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The following link will take you to an article in the Baltimore Sun this morning. Some interesting stuff, especially from Mineta's spokesman, Robert Johnson on page 2 of the article.
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I want the new company called Metrak or Nectrak perhaps. If the areas commuter lines where improved. Seats and Leg room! and either upgraded overhead wires or developing a 3rd rail system. Incorroperate the Interstate amtrak trains with the commuter systems. Here is the business plan. They spent a fortune on the Acela trains. The fares are twice as high as the regional train and for that you will get to Washington DC twenty minutes quicker. I think not.
Posts: 516 | From: New Haven, CT USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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This article is more nicely balanced than many I've seen.....
However this business about running trains non-stop through states that don't contribute to their cost is just.........assinine.
And they've been trumpeting this bit of rhetoric since Norm Mineta's misleading mystery tour which began in Chicago and Charlotte back in February.
This adminstration and this DOT secretary are the worst thing that has happened to Amtrak in the last 25 years......if not ever.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Each year, it consumes more than $1 billion in federal subsidies.
And Dresser {the reporter} doesn't appear to know that roads "consume" over $30 billion, airplanes "consume" over $14 billion, and waterways "consume" over $6 billion EACH YEAR! Why is he whining about such a "small" subsidy?
quote:Much of the money is spent preserving high-cost, long-distance routes outside the East Coast and the West Coast, with stops in cities too small to attract commercial air service.
Ummm... No it's not, unless this "reporter" believes $300 million is "much of the money". Too bad Dresser's your typical uneducated journalist.
Intelligent reporters are few, and far between....
Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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If one were to go back to the 70's, would Amtrak have cost 1 billion in each of those years? I don't think so!
It's just a nice way for the author to inflame everybody about cost. Oh my ___ a billion a year! I'd better call my congress-critter and get this wasteful thing canceled.
Posts: 171 | From: Aurora, Illinois | Registered: Jun 2005
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With people living farther and farther from the old rail lines even suburbanites who wouold like to take a train need to drive to get to the rail station which do not have enough parking spaces. and only at major cities do the busses sycronize with the arrivals and departures of the trains. In New Haven Busses stop but this is not a major transportation hub area. But there are plenty of taxi cabs awaiting the train arrivals.
Posts: 516 | From: New Haven, CT USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Mr Toy... You are assuming that Mineta has a "reflection" when he looks into a mirror... Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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With people living farther and farther from the old rail lines even suburbanites who wouold like to take a train need to drive to get to the rail station which do not have enough parking spaces. and only at major cities do the busses sycronize with the arrivals and departures of the trains. In New Haven Busses stop but this is not a major transportation hub area. But there are plenty of taxi cabs awaiting the train arrivals. __________________________________________________ And your point would be Tanner929?? That City Planners have failed to take into account transportation needs?? Planners have been car-centric for years, and since the railroads are fixed objects if you build a town 5 miles away from the tracks, of course people will have to drive to the train station! Transportation is the last thing builders and planners think about...everybody has a car right?
Posts: 171 | From: Aurora, Illinois | Registered: Jun 2005
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