City of New Orleans song
Posted on 08/11/2018 10:50:54 AM PDT by Publius
Same thing in Iowa. Instead of connecting the Quad Cities (Davenport), Iowa City, Des Moines and Council Bluffs/Omaha it goes through very small towns in Southern Iowa Like Mt. Pleasant Fairfield and Ft Madison.
Another better alternative is the Union Pacific line that runs through Cedar Rapids, Ames, and Clinton.
I never understood why the trains don’t connect the actual population centers where the potential customers are.
Many of the old abandoned Pacific Electric lines have come back in the modern era.
Rode the P.E. (never called it the Red Car) a lot as a lad. The cars were old and pretty run down. When the L.A. MTD took them over, the handwriting was on the wall.
Of all the money my government spends or wastes money on, Amtrack aggravates me the least. I know it doesn’t come close to paying for itself today. But if we abandon rails now and lose the entire infrastructure, we’ll never be able to put it back together in 30 years or so.
There are lots of reasons Americans don’t routinely travel by rail today while Europeans do. They are NOT smarter or more enlightened than we are; it’s just that the history, circumstances and distances covered are significantly different.
Has NOTHING to do with National Parks.
Milwaukee road was no longer in business by the late 60s early 70s. I worked part of a summer tearing up the rail bed in the gallatin valley for salvage in 79. Passenger service along that southern route ended in the early 70s
amtrak is one enormous FAIL. Government-run and employing government “workers” it is prone to complete failure at great financial cost to the taxpayers.
Well, yes. Guarantee me cost-plus-7-percent, and I'll make anything work. But why should we guarantee the rail unions, and rail management, a cost-plus deal in an inherently uncompetitive industry in which most routes are natural monopolies?
I've taken a handful of long distance trail trips in recent years. It's a pleasant way to travel when you have time to burn. But it's cheaper to fly, and for intermediate trips, the high cost is prohibitive for families, who will almost always opt to drive.
I’ve seen that about the Sunset Limited.
It is my recollection that the LA to Jacksonville run ended when the barge took out the Amtrack train. When did the service resume to end again during Katrina?
We took the Great Northern from Portland to Glacier. The dining car joined us in Spokane. We arrived at the west entrance three hours late due to freight trains having priority on the tracks.
Our return trip was even worse as the train was 5 1/2 hours late just getting to the portal.
Speaking to the porters, we were told this normal.
Never again.
In 1980, I took a round trip to Ann Arbor, Mich. on Amtrak, following the same route. I was with Youth for Reagan, and we were on our way to the Republican National Convention in Detroit. Someone in the GOP hierarchy thought it would be wonderful to make this an old-fashioned "whistle stop" campaign trip, but we quickly discovered what it was like to ride on a socialist railroad.
We were heading across the Midwest during the hottest heatwave since 1936, yet the air conditioning failed--and the windows couldn't be opened. So everyone drank beer to stay cool, and the train soon ran out.
When told the train would be stopping for about a half hour at La Junta, many of us realized that would be a good opportunity to find a local liquor store and get some more beer. So we quickly found a store about a block from the station and mobbed it--and I was one of the first in line.
When we got to Ann Arbor, we were 14 hours late, and we returned to Los Angeles 12 hours late. I vowed never again to ride on Amtrak, and I never have to this day.
I’ve taken the steam train from Williams to the rim. We were “robbed” on the way back. I have pictures of my kids, arms up, holding their favorite Thomas the Tank Engines. If you want to bring back passenger trains, you have to make the journey as good as the destination.
Is the Trans-Canadian having this problem?
They fixed the bridge, but Katrina took out the whole line.
Amtrack management does not want to turn a profit. They have problems with how they account for everything, apparently due to the way their accounting rules work it cost less to sell a seat for a single trip from New Orleans to Chicago, than to sell the same seat three times for New Orleans to Memphis, Memphis to St. Louis, and St Louis to Chicago, even if the price for that each of those intermediate tickets was the same as the end to end ticket.
I believe that Congress and Amtrack’s Board of Governers should be given a choice, privatize Amtrack and get no further Federal monies, or spend the money over the next 10 to 20 years to creates a true national system. I believe that a true national system would have trains visiting all of the 100 largest cities (metro Areas) in the US at least 6 times daily, with a few exceptions (Amtrack will never have service to Honolulu HI, or San Juan PR, and Anchorage AK is unlikely, at best). Those 6 trains would be three high speed limiteds which only stop at larger cities and 3 slower locals that stop at every whistle stop on the route.
Note that high speed rail is not actually part of this plan, although as improvements are made to the system the limiteds may get to speed of 120+. Remember that for many countries high speed rail is a national prestige project.
I like to take the Salem to Seattle Amtrak Cascades. It sure beats driving I-5 anymore. The return from Seattle-Salem is the Coast Starlight, which usually arrives on time.
See!
All you need is imagination and rail lines through rugged mountains in the SW Desert are a snap!
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I know they repaired the bridge and got freight running in fairly short order, but when did passenger service resume?
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