My issue with this is a lack of coherence, train usage?
Great!
But the neither fish nor fowl nature of the upgrades leaves me wondering if they know what they are doing.
ping, this is how they will go after truckers
Good, I have been wondering why freight rail didn’t make a lot more sense as a stimulus investment.
Unlike people, freight is actually willing to travel by train.
Over in Portland, OR; TRIMET inaugurated their “Westside Express Service” or WES last year between Wilsonville and Portland with a couple of special passenger trains that utilize the main freight rails. It has had nothing but problems and complaints.
The very first time the train ran a morning run, people along the track raised holy hell about the train’s horn that had to be sounded at every single crossing. Nobody bothered to do a noise survey beforehand, and the noise at 4:30 AM when the first train comes through is loud enough to be dangerous to your hearing. They are still working noise issues.
One of the trains broke down in the middle of the mainline recently, and had to be pushed onto a siding, and all the passengers transferred to buses.
And, last week TRIMET announced big service cuts to the system because nobody is riding the damned thing, certainly nowhere near enough to justify even one train, but TRIMET has to save some face, ya know...
The Oregonian describes TRIMET as a Health Benefits Provider who also happens to own some buses and trains. That’s all you need to know about the state of Public Transportation out here, and it is all heavily subsidized by Business taxes that have been extracted from the local economy here for going on forty years.
actually this makes a lot more sense than building a Maglev to Greensburg that nobody will ever ride