"The governors said recycled materials would be used in the construction of the train, locally-grown produce served in train dining cars, and recyclable and biodegradable containers used in food service on the train."
I am missing something here. The first paragraph of the news article indicates that money would be used for "high speed" rail between Chicago and Iowa City. Yet, the next to the last paragraph includes the mph target of 79.
Of course, the federal $8B will inevitably be for less-than-"high speed," 'cause that is the need (except for perhaps in FL), but why can't folks call 79 mph what it is, and not "high speed." We need the $8B for infrastructure, elimination of at-grade crossings, additional routes to now non-served cities and towns, et al. Maybe true 100+ mph in the distant future.
Victrola1 "The governors said recycled materials would be used in the construction of the train, locally-grown produce served in train dining cars, and recyclable and biodegradable containers used in food service on the train."http://gazetteonline.com/local-news/2010/08/06/iowa-illinois-submit-high-speed-rail-applicationBiodegradable food containers holding local sweet corn justifies a passenger train? At what point does pandering become absurdity?
Not pandering, but they added these points as embellishments to the application. Don't know where you're getting the idea these are the reasons for the rail service proposal. When competing for finite sums of grant money being distributed, you need something to make your application stand out from the crowd.
This article is amazing! HSR They have loaded this thing down with so much junk; Rube Goldberg would be proud, I would guess that it would be built at the Amana Colony out of left over washing machine parts. to keep all the money locally!....
Wait they have TWO QJ's stored around Newton,IA..
Maybe, they can cook the food for their bio-degradable containers ( Made out of a processed corn product
and roasting their corn on the cob in the Firebox-- You remember those article about
locomotive cab cooking using the coal scoop?
It might just work, all it will take is a few more billions$$$$$$$$$$.
What's that much money to Illinois Pols?
Keep adding and someday it might be enough money to make it happen.. [Sarcasm]
The reasons these politicians are using are as ridiculous as some offered at ICC hearings 50 years ago as to why the railroads should have been required to keep losing money hauling passengers.
Yes, they are consistently stupid except now they want taxpayers to pay for empty trains.
Mac
[Never mind....Let Norris and Crandell have some peace this weekend!
PNWRMNM Yes, they are consistently stupid except now they want taxpayers to pay for empty trains.
.....Seems we just have to keep it going.....Now {and have been for 10 years}, paying for "empty" wars.
Quentin
Just read that the Iraq drawdown is going forward. Now they have to find another wormhole to dump borrowed money into. HSR is as good as any, I guess.
Wonder what kind of local produce we can harvest between Las Vegas and Victorville (the latest end points for my local HSR corridor.) Maybe wind turbines driven by election year hot air...
Chuck
TomDiehlNot pandering, but they added these points as embellishments to the application.
I have been involved in making application for gov,t. grants in a voluntary capacity for the last 15 years now. You would not believe what you have to put down on paper to get politician's attention. I've said over and over again, I wasn't going to continue with this kind of foolishness, but if you want funding you have to jump through their ropes.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Here is what you get when you use a lot of recycled materials:
http://tinatarnoff.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55378e88988340120a71d788a970b-800wi
Congress writes the law to create these funding systems. Some appointed crony in Washington, DC writes the requirements for the proposal. Uninterested state bureaucrats write the proposals. More political appointees evaluate the proposals and make awards (with lots of Congressional input).
If you notice the system at no time involves folks who know about the industry, technology or science that is being rewarded. And we are surprised that proposals such as these are considered serious!
According to Public Policy Polling back in June, Governor Culver is trailing his opponent by at least a 15% margin. His favorability rating is under 30%.
He has been a strong proponent of resuming passenger rail along the route of the Rock Island (now the Iowa Interstate). However, it appears passenger rail supporters are going to need a new spokesman.
