Amtrak Posts Thanksgiving Ridership Mark

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | December 3, 2003

[newgeezer]

A friend just flew round trip to California, 4400 miles, for 378 bucks. Driving my F150 would have used more than that in gas alone plus all the fast food I'd have eaten, wear and tear, oil change, sleeping, etc.

Yeah, that's true, especially if your friend didn't need to rent a car at the other end. For a family, of course, the numbers crunch a little differently. There's no "Child Credit" on an airliner. ;O)

[Willie Green]

Those were merely passin' thru.
Railroads are what populated the Great In-Between.

[discostu]

Compounding wrongness with more wrongness. I live in the great in-between pal, people were staying before trains.

[Willie Green]

The railroad could have been built much cheaper than through the kickbacks, payoffs, and double billing criminals and politicians that passed funding through in the first place.

Insufficient capital.
The railroads could have never raised the funding had they not sold land to the settlers that they receieved as a subsidy from the government.

Internal improvements are not the place of the national government.

I suppose you don't approve of the Interstate Highway system, either. Or the system of locks and dams that make our inland waterways and rivers navigable. Or our major airports and air traffic control system.

[org.whodat]

Maybe we should form a Freeper support group for those of us who love travelling by rail....you're not alone.

And having someone else pay for it..

[grania]

the government of these United States should not be involved in the railroad business

But it should be involved in building highways and runways and airport security?

You can't imagine crossing the Mississippi at sunset in a viewing car, until you've experienced it.

[billbears]

I suppose you don't approve of the Interstate Highway system, either. Or the system of locks and dams that make our inland waterways and rivers navigable. Or our major airports and air traffic control system.

As a matter of fact, no.

Most historians argue tht the transcontinental railroads would have never been built if the only source of financing came from private capital markets, but that view is wrong. All of England's railroad lines were privately financed, and American railroad enterpreneur James J. Hill did in fact build a transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern, without government subsidies. Hill's line was built fifteen years later than the government subsidized ones but it likely would have been built even sooner had his competitors not received millions of dollars in subsidies. The Great Northern was a famously efficient and profitable operation; by contrast, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific were so inefficient that they were bankrupt as soon as they were completed in 1869--The Real Lincoln, Thomas DiLorenzo, pp.247-248

[Willie Green]

All of England's railroad lines were privately financed,

It doesn't take much to cross a dinky little island that's slightly smaller than Oregon, especially when major cities and towns are already in place to ship freight and passengers as soon as you build it.

[billbears]

Sorry, but by the 1850s many of the states were either considering, or had added to their constitutions, wording explicitly stopping internal improvements. These boondoggles were most stringently argued for by the first big government party, the Whigs, the Republicans. This spending is based in Clay's American System and Hamilton's rants.

[Willie Green]

These boondoggles were most stringently argued for by the first big government party, the Whigs, the Republicans.

Well three cheers for the America First! GOP that I used to love and admire. They favored tariffs too, you know.

Now all they seem to do is giveaway marxist drugs to our senior citizens while they undermine our own industries with imports.
Nope. It's not the same Party anymore.

[billbears]

They favored tariffs too, you know.

Yes and the tariffs they favored, at the levels they wanted, started a most bloody war. I am for tariffs, as envisioned by the Founders and I think somewhat at the levels we discussed (8-10% across the board), especially with nations that are not dealing fairly with us as well. But the GOP of that day was a big government party and least of all conservative.

[Boxsford]

You been reading 'Uncle Eric"?

[newgeezer]

You been reading 'Uncle Eric"?

Never heard of him. But, a Google search turned up some interesting stuff.

[MizzouTigerRepublican]

the trouble with Amtrak for me is that I can get a round trip plane ticket to San Jose from KC for around 200 bucks. It is a nonstop flight and I get there in 4 hours. With a train it takes 24 hours one way and is almost 500 bucks.