Have you seen the ruins of the detroit train station?
It is on “the fabulous ruins of detroit” web site. The building has been abandonded for years. When I las rode a train into there, the station was a trailer in the rail yard.
Not even a double wide, just a trailer.
There was a guy in the bar car all night, deep in his cups - in uniform, of course. I asked what his job was.
“Fireman.”
You mean, you shovel in the coal?
“Yep.”
Uh, the train is a diesel-electic. Do you own a shovel? Have you ever seen a coal shovel?
“Union.”
The train station in Detroit is owned by Matty Maroun. He's Detroit's richest democrat donor / slumlord/ friend to Kilpatrics, and owner of the Ambassador bridge. He's suddenly decided to fix up the train station after 30 years.
A little background on Maroun and what's going on here.
As I stated above, Maroun owns the Ambassador bridge which I don't believe is quite legal anyway (Due to the fact that its an international crossing). Maroun does minimal maintinance on his bridge and controls the crossing with an iron fist.
Michigan and Canada would like to build a new bridge to get out from under Maroun's fist but Maroun doesn't want the competition so he says he wants to build a second bridge. Normally I would support a private entity building a bridge but Maroun can't be trusted. Instead Maroun is behind a smear campaign against a new bridge. The ads proclaim that firemen, police and teachers will be fired if tax dollars are spent on a new bridge. BTW, it should be noted that Maroun has hired Dick Morris as a spokesman to oppose the new bridge.
The reality is that Canada has agreed to loan us our half of the cost which would be repaid by tolls and we would pay our own share of maintinance costs going forward. American business supports the public bridge and would pay the bulk of the tolls anyway without having to pay the slumlord.
Wikileaks release raises suspicions of backroom Detroit-Windsor Tunnel deal between Kwame Kilpatrick, Matty Moroun
I don't like the $200 million choo choo but if the taxpayers are stuck with the bill, we should get the bridge we actually need.