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[quote user="Paul Milenkovic"] I was told that I am a "bean counter" who would  have further shortchanged the lifeboats on the Titanic because they didn't save enough people.  In response I said   <blockquote> <div>     <blockquote> The seas were glass smooth.  Rescue by other ships on that busy travel lane was no longer than an Amtrak long-distance passenger train delay away.  He could have overloaded those life boats, carefully stuffing them with as many people as he could pack in, and a good seaman would have understood how to do this.  This was not done.   </blockquote> </div> </blockquote>     to which I was told    <blockquote> <div>   Smith botched things, but had he not most of the people would still have died, you cannot fit 2,200 people in lifeboats capable of carrying 1,100, no matter your organizational skill or "imaginativeness". In the same way it is disingenuous to criticize Amtrak managers for not being able to fund a reliable national system of transportation, in a country 3k miles across and over 1k miles wide with $1.5 B per year. <div style="clear:both;"></div>   </div> </blockquote>   As a person to whom it was suggested that I need to go elsewhere because I am not agreeing with all of the standard passenger train advocacy positions, I feel this is a case of "free speech for me but not for me."  If someone uses weakly formed Titanic metaphor to criticize my point of view, that constitutes free expression.  If defend myself by elaborating on that metaphor, that constitutes bickering or dichotomies or some manner of treadmill. The Titanic and its lifeboats is particularly apt -- its transportation, isn't it?  I suggested (what I heard from somewhere else) that Smith could have overloaded the lifeboats, and I am called out for spreading misinformation, that a lifeboat has only so many seats and that I don't know what I am talking about. First of all, part of the scandal of the Titanic disaster is that survivor accounts claim that many lifeboats were launched only partially full.  That is part of the historical record.  As to the suggestion of overloading the boats, that is not my idea, that came from a "Titanic Historical Society" Web site. The thing about boats is that their capacity is limited by weight, that the waves don't lap up over the sides and founder the boat.  The claim is that the accident happened under calm seas, where the lifeboats could have been overloaded, maybe not saving all 2000 people, but saving more than the 1000 people.  These lifeboats have open benches, and children could have sit on laps.  This is not like an airplane where every person needs to be seat belted into their own seat "before we can close the doors." In other words, the lifeboats could have been launched with "crush loads."  This is done with passenger trains.  All the time.  The commuter trains in Japan.  Where they hire white-gloved "pushers" to shove the overload of passengers onboard the train so the conductor can close the doors.  Or in India, where at least in times past they had people sitting on the roof of the coaches. With respect to an Amtrak analogy, consider the capacity constraints on the Milwaukee-Chicago Talgo, and how even if the new Talgo is put into service, that is not meeting the burgeoning demand on that route.  The peak loads, however, are only during the morning commute as many are finding that train convenient to commute to Chicago.  If not California Cars or Bombardier bi-levels or gallery cars, why not put 5-across seating on that train and on somewhat shorter seat pirch?  The people riding during peak times will have not more dense a seating arrangement as on a DC-9 jet, or the original Shinkansen train, and off peak, the conductors could seat "singles" in the double seats, people travelling with a companion in the triples? But the mere suggestion, the mere breath of any reform, changes, modifications, or improvements to Amtrak operating practices, or even the suggestion as to who as a professional manager would be better qualified to run Amtrak, such is met with a chorus of "you don't understand railroading, the passenger train market" and "that won't work", any deficiency that such changes are meant to address are the fault "of Amtrak is woefully underfunded and Congress just doesn't understand."  And any defense offered of any reform, changes, modifications, or improvements is "bickering" or a "treadmill we need to get off." What is refreshing about this Forum is that a diverse set of iconoclastic opinions are expressed here, just as the David P. Morgan Trains magazine of old, which also did its share of offending and infuriating people.  These seemingly endless arguments need to be made here because it seems they are not being expressed anywhere else, and what we have been doing for the past 40 years since the inception of Amtrak in the advocacy community is not working, and we need to try something new.  Discussing, arguing these different points of view is part of that process. [/quote] Over the years I have found your viewpoints to be amongst some of the most robust expressed in Trains forums.  I may not always agree with your point of view, but they have always been presented logically and thoroughly.  Like you I believe the forums should promote diversity.  Not restrict it to an orthodox view.
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