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Ed, I did go back and read Jim Wrinn’s introduction more than once, just to see how it correlates with the article.  As you say, he does state outright, the reason for the article, but in my opinion, the article includes an overarching political agenda that Mr. Wrinn does not mention at all in his introduction.  I suspect that he might believe that the article contains no such political agenda.  Certainly these agendas are not advanced with flags and banners proclaiming them as such.  It is very easy to be swept along with them without realizing it.  Dan Rather would always contend that there was no political bias in the CBS news.  Bernard Goldberg wrote a book about it where he explained that people like Rather simply don’t see their views on politics as political viewpoints.  The just regard their viewpoint as the way things are and should be.  They are not aware of an opposing point of view within a political context.  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I am not saying that the magazine has broken any implied business agreement with its readers by publishing a politically motivated article.  I agree that they are free to print anything they want.  I also agree that nowhere does it say that the article in question reflects the political viewpoint of staff.  But for me, that is somewhat beside the point.  I don’t really care whether they concur with the agenda of the article.   <o:p></o:p> If there is any issue with the performance of the magazine on this, it might be the advancing of a political agenda having nothing to do with railroads under the guise of an objective economics/engineering analysis about railroad electrification.  But even so, they are free to do that.  And we are free to point it out.  In the end, the marketplace is free to decide whether or not they feel the magazine is being fair, and whether or not they want to patronize it if they feel that it is helping to advance a political agenda, which they disagree with. <o:p></o:p> As to your suggestion about composing an article on the true business economics of electrification, I have no particular interest in doing that.  One person could spend a lifetime of research trying to make that calculation, and if one were to come to a conclusion, there is no guarantee that it would convince anybody else, let alone create a consensus.  It would be an enormously complex appraisal that would involve not only engineering and economics, but also predicting the future of business cycles.  I also see no need to pursue that question of whether or not railroad should electrify, since the railroads themselves are probably analyzing it on a continuous basis, and are probably best equipped to reach conclusions as parameters change.    If I were to write an article, it would be one to debunk the political agenda behind the Trains article on electrification.  I wonder if they would run my article on that.
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