Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="Andy Cummings"] Bucyrus — What I'm proposing is that Mr. Ward is neither in favor of, nor opposed to, high speed rail, contrary to what said article's headline proposes. I base this on the quotes I referenced above in the interview I conducted with him last year. I'm proposing this reporter is making the claim primarily that Mr. Ward won't "advocate" for high speed rail, then acts as if that's the same as Mr. Ward opposing high speed rail. I'm saying those are two different things, and there's a subtle bait-and-switch that occurs in this piece between those two things. I believe if you read the Bloomberg article carefully, you won't see where Mr. Ward proposes that he won't allow passenger trains on his railroad under the Obama HSR program. He doesn't. Rather, he says passenger trains operating faster than 90 mph can't realistically be made to work with freight trains on a busy route. New York DOT is pushing a plan for 110, and that's where the real conflict is, as best I can tell.  <div style="clear:both;"></div>   <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote] Andy,  <o:p></o:p> I see nothing in the interview that indicates that Mr. Ward is for or against HSR as a fundamental position in a vacuum.  But his statements seem to clearly indicate that he is opposed to HSR running on CSX tracks.  I really cannot tell if he holds this position for passenger trains running under 90 mph or not.  On one hand, he seems to accept passenger trains running on his railroad if they do not exceed 90 mph.  But on the other hand, he says passenger trains do not make money, and he therefore asks why he should want to run them on his railroad.   <o:p></o:p> I understand your point about “not advocating,” being an agnostic position, whereas “opposed to” is a position against.  However; although Mr. Ward does use language that indicates he is not advocating HSR on CSX, I don’t think his intention is to make a distinction between not advocating and opposing as you suggest.  Rather, I think he was just offering a variation in wording.  I come to that conclusion because the rest of his language clearly sounds like opposition to HSR on CSX.  He might have suggested he “can’t advocate for” as a way to soften in implication of opposing President Obama.  But when he says he “can’t do it,’ I take that as being opposed to doing it.     What I find most unclear, however, is the distinction between running HSR on tracks shared with freight trains of the host railroad, versus running HSR on its own dedicated track, and only sharing the corridor with the host railroad.  Clearly Mr. Ward is basing his objections to the former of the two propositions.  But even if HSR were to run on its own dedicated track, I suspect there would be impact on the operations of the host freight railroad.   <o:p></o:p> Certainly the construction of a dedicated HSR track on the freight railroad’s corridor would entail major and extensive changes to the freight trackage, signals, grade crossings, bridges, and earthwork.  I also suspect that even if HSR had its own dedicated track, there would still be some overlapping where HSR actually ran on the freight trackage of the host railroad in certain areas.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag