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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by rgemd We can spend 200billion dollars to destroy and then rebuild a country half a world away, but no money for the train. [/quote] They do seem to have some skewed priorities, don't they? But then, look beneath the surface.. By Spending that wadd in Iraq, what they are (in concept) doing, is to invest money into an industry that is very profitable (oil)..... And you can "tra-la-la-la-laa" all day about the hype and propaganda claimed by the administration of "The importance of installing freedom for the iraqi people",...it's all just bunk trying to invoke a 'cause celebre' when in fact this entire fiasco is little more than service to big oil, and the companies that will rebuild and refinance the "new Iraq" Whereas, and this will no doubt be unpopular here,....the decision to pull the plug on Amtrak is probably the (fiscally and physically) wise one.... Amtrak is nice if you happen to either live as close to a Passenger station as you do to an airport, or if you happen to be a transportation nostalgist.....but the fact of the matter is, most Americans are neither. I like trains... i'd like to think that "there will always be passenger rail as an option", but that desire is based as much by my passion for the hobby, as it is on anything else, and there simply is a time where you have to look at sacred cows with a fresh eye. Passenger rail would never have caught on in the firstplace, had it not been profitable. Why expect the system to carry the burden, on behalf of a minority of nostalgists? If passenger rail can't carry it's own weight, that tells you something significant, no matter how painful that may be to face. Too bad the "abandonment" and "farming out to short line" craze has not stimulated entreprenurial imagination in the "passenger rail" venue. It is remotely possible that the continued existance of Amtrak has served as an inhibitor to that incentive,...though I suspect raw economics serves the greater detriment.
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