RAILforum: Joe Brancatelli Strikes

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Posted by Kairho (Member # 1567) on :

Joe is a moderately popular travel columnist who is usually involved in airline matters. Last week he had an, uh, interesting column which you may like to read:

"June 27, 2002 -- David Gunn, who's run Amtrak for two months and has already shown he is arrogant enough and stupid enough to run a major airline, put a metaphorical gun to America's head three weeks ago."

www.zyworld.com/brancatelli/branc.htm

Posted by irishchieftain (Member # 1473) on :

Here's another Broccoli quote (what was his name again?)

quote:
Write off the $100 billion or so we've invested in Amtrak since it was founded in haste and panic in 1971 and admit we've made an awful mistake.

Wasn't it about a quarter of that figure...or so? Study the facts first before spouting McCain-type rhetoric.

Here's another:

quote:
Gunn's shutdown deadline came and went this week. Amtrak didn't stop. And like all corporate bullies who've been confronted, Gunn scurried back to his government-funded corner office and began to babble conciliatory platitudes. Under pressure from the White House, Gunn somehow found enough scratch to keep Amtrak running though at least the Fourth of July holiday. And while there may be some additional taxpayer money forthcoming in the next few days, it won't be anywhere near $200 million. Gunn has been told to do what he was hired to do: Shut up, fix Amtrak and stop threatening a nation that, generally speaking, couldn't give a damn about him or his goofy hodgepodge of a railroad.

Is that what happened? How come I keep hearing otherwise...?

[This message has been edited by irishchieftain (edited 07-01-2002).]

Posted by TheAmtrakMole (Member # 1698) on :

Joe Brancatelli has once again unleashed a 1,000 monkeys on a 1,000 typewriters and given us the following drivel:

snip, snip, snip....."" (quote snipped to alleviate boredom)......

Like anyone cares what ends up below the fold of the local fishwrap, especially when written by a two bit hack writing a 'travel' column. If only there had been the slightest amount of effort put forth in actually doing any real research for this piece. It was probably written on a laptop while waiting in an airport lounge.

------------------
---The Amtrak Mole
---All your PCs are belong to trash

Posted by irishchieftain (Member # 1473) on :

Well...for any AOL users on here, he has an AOL screen name, JBrancatelli (consequently, the email address is JBrancatelli@aol.com )...don't know if we'll ever catch him online to IM him our "discordant" thoughts about that "hodgepodge" of a railroad that happens to have a hand in most of the Northeast's (and elsewhere) commuter lines...incidentally, don't commuter RRs that have nothing to do with Amtrak also get federal funds (that being the majority of their money, too)? Imagine what a mess things would be if they were all locally funded, like Broccoli suggests...

[This message has been edited by irishchieftain (edited 07-01-2002).]

Posted by Amtrak207 (Member # 1307) on :

Uh, okay. Two words.
First word: one syllable. Small, no short? yeah, short. Short for?
Short for 'Richard.'
Second word: one syllable. It grows? Yeah.
Oh, undesired growth in your lawn. Okay.
For those of you that don't get this, just quit trying.

Posted by MPALMER (Member # 125) on :

I read the article. It's not all negative, at least as far as corridors go.

But I agree he made a major mistake in the way he wrote that piece...it is way too negative up front, and I can see why people got ticked off at him. I personally did not like the tone myself.

All the analogies that come to mind are insulting so I'll shut up here.