Posted on 08/22/2021 7:19:23 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
The massive tonnage hauled by freight rail every year means that most American consumers own goods transported on freight trains. Biden wants to ensure passenger trains have the right of way.
There are approximately 233,000 miles of railroad track in the United States, and 143,361 total miles operated for all freight railroads in North America.
One can always assuredly assume that if a Democrat says it, it entirely and completely wrong.
Period.
These clowns couldn’t cut their way out of a paper bag given any knife of their choice.
My trick is the 90k + miles of unused tracks. Turn them into hiking trails with surplus containers as way stations. It would clear the way for emptying our jails. Just handcuff them to the rails somehow. It would save money by emptying the local jails that are nothing more than hotels. Healthier too.
“To ensure that passenger trains have the right of way”
So a three mile long freight train carrying millions and millions of dollars worth of goods has to pull over and wait for a 4 car passenger train carrying 50 people enjoying a government subsidized ride can trundle by at the alarming speed of 60 miles an hour.
Good Lord.
I once tried to keep up with the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner along the 405. I was doing over 90 and it was still pulling away when I backed off.
What passenger trains? Other than short line commuter trains there is no passenger service. When you do find an excursion train, it costs three times that of air fare to the same destination.
Depends on location, whether track is single use ie, passenger only or joint use passenger/freight, types of signals, presence of technologies such as positive train control. I know where I live here in the Midwest Amtrak shares track with CSX. I believe the speed limit is 79 mph but I’ve never seen the Cardinal run much over 65. And that’s on the part of the route that traverses the flat and straight. Once it hits the south end of the Chicago metroplex you can be stuck in the Union Pacific yards for an hour or more.
You know there is a sort of romanticism associated with freight trains going somewhere. Hoboes escaping or looking for work? The song “Freight Train” was an upbeat saddie, about a guy who’s failed in love. Methinks there’s room for more commerce as well as more lore. Only the government can get in the way. Funny I do remember Pete Seager singing it, he the banjoing bolshevik. If the left loves that stuff why can’t we run with it?
“City Of New Orleans,” by WIllie Nelson
Ridin’ on the City of New Orleans Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey the train pulls out of Kankakee
And rolls along past houses farms and fields
Passing trains that have no name and freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles
Good morning, America. How are you?
Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
And I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
Dealin’ cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point, ain’t no one keepin’ score
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
And feel the wheels rumbling ‘neath the floor
And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers
Ride their fathers’ magic carpet made of steel
Mothers with their babes asleep rockin’ to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel
Good morning, America. How are you?
Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
And I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
Night time on the City of New Orleans changing cars in Memphis Tennessee
Halfway home we’ll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea
And all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain’t heard the news
The conductor sings his songs again the passengers will please refrain
This train has got the disappearing railroad blues
Good morning, America. How are you?
Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
Evidently Steve Goodman wrote it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_New_Orleans_(song)
But the link I got my lyrics from says it was Willie Nelson. I think that’s wrong.
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/willienelson/cityofneworleans.html
“I once tried to keep up with the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner along the 405. I was doing over 90 and it was still pulling away when I backed off.”
I was doing about 55 or so on a long Levee Road down south, and a very impressive bass boat passed my vehicle.
Goodman wrote it (inspired by riding the IC to college in southern Illinois in the 1960s), but Arlo Guthrie had the big hit with it.
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