Providing for the common defense is a constitutional duty of the Federal Government, and one that realsitically no other entity can reasonably be expected to perform. Running a 12 inch to the foot model railroad is not a constitutional duty and is therefore not the business of the Federal Government. The lack of demand for economically sustainable rail passenger service started to show in the 1920's when tin lizzies on dirt roads emptied the daily except sunday mixed trains and by 1957, or so, Trains Magazine figured out the game was up for even the best long distance trains with their article "Who shot the passenger train?" With the exception of the Northeast Corridor, passenger trains in this country are a total waste of public money and freight rail capacity.
BucyrusHere is what you get when you use a lot of recycled materials: http://tinatarnoff.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55378e88988340120a71d788a970b-800wi
After you get your train, you want another. Submit this photo in a press release announcing your grant application. "Ridership shows a continued demand for local produce in the dining car to the point of needing a second train on this route."
Add to Mac's post:
For all the huffing, puffing, rhetoric and political posturing - all paid for with somebody's money - we have neglected any form of research into what to do about a replacement for the long-distance travel mode now most used. We need something with a minimal footprint, modest construction cost, low energy consumption, REALLY high speed and the ability to move serious numbers of people on schedules convenient to them. Having a zero interface with surface freight and rubber-wheel transport from the beginning would be nice, too.
Actually, the technology has existed for a century, in miniature form. You probably encountered it the last time you used the drive-in lanes at your bank.
I will admit that widespread implimentation of pneumatic tube capsules wouldn't produce much that a railfan could love - but it sure would be efficient.
tomikawaTTI will admit that widespread implimentation of pneumatic tube capsules wouldn't produce much that a railfan could love - but it sure would be efficient. Chuck
Futurama fan, by chance?
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
It does not seem unusual to attach green / sustainability initiatives to an HSR funding application. HSR itself is just another tentacle of the green / sustainability agenda. HSR is not about fulfilling a transportation need. It is about reducing CO2 emissions and creating a non-oil society.
Using recycled materials, buying local, roof gardens, reducing the use of private automobiles, conservation pricing of utilities, new urbanism, solar panels, and HSR are all components of the green / sustainability agenda.
Here is what the FRA says the HSR vision is:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RRdev/hsrspfacts.pdf
The biggest problem that HSR has in meeting its green objective is the “H” in HSR. Maybe that’s why they only want to go 79 mph.
"PMWRMNM": Though you are a fine man (I have found, thank you again, Mac), I respectfully disagree, though admittedly I may be on weak financial ground with my position.
There is a need and role for LD passenger trains (not HSR, though) for the following reasons: 1) more and more people are absolutely fed up with airline travel, what with airport parking, inhumane searching and cramped seating, lack of privacy and mobility (ability to move around and socialize) en route, as well as burgeoning fees for everything from water to pillows; 2) population growth of senior citizens, who are mostly retired and time is not a constraint, who want an alternative, sane way to travel LD than by air; 3) many folks just follow a simpler life, without the hassles of air travel; 4) many people are more interested in the quality of the "journey" than the "destination"; 5) children love trains; 6) family groups and disabled passengers find train travel far more convenient and comfortable in Amtrak sleeping car dedicated accommodations; and 7) those of us who traveled at lot in business just do not want to do that by air anymore.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Travelling engineer,
I know there are people who enjoy riding trains. I too hate the security mess at the airport. Your hypotheses is that there are enough such people who would support profitable long distance trains. The fact that Amtrak loses 1-3 billion dollars per year while it is NOT paying for the freight capacity it consumes, which is a subsidy from the freight carriers that no one seems to notice, is proof to me that your hypothesis incorrect. I cited the "Who shot the passenger train" article to make the point that anyone who was paying attention figured out that profitable long distance trains were impossible over 50 years ago. That was before the interstate highway system and before jet planes. The only reason Amtrak exists is because the politicians think they are buying someone's vote with someone else's money.
I generally keep to myself about this since this forum is loaded with passenger train advocates. A few of them have some knowledge and experience, but I can not let go unchallenged those who say "We are wasting a bunch of money on a war so it is OK for us to waste some more on my hobby" Whether you like a war or not it is a constitutional duty of the Federal Government. There is no constitutional duty to play trains.
