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But there are amtrak lines that go through NO. There was the Crescent, the Sunset and the City of New Orleans lines: North, East and West (unless they were downsided away). It might have been a good idea to think of an emergency evacuation plan that included trains. How many other cities have that many amtrack routes any more?

RE: Amtrak for pre-hurricane evacuation.

Amtrak equipment is already stretched thin nationwide. What you are suggesting is that somehow, by Friday morning at the earliest, Amtrak could have freed up usable cars to send to the NO region in less than 24 hours, then move thousands out before the storm hit Sunday. That scenario is just not possible; even the freight railroads had no ability to move all of their cars and cargo out of the area.

Right now, the railroads are in the same boat as every other form of land transportation in NO. The rail lines into and out of the delta are on bridges and causeways; those that may have survived are not usable at any rate until, as a previous poster mentioned, they have been checked for structural safety. We can't even get the most basic supplies to sustain human LIFE into this area yet, let alone repair rail services for evacuation.

The only viable rail alternative for any passenger movement would have been localized rail transit services that stretched out to unaffected areas - ie in NYC, this would be to Croton Harmon/New Haven. In other words, only the North East Corridor and its immediate commuter service providers would be capable of moving people in this fashion (and, I might add, would need to undamaged to be usable). NO,LA has NONE of that. As far as I know, the only local rail transit was the trolley line that begins and ends on Canal St.

This is a horrible situation. Again, any hindsight judgment must rest on shoulders of local and state government who had NO PLAN to deal with this, and any idea that the feds should have had a detailed plan without state/local understanding is shortsighted and ridiculous. What has happened to our fellow Americans stranded in that hell hole right now is criminal in every sense of the word...