Replacement came out decades ago.
Outside government subsidy and the Northeast corridor, Amtrak can't make it.
People just don't want to spend days in a cramped sleeper when they could hop on a jet and be there in hours.
They’re called “airplanes”.
Supertrain now.
Railroads: A 19th Century solution to 21st Century problems. Only make sense in very population dense locales. Most of the growth in the U.S. for the last 50-ish years has been in the Sunbelt, and is not particularly densely populated. People like elbow room, despite what the urban planners tell us.
Monorail!..........IT’S TIME.................
Took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago numerous times - fun trip and food was cooked, not microwaved. Only travel on it first class though, roomette - includes meals.
NYC to West Palm Beach on an Amtrak sleeper:
Best way to travel.
We MUST keep passenger trains running. How else are claustrophobes like Blowsey-Fraud going to travel?
Right now amtrack is affirmative transportation for the monorities so it’s not going anywhere yet. Except down the lose tax payer monies track:-)
How about a “vice-ride”, where all trains go to Vegas. Smoking cars, bar cars, gambling cars, and comfort cars. Just need the statute that makes life on the rails comparable to international waters.
You’d also need to ensure the line travels across at least one deep chasm in order to deal with those that refuse to leave.
They can also have a nanny-car, free of vice, for those that simply want transportation for some part of the line.
Is Amtrak gay?
modern passenger train infrastructure on which private, for-profit companies can operate trains
Or a national nework of canals- one by every house!
Flying cars will make economic use of passenger RR rights of way.
And provide great societal benefit.
Replacement came out decades ago.
Outside government subsidy and the Northeast corridor, Amtrak can't make it.
People just don't want to spend days in a cramped sleeper when they could hop on a jet and be there in hours.
Maybe they should call it ObamTrak.
-PJ
Where’s Willie?
Been re-rewatching the old Twilight Zone shows. They show that commuter trains will kill you or send you to an alternate universe or turn you into a Democrat.
Contract out passenger service to railroads by competitive bid.
I suppose when I'm older and my kids are out of college and fully launched, I'll be able to take the train to visit them (on the odd chance that they live in an Amtrak city), have them pick me up, and have the use of their car while I visit. I will enjoy riding the train under those conditions.
A large part B.S.
The F.A.A, is neither the owner or major investor in the airlines. Comparing the F.A.A. and Amtrak as if that is comparing airlines and trains is bogus - its apples and oranges.
The with Amtrak is not that it does not have enough clout at the table for federal funds. It is that unlike the airlines neither Amtrak nor any of the other passenger rail systems in the country are private corporations with stockholders that demand they run profitably and with profits dependent on fares.
The problem with Amtrak is that because it is a federal government owned quasi-corporation, it cannot get the operating subsidies it needs unless it operates in ways that require even more of such subsidies by running too many long distance lines that are not and likely cannot be run profitably - a constant of too few passengers-per-mile.
About the only part of Amtrak that can likely be run profitably as a private company without federal operating subsdies is the lines on the Northeast Corrider and particularly from Boston to Washington D.C. In that corridor there is population densities that can support passenger rail lines, and cut out of Amtrak it would be seen that they alone are profitable.
But, Amtrak must spend revenue supporting many long distance runs (NY-Chicago, Chicago-New Orleans, Chicago-California, ect., ect.) that are never making revnue for what they cost.
What is needed is total and complete privatization of Amtrak, in whole or in pieces, and on whose ashes a healthy private passenger train industry can rise, focused only on lines and routes that can be operated profitably.
I think with that development and freed from the political demands of the U.S. Congress and rail utopians for a “national rail policy & system”, we would see some of the current private rail freight companies emerge as investors, partners and even owners of new private passenger rail outfits.