[cicero's_son]

Awesome!

Build a railroad from Chicago to Evansville. They certainly hand out enough speeding tickets along Hwy. 41 to finance it.

[Tax-chick]

at a cost of $7.7 billion for new equipment and track and signal improvements

Chicken feed.

(Rail ping!)

[sassbox]

a good idea in theory, but who would manage it? Amtrak? If so, then it will never work - Amtrak is a disaster.

[Petronski]

If it's estimated at $7.7bn, the true expectation should be $10bn. And if the true expectation is $10bn, it will end up costing $16-20bn.

And ridership will never hit expectations.

[society-by-contract]

The state should not subsidize railroads. (19th C flashback!)

[gcruse]

it will require significant federal funding

On top of the $10 trillion SS reform?  Get it line.  (It's a very long line.)

[BigSkyFreeper]

It might run through 9 midwestern states, but every tax payer will be subsidizing it.

[TexasTransplant]

Your continued "Love" of putting that Gun to My Head to Pay for Your "Greater Good" has pushed me over the edge...

Willie you need to move to China, they have a Dam with your name all over it, you can push around all the "little people" that you want, and most of them don't drive so you can have your Goons collecting Money for really Serious Infractions of "your law" instead of just simple "not wearing a seatbelts", they may even let you shoot a couple of us.

The problem with you loving Government (you may never realize it) so much, is that it will never Love you back.

FReedom is Love, self Love, Love of your fellow man, Trust and Government should probably not be spoken in the same sentence. (Yeah I know sounds a little DU on the edges but the Fruit is pure Freedom)

[Murtyo]

http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/state/docs/railmidwest.pdf

Chicago is the Capital of this world.

[sergeantdave]

over a 10-year period at a cost of $7.7 billion

---

Yeah, sure..........

That means the cost will be $77 billion over 25 years and will attract mostly bums, winos and socialist mayors as riders.

What a screwball.

"Hey, Ernie! Let's build greased pneumatic tubes from LA to New York. We stick people in and squirt them through with 2 million psi blasts of air. They'll cover 3,000 miles in 3 minutes."

"Cool."

[ZOOKER]

I'm concerned about how they could keep 3000 miles of track secure.

Imagine the kinetic energy of a 100-ton train going 110 mph leaving the rails. The death toll might not match the WTC attacks, but the headlines would.

[IronJack]

I'd be interested in seeing the details of this proposal. It smells a lot like bacon to me, but I'd love to debunk the revenue and cost projections. It could be more fun than a Spiderman comic.

[quantim]

PORK, of the first order.

Don't forget the expenses of third generation handouts to the employee's offspring with automatic increases in benefits, paid for by your grandchildren.

 

[Vince Ferrer]

How's the Las Vegas monorail doing these days?

[LowCountryJoe]

Willie doesn't appear to have taken a position on this one but being the "conservative" that he is, do either of you have any guesses as to which way he's leaning?

Also interesting is the numerous keywords assigned to this thread. I'm telling you that it's not of my doing and it seems as though Willie has quite the growing fan club.

[FreedomPoster]

We need more of it, because rail is such a huge success in America. Just look at Amtrack.

[newgeezer]

Heard-this-on-the-news-this-morning ping.