Is the very concept dead here? Are the hopes for seeing many 150+ mph trains rolling across the rails now relegated to pure fantasy (or just the borders of Rhode Island and Massachusetts)?
I prefer to remain optimistic, but the total absence of capital investment in HSR lately leaves me utterly disappointed, and looking to the skies at regional jets in smoldering anger. Where are these trains...???
[This message has been edited by irishchieftain (edited 04-14-2002).]
[This message has been edited by irishchieftain (edited 04-14-2002).]
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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy
On the subject of high-speed service, patience is as essential as determination. As with any major public works project it will take a long time to plan, fund and implement the service. The planning for high-speed rail is still in its infancy. It will be 10 years or more before we see them running outside of the NEC.
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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy
[This message has been edited by Mr. Toy (edited 04-15-2002).]
25 years later, I'm still waiting for even one of those corridors to emerge (NYP - WAS was NOT one, as it had already emerged at that point. So had NYP - BOS, with the Turbotrain carded for 3:35 Back Bay to Grand Central).
Don't anybody hold your breath...
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Originally posted by rresor:
Don't anybody hold your breath...
Good advice. The recent developments may be encouraging, but it's all happened before. If history is any indication, we'll get one new corridor for every ten proposed. If we're lucky.
The only hope is the fact that we're running out of room for highways, and that oil prices are likely to skyrocket in the future. But since most US domestic policy tends to be reactionary rather than foresighted, it's hard to see anything happenning until it's too late.
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Originally posted by CarterB:
Mr. Toy, unfortunately my 'pessimism' is based on fact. Congress won't increase funding for next FY beyond what it is now.
Actually Amtrak's $1.2 billion request is working its way through the budget process as we speak, and there is a high probability it will pass.
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Amtrak is hemorrhaging money, thus I would bet on cutbacks of routes, particularly the overnight runs.
Historically, cutbacks have almost always hurt Amtrak's bottom line. Those overnight trains are full of people and many transfer to and from regional trains. If those connections are lost the regional trains will lose a lot of business. Long distance trains perform better by many standards (load factors, revenue per passenger mile, etc) than regional trains.
It should be added that outside of the NEC, the regional trains are HUGE money losers. California's trains' for example, cover less than 50% of their expenses at the ticket box. The rest is a direct state/federal subsidy. Long distance trains actually cover more of their costs than the regional trains do.
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Days of the WOOF Ltd. may be over.
What is WOOF Ltd?
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I have felt for years that the future of rail in USA will be based on regional initiatives, where the states/regions put their money where their mouths are........and then a National system can use these 'feeders' as the basis of interregional services.
Emerging regional corridors are all based around long-distance routes. The long distance infrastructure provides a foundation on which regional services are built, not the other way around. Regional services, while important, are less effective if passengers are unable to travel outside of the region. The long-distance trains tie the regional corridors together, allowing more flexibility of travel, thus attracting more passengers.
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Yer not gonna get the Feds to keep coughing up money for a train that stops in E. Bejesus, MT at 3:00am to pick up one passenger going to W. Podunk, ID.
Aside from the fact that Amtrak doesn't stop in cities with those names, let's assume you are referring to the Empire Builder. If we were talking about a train that only served two isolated towns in the North, you would be right. But the Seattle/Chicago leg serves 40 cities and towns, big and small. This train is one of Amtrak's best financial performers. By serving 40 locations, it offers a whopping 780 different combinations of origin/destination city pairs. (And that doesn't even include the Spokane/Portland branch). This makes it tremendously versatile. It acts as both a long-haul service AND serves as a regional corridor train for all the regions it passes through (as do all long-distance trains).
Many cities and towns in Montana, probably more than on any other route, depend on the trains for winter transportation. It is a vital economic lifeline for many towns, not just a minor player in the transportation field.
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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy
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What is WOOF Ltd?
Oh dear, this term showed up on this board...
Well, in "context", the "WOOF Limited" refers to any Amtrak long-distance train (i.e. that Amtrak reduced to a shell of its former glorious self, what with extending schedules back to the days of 4-4-0 steam locos), WOOF being a derogatory acronym for "Well-off old folks" or "well-off old f@rts", i.e. the stereotypical denizen of Amtrak's long-distance service nowadays. I say stereotypical, because I've seen a cross-section of the populace on Amtrak's LD services whenever I've been on them...
[This message has been edited by irishchieftain (edited 04-16-2002).]
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ROTFL!!!!!!
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What budget Amtrak gets for FY03 and how they use it remains to be seen
Well, the sad thing is, most likely, that it'll be meager pickings designed to maintain the status quo, or (as has been noted over Amtrak's existence) allow the status quo to decay slowly. Even sadder is the bare fact that no other entities in the US are willing to take up the HSR mantle, for obvious reasons.