Posted on 09/02/2010 3:11:27 PM PDT by Willie Green
Trains are as American as apple pie and baseball, which, let's face it, have struggled in popularity since the advent of Breyer's ice cream and ACC basketball.
Think Petticoat Junction. Think that old lonesome whistle. Think John Henry, steel-driving man. And don't forget "If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone," and Boxcar Willie, hoboes, Saturday morning "Soul Train," "Throw Mama from the Train," "Trains, Planes, and Automobiles," "I been working on the railroad" and, of course, Johnny Cash's "I hear that train a' coming."
When I was a little starry-eyed girl, my friend Jean invited the second-grade Girl Scout troop to her house for a birthday party. Her father had something to do with the railroad- - or else he was just a train hobbyist - and train tracks wound through the woods and fields around their house. We all piled into the cars of the little child-size train, her father put on his engineer's cap, and we rode and rode around those tracks, that whoot-whoot of the whistle blowing around each bend.
I loved it. I'd seen people riding trains in plenty of movies, even sleeping overnight in those little compartments, but I'd never ridden one before. I'd listened to my grandparents tell stories of riding trains with the ease I was used to riding in cars. They depended on them, whether they were going from the country to the city or from city to city. My grandfather rode trains when he was a young soldier. I could picture him looking out from the window, my grandmother standing at the depot, waving the handkerchief she was also using to wipe the tears from her eyes.
I can count on my fingers the number of times I've ridden trains since second grade, and most of those times have been within the last five years. But all that is about to change.
If the North Carolina Department of Transportation's grant application to build a depot in downtown Lexington is funded, we'll have as many as eight routes per day picking up and letting off passengers within just five years. This is great and exciting news, not just for me but for our town.
Right now, two trains - the Carolinian and the Piedmont - pass through Lexington en route from New York to Charlotte, or Raleigh to Charlotte, and back, but the engineers and conductors, and the people in the seats barely glance this way, and the town flies by in a blur. If we want to catch a ride, we have to drive to the depot in High Point or Salisbury or one of the other towns along the way.
With the new depot, the train will stop here, just like it does during the Barbecue Festival, to drop off passengers or pick them up.
But will stubborn Americans who are used to cars and independence give it all up to ride the train?
There are skeptics. A Dispatch letter writer last week said, "All this money [is] being spent to provide rail service for passengers who do not exist."
Well, I exist. And I'm betting the farm that I'm not the only one out there who's tired of traffic jams, Richard Petty wannabes, tailgaters and the stress that comes from the interstate highway.
This has long been my dream: to live in the South and ride the train to work and back.
I'm a commuter, making my way to Charlotte four days a week. I don't really complain about the drive, partly because it's what I consider "down time," nobody to bother me except other drivers on the road. But if you press, I'll tell you that the route's getting old along with me. And especially once construction on the new Yadkin River bridge begins, it includes a level of stress I'd just as soon do without.
When the train stop comes to Lexington, I'll park my car at the depot right there in the vicinity of the farmer's market, ride the fast train to Charlotte while I'm grading papers or reading a book or sleeping. At the Charlotte depot, I'll catch the light rail train to the university, and in the afternoons, I'll reverse direction and wind up back at the depot by dinnertime.
I'm not the only commuter in this town, and poised at the juncture of several major highways close to cities that continue to grow outward, Lexington, with all the charm of the small town, is set to become even more of a commuter town in the years to come.
If you build it, they will come. If you build it, they will ride.
You bet they will.
And as they do, some independence may be lost, but we'll grow in community, both economically and socially.
And for adults and children, we'll keep this one small part of Americana alive.
I caught that too.
Isn't throwing "conservative" into that mix a contradiction?
Is “Willie Green” actually an Obama admin plant who not only posts these notices here, but helps orchestrate the production of the pro-mass-transit funding articles in papers across the country? Inquiring minds want to know.
“I’d be in favor of cutting the subsidies of trucking”
What are the “subsidies” to trucking?
The $25 dollar one way fare for the 168 mile trip from Raliegh to Charlotte is a subsidized fare and NOT the actual cost of the trip. People think they are sometimes getting a “bargain” on a train trip, but they have paid a whole lot more when the tax-payer funded subsidies for the rails are added in.
And roller coasters are the only trains that have made a real profit in the last 50 years.
Trucks do not pay road tax proportionate to the damage they do to roads compared to cars (and SUVs).
I was thinking about taking the train from Charlotte to Raleigh to go the state fair. For 100.00 for my wife and
I, plus parking, and additional transportation on the other end I’ll pass. I would enjoy a dinner train, but the last one I knew about in NC was sold and left the state a decade ago.
We had some relatives “ride the rails” from Ohio to Seattle. They arrived at our house, and even before unpacking were making arrangements to cancel their return tickets and a book a flight for the both of them!
Part of it though was the man is a VERY picky eater. I recall as a kid going on the train alone to visit a friend that had moved away. As a 13 year old it was lots of fun. Walking around the train, sneaking into a fancy “suite” and hanging out, etc. Probably not so much fun at 50!
“Trucks do not pay road tax proportionate to the damage they do to roads compared to cars (and SUVs).”]
By whose calculation; under which state’s levys; where’s the data???
My calculations. Fuel tax. You can look it up.
One example (check Google to learn of more): Road construction (especially with such things as the "Stimulus Package") are costs dropped largely on the taxpayer, with trucking user fees far less than the actual cost burden trucks place on the road network. When trucking pays 60% of their burden back into the system, the taxpayers are stuck with the other 40%. That 40% greatly exceeds any rail subsidies.
Also, this (PDF) has some interesting considerations.
Willie, seriously you need help.
“with trucking user fees far less than the actual cost burden trucks place on the road network. When trucking pays 60% of their burden back into the system, the taxpayers are stuck with the other 40%. That 40% greatly exceeds any rail subsidies. “
I asked for data and you give me more statements with no data to support them.
With your own RV you don't have these problems.
The roundtrip fare Belen-ABQ-Santa Fe (200 miles) on Bill Richardson's $450 million dollar railroad is only $9 with discounts available. Farebox recovery is 9 percent; taxpayers (local, state and federal) pay the other 91 percent. Only a couple of thousand people per day ride, many state government employees. A new Republican governor should be elected in November and hopefully will inject some reality into the fares.
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