which Amtrak makes use of public money makes it vulnerable to government cost cutting and government budget cutting scrutiny. It just does, our protests of the inherent and unquantifiable goodness of Amtrak notwithstanding. So, someone around here must have at least looked at The Shareholder Value Myth to recommend it. Am I holding to the Shareholder Value Myth?
northeaster Paul, you might find the following book to be of interest: The Shareholder Value Myth by Lynn Stout, she is a professor (Corporate & Business Law) at the Cornell Law School. The book was published just a few months ago and does explore the origins of the popular singular focus of a corporation.
Paul, you might find the following book to be of interest: The Shareholder Value Myth by Lynn Stout, she is a professor (Corporate & Business Law) at the Cornell Law School. The book was published just a few months ago and does explore the origins of the popular singular focus of a corporation.
You talking to me? You talking to me!
Why would I find such a book interesting? Because it would challenge my preconceived notions about things, and my preconceived notions need challenging? And I am interested, yes, even self-interested, in having my erroneous preconceived notions to be challenged?
Um, have I ever viewed Amtrak as a for-profit corporation that needs to maximize shareholder (among the many corporate stakeholders) value?
I have criticized the Amtrak subsidy? No, I have never ever criticized the Amtrak subsidy. I have criticized the advocacy community for making claims for the social benefits, where the amount of social benefit were small in relation to the amount of Amtrak subsidy required to bring them about.
My main critique of things monetary in relation to things Amtrak is that since it is an axiom of passenger train advocacy that "no passenger train, anywhere or at any time past or present makes a profit", that is, until and advocacy claim is made that such a train indeed makes a profit subject to certain accounting, where such a claim has been made for some Shinkansen and TGV lines.
OK, given that passenger trains can never make a profit except under such conditions that persons in the advocacy community claim that they do, that means that passenger trains require taxpayer money, but then so do a whole lot of other things -- national parks, public libraries, National Defense, health care for seniors, police protection, and everything.
My claim is that just because something gets public money doesn't mean that the cost effectiveness in which it uses public money never comes under public scrutiny, and that the manner in which Amtrak makes use of public money makes it vulnerable to government cost cutting and government budget cutting scrutiny. It just does, our protests of the inherent and unquantifiable goodness of Amtrak notwithstanding.
So, someone around here must have at least looked at The Shareholder Value Myth to recommend it. Am I holding to the Shareholder Value Myth?
I get tired or hearing about passenger rail subsidies. Amtrak's subsidy is far less then highway subsidies in terms of real dollars and expenses. Amtrak's infrastructure is private which means property taxes are paid on it and this is not the case with other public infrastructure. Amtrak has 30 percent of its expenses covered by subsidies while highways have about 40 percent covered by subsidies. Airlines receive large subsidies in the form of the TSA, AIP, EAS, bailouts, and the Airline industry doesn't front the capital cost of building airports or ATC nor does fees paid buy them necessarily exceed capital. The gas tax is a form of subsidy because if you drive on a private road or local road you pay regardless of whether you use a highway. Highways also receive sales taxes, bond measures, property taxes, and stimulus funds. The Shinkansen and TGV are indeed profitable in fact the money made from profitable lines is often diverted towards less profitable lines. Also to be considered is that the auto suburb is the result of government intervention whether it be through building highway system or through subsidizing housing. Essentially the Amtrak situation can be summed up as this somebody breaks your legs, they give you crutches and say were the reason why you can walk and constantly threaten to take away your crutches. Here is something that always gets me why do people want government building passenger train when it was government that nearly killed the rail industry and when it is government inefficiency that causes people to always attack it? It's just like the people who advocate government involvement in green energy when green energy could be built by simply having governments not subsidize coal, oil, and gas production. Why is it that the CATO institute which supposedly wants free markets but is OK with government built highways and subsidized highly regulated suburbs? If we has real free market conditions for transportation rail would almost everyday of the week.
Given that most of us don't have time to read every publication that may touch on a trains subject, what are the three main premises of the book? Also, what are the professor's qualifications, i.e. education, experience, understanding of corporate nuances, etc.?
If I were 20 I'd be there in a New York minute, Don. But I ain't 20 any more. Or 30 or 60. I can manage spading my garden but that is about all. The rest of the guys on the track gang should not have to carry guys like me who cannot begin to pull their weight. Clerical work I could handle, though. And I have the patience to listen to and explain and help honest hard working guys who, for all of their knowledge, are not the world's greatest bureaucrats.
John WR Don, I went back to double check. It looks to me as if you are right although Amtrak says, in large red letters, "sold out" next to the actual trains Monday through Thursday. However, seats are available Friday through Sunday. My mistake was relying on the information Amtrak provided. By the way, do you know how I can get a job with Norfolk Southern? That 4 day work week sounds pretty good to me.
Don,
I went back to double check. It looks to me as if you are right although Amtrak says, in large red letters, "sold out" next to the actual trains Monday through Thursday. However, seats are available Friday through Sunday. My mistake was relying on the information Amtrak provided.
By the way, do you know how I can get a job with Norfolk Southern? That 4 day work week sounds pretty good to me.
You go to the NS web site and apply for a job with a track gang. They work 4, 10 hour days a week, sleep in camp cars, travel the entire system and are responsible for their own transportation to/from home on any weekend they would care to make the trip.
The pay and benefits are pretty good, though.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
for those of you that want a picture of ATLANTA Brookwood station see bottom left pages 14 - 15 of the follow link.
http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/347/964/Amtrak-Ink-Nov-2012.pdf
That is a southbound Crescent on the normal south track that is used since potable water spouts are on the left side of the train. part of the train that is out of sight probably will be on the I-75 overpass. The steel siding is the one curving off to the left and it also ends somewhere after crossing another bridge over I-75.
Part of the problem with the station is that there is no water supply NE of the steps you can see in the picture. If there was walking would be a lot shorter for almost everyone.
station spans over main tracks and to the north with the elevator north of the north main..station is not over steel lead. there is an open air viewing area over the steel lead
I-85 is left of the tracks
John WR Amtrak seems to be doing something right with its Atlanta to New Orleans service. I just checked for Wednesdays in January . Coach seats are available on January 2 but are sold out for January 9, 16, 23 and 30. One of those weekends is the Superbowl but the other weekends are not.
Amtrak seems to be doing something right with its Atlanta to New Orleans service. I just checked for Wednesdays in January . Coach seats are available on January 2 but are sold out for January 9, 16, 23 and 30. One of those weekends is the Superbowl but the other weekends are not.
It's not sold out. It's not running. NS trackwork. The train short-turns in Atlanta on Monday - Thrus for a few weeks each year.
There are still seats available for next Wed - the busiest day of the year.
thanks for the good news about the sold out seats.
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