I will quit now before I get political.
Mac: You are absolutely correct re: the financial aspects of passenger railroading. I knew that before I posted my message. But I did not say that there were enough people to support profitable LD trains; that word or implication was not in my context. I just said (my "hypothesis") that there was a need and role for such trains, for the stated reasons. I also inserted the caveat that I was admittedly weak in knowing about financial viability, though others like you surely do.
I totally agree with your observations about governmental wastes of money, Mac. I guess there has always been such, and always will. No excuse, of course, so it takes articulate folks like you to make the point.
Certainly, to argue that pouring money into passenger trains is OK since everybody else is at the trough is really lame.
P.S. I myself abhor foaming and railfanning, am not a rail photog, and certainly do not play with trains of any size. I just enjoy the "journey" aboard en route to a planned destination.
Thanks for your posts and your clarity of reality, Mac.
You are correct in that you did not claim there was enough demand to support profitable passenger trains. My point was and is that has been the case for well over 50 years. We seem to be agreed that long distance passenger trains can not and will not generate a profit.
Given that there is not suffficient demand for self supporting passenger trains you, and any other passenger train advocates, have to argue for taking money out of other people's pockets to support the tiny minority who ride the trains for one reason or another. That is income redistribution, take from someone and give it to someone else. There is no mandate for income redistribution in the US constitution.
I once enjoyed a rail tour of Western Canada largely at taxpayer expense. It was very kind of them but not rational public policy. I know you like to ride. Take your trips now. There is always the slight chance that congress will become rational, but I do not expect to see it.
PNWRMNM Travelling engineer, You are correct in that you did not claim there was enough demand to support profitable passenger trains. My point was and is that has been the case for well over 50 years. We seem to be agreed that long distance passenger trains can not and will not generate a profit. Given that there is not suffficient demand for self supporting passenger trains you, and any other passenger train advocates, have to argue for taking money out of other people's pockets to support the tiny minority who ride the trains for one reason or another. That is income redistribution, take from someone and give it to someone else. There is no mandate for income redistribution in the US constitution.
Mac,
I agree with your position that there is not sufficient demand for self-supporting passenger trains. However, according to my reading of the various HSR mission statements, the objective is not to address demand sufficient to make self-supporting passenger trains. The objective is to reduce CO2 emissions to prevent climate change by getting travelers out of their cars and out of airplanes, and onto passenger trains.
If it were only about satisfying the demand for train travel by a limited number of train travel aficionados, then building HSR with public money would indeed be grossly redistributionist. But the proponents of HSR intend for us all to be riding the trains as an obligation to saving the planet. So, in their mind, there is nothing redistributionist about it. In their minds, it is simply a matter of serving the greater good of society just like national defense.
Bucyrus,
Global warming is the hoax of the century. It is about giving up our liberty for "the greater good" of Al Gore, the statists, and the bureaucrats. I think you know that.
Victrola1BucyrusHere is what you get when you use a lot of recycled materials: http://tinatarnoff.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55378e88988340120a71d788a970b-800wi After you get your train, you want another. Submit this photo in a press release announcing your grant application. "Ridership shows a continued demand for local produce in the dining car to the point of needing a second train on this route."
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
PNWRMNMBucyrus, Global warming is the hoax of the century. It is about giving up our liberty for "the greater good" of Al Gore, the statists, and the bureaucrats. I think you know that. Mac
In the end, it matters little what anybody thinks. It only matters what we do or don't do. If we decide that reducing CO2 is a national goal, then, that's what it is. If carbon gets factored into the cost/benefit equation then it becomes a real factor into what gets funded and what doesn't. Doesn't matter if it turns out to be real or not....
PNWRMNM Bucyrus, Global warming is the hoax of the century. It is about giving up our liberty for "the greater good" of Al Gore, the statists, and the bureaucrats. I think you know that. Mac
Yes.
And what do you propose to do if it's real?
Well that would make the mother of all conspiracy theories! Seems you've been listening to Glenn Beck a little too long.
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