A new purpose for Amtrak? What do you think?

[Anonymous]

Would like to hear your thoughts.

What if as part of the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, major shelters - "bomb shelters" if you will - were built to adequately and safely house the population of the region when hurricanes strike? Rather than the head for the hills evacuations we have seen, passenger rail could be constructed and employed where it can really shine; moving a lot of people in a short time a relatively short distance inland to the shelters.

[kenneo]

There is only one problem with this idea. For all that equipment and capacity to sit idle just waiting for another her-a-cain or him-a-cain to come along, someone is going to need to pony up a HUGE amount of money. Each year. It would be much cheaper to simply build fortress shelters for any that wanted to run into them prior to a storm.

[Anonymous]

It also presupposes that the various host RR's are able to move a significant, large percentage of the population. Having--what?-- three trains, one of which doesn't run every day and another of which has proven itself quite capable of slipping off of CN/IC causeways without a drop of rain, would require the huge buildup the first post mentioned, and that just isn't feasible monetarily. However, Americans would probably be more likely to support the disaster-transfer scenario than an improve-the-rails philosophy, because many if not most Americans have allowed themselves to think that passenger trains are a quaint luxury in long-distance service.

[Anonymous]

Was just thinking off the top of my head. If 200 Billion is going to be spent to reconstruct the region, wouldn't it be smart to provide for effective, safe evacuation the next time the region is hit? If it turns out to be a castle, they won't have to worry about building a moat.

Seeing those bird's eye view photos of row after row after row of city school buses sitting in flood water in NO that could've been used to get people without cars out to higher ground is grim.

Wasn't thinking in terms of today's mostly derelict rail property and equipment. Instead, of how rail might be an effective tool for the architect/designer/engineer in creating something new that's better.

Taking the rose-colored railfan glasses off leaves a view of a linear junkyard of stuff that looks only useful for keeping obsolete stuff working. Hope there's someone out there that might have vision for something better.

[Anonymous]

I think you approched the most important topic -- not saving money, but saving LIVES.

[Junctionfan]

I agree. What is the point of saving money if nobody's alive to spend it?

[Anonymous]

if people wouldn't constantly build and live in areas which are prone to being wiped out we wouldn't have this problem.

[dehusman]

In order for this to work you have to have transportation to the place where you will be putting people on the trains, you have to have some sort of cover to hold a trainload of people between loadings, someplace for the people to go, since you will drop everybody off at one point, then you will need transportation to get from the "end of the line" to where ever you are going to hold the people. The rail move is simple, the hard part is all ths shuffling around you have to do before and after the train trip.

That's were the Katrina rail operation fell down. It wasn't the rail capacity, it was the buses and management to get the people from affected area to the train and from the train to their final destination.

I also doubt you could move as many people as you think. lets say you wanted to move them 150-200 miles inland, from the Gulf coast to Austin, Dallas, Shreveport, Jackson, Meridian, Montgomery, or Columbus. That's a 4 hr train trip. So max (with servicing) is 2 round trips per day. Lets say you can fit 1000 people on the train, that's 2000 people per day, per train set. To evacuate 100,000 people you would need 13 train sets operating round the clock for 4 days. making all lanes of a 4 lane interstate outbound will do that many people in cars in less than a day, allow them to carry more personal property, get their vehicle out of harm's way and avoid all the shuffling, plus take them directly to their final destination.

The real key isn't the mode of transportation, its actually getting the people to evacuate. If the people don't want to go or refuse to go, then it really doesn't matter what mode of transportation you provide.

Dave H.

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by farmer03

if people wouldn't constantly build and live in areas which are prone to being wiped out we wouldn't have this problem.

Not possible. The entire U.S is subjected to some kind of disaster waiting to happen.

Atlantic Coast is subjected to hurricanes, Gulf of Mexico is floods and hurricanes, west coast is earthquakes, mid-west is tornadoes, great lakes is floods and possible tornadoes, some volcanos are starting to reactivate and then there is drought.

There are even talks of possible tsunamis for the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts in the future from earthquakes in the oceans.