I thought some of you might be interested in this.
20th Century Member # 2196
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A private rail infrastructure company maintaining the NE corridor worries me. It reminds me of the disastrous fiasco which happened in Great Britain when private enterprise assumed the maintainance of the rails. Will someone please enlighten me as to how this plan in the U.S. will prove better than it did across the pond in Great Britain?
JFB Member # 2520
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I could enlighten you with Thomas Paine or Voltaire. With the reasoning behind NEC partial privatization, I cannot.
A privately-held infrastructure company under contract to theorecical multi-state "compacts" is convolution, not reform, of Amtrak. We trade a corporation that maintains the NEC at cost for one that expects to profit from it.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Talking to some friends with friends in UK involved in the railways, the change to separate entity to maintain the railway has hugely increased the cost of maintenance and served to decrease train reliability. It it is an example of political posturing unalloyed by reality.
SouthernServesTheSouth Member # 2284
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Yea, they should hire the bunch that put in the "Big Dig" or was it "Big Ditch" highway in Boston. They really know how to soak the goverment. They would start by eliminating every other cross tie and then boast of cutting maintance cost by a half.
Can't someone in the federal and state governments try to take a non political look at the problems faced by Amtrak and all other passenger transporting rail services.
We need this alternative to airlines and buses.
Look at the week following 9-11-01. If you didn't live near a passenger railroad station, you had to rent a car to get to your long distance destinations.
We have only one train through our city, 5:45 A.M.north bound and 11:00 P.M. southbound.
It't time we cought up with Europe and had better inter-city rail.
Comeon Uncle Sam throw some money at the railroads for a change. We spend too much money bailing out the airlines. Let them try to exist without governement handouts.
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