Amtrak gets more funding

[bananas]

http://wvgazette.com/section/Business/200711036

November 04, 2007
A new tack for Amtrak?
More funding may not be enough for W.Va. routes

By Joe Morris
Staff writer

Amtrak is on track to get a big cash infusion from Congress, $11.4 billion over six years, that supporters say will put an end to annual budget overruns and preserve rural West Virginia routes.

But even the passenger rail line’s staunchest advocates now admit it won’t ever be able to turn a profit, and much of the new proposed funding would come only after states start spending on Amtrak improvements.

More important, although Amtrak ridership is up nationwide, it’s down significantly in West Virginia — and the new legislation hints that sparsely traveled, money-losing routes will be held to account before long.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., one of Amtrak’s longtime backers, is hailing the legislation as a lifeline for state rail service.

<snip>

[shenmue]

1. I hope they get the track improvements

I was on Amtrak from NY to FL once, and part of the track flooded... we had to wait for the water to recede...

[jpak]

2. Good - I hope they expand Downeaster service to Lewistion and Brunswick (Maine)

n/t

[Kolesar]

13. Maine funds that train and they just added a fifth daily trip

...from what I have read elsewhere. The Downeaster has been a definite success!

A state government can contribute some funding to leverage a lot of benefit for a transportation option.

[jpak]

14. They even hold the Portland-bound train when Red Sox games go into extra innings at Fenway

:thumbsup:

[Steepler0t]

3. Went from San Francisco to Penn station in NYC

Don't get me started about bad tracks.

One of my fellow travelers who was a European told me Bulgaria and Romania have better rail.

Repug run govt. = embarrassing

[Vogon_Glory]

5. Voter Ignorance: What The Pugs Are Counting On

I suspect that the Repugs are counting on voter ignorance. The Pugs don't want the voters to think about Europe and East Asia, where there is quality rail service. (Even the Ayatollahs' Iran is supposed to have a fairly good passenger rail network!). The Pugs want the dumbed-down American electorate to think of Mexico and Argentina where most intercity passenger rail has been decimated.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Amtrak Needs The Money

The sorry state of US intercity rail passenger traffic is an absolute scandal. Compared to the state of passenger rail in Europe and East Asia, US passenger rail is a joke. The web of intercity passenger trains was drastically pruned when Amtrak was formed back in 1971, and has been drastically pruned even further. A lot of western routes, like Amtrak's Salt Lake City--Seattle and Portland Pioneed and the Salt Lake City--Las Vegas--Los Angeles Desert Wind have been gone for years. So has The Chicago--Kansas City--Fort Worth--Houston Lone Star. On some routes, Amtrak only runs three times a week, on many of the others only once a day.

Amtrak's equipment woes are yet another of Gee Dubya Bush's Duck Soup Posse's silent scandals. Amtrak has at least fifty passenger rail cars that are out of service because there isn't enough money to repair them.

Amtrak provides vital public transportation to numerous small towns and cities left high and dry by the drying-up of intercity bus routes.

The US needs to get over the fiction that Amtrak is supposed to make a proft and the right-wing privateers and would-be looters should be told to go take a hike.

Don't get me started on bus service. While some parts of the US have excellent bus service, there are many routes (mainly east-west central state routes where bus frequency matches Amtrak's worst.).

Incidentally, there's a public transportation forum.

[stuntcat]

10. They're worth it, that's for sure.

This wednesday I'm taking Amtrak from Alexandria to Newport News VA, and the ticket was only $39. I'm the cheapest person in the world so it's a big chunk to me but I know it's reasonable, maybe even kinda cheap. I'd love for the prices to stay where they are but it really is worth more from us all, to at least keep them running.

[XemaSab]

6. Amtrak: a perfect example of "starve the beast."

I've been across the country and back twice on Amtrak, and holy cow... where to begin?

Tracks so bad I thought we were going to derail. Going up Colorado's Front Range at 10 mph behind a freight train. Hitting a car in the dead of night out in Bumf***, Utah. Stopping out in the desert between Area 51 and East Whorehouse, Nevada, so we could get a new crew 'cause the old crew had been on too long. Wheels that screeched loudly on every turn between Chicago and Sacramento. Stopping for two hours so we could abandon the lounge car out in Dead Stick, North Dakota. Stopping for another two hours so we could have someone check a bad wheel in Swampy Bottom, Minnesota. Running out of food for the last 10 hours of the trip.

Only one of these things is NOT the fault of Amtrak or whichever railroad owns the tracks.

I like taking the train, but damn, you've got to have a lot of patience for that shit.

[phantom power]

7. Good. I agree with Kunstler that we'll wish we had much better rail infrastructure, soon.

[NNadir]

8. Of course, what we really need is to stop funding highways and fuel wars

and sink all the highway and dangerous fossil fuel war money into electrified transit.

It's actually quite good here in the Northeast. I can hop on a shuttle in Princeton and be in any major city in the Northeast by rail.

It's great.

We need to restore trolleys too. And bike paths. And we need to kill our cars.

[kestrel91316]

9. I'm in shock. No nastiness and namecalling??????

Oh, that's right. As long as it promotes electricity PRODUCED BY NUKES you're ok with it. But I'm quite sure that the region's electricity ISN'T all from nukes, so you'd better get back to the spite.

[NNadir]

11. Um, let me guess... This an example of civility on your part.

One of the things you can expect from dopey anti-nukes is hypocrisy.

I despise ignorance. I make no secret of that.

Instead of whining about me, you might try to find a single victim of the used nuclear fuel you're also always whining about.

There are still ZERO anti-nukes who can count exajoules, and there are still ZERO anti-nukes who could care less about dangerous fossil fuel waste.

DANGEROUS.

FOSSSIL.

FUEL.

WASTE.

BOO!

Rarely, very rarely, extremely rarely, there is a post from an anti-nuke that makes some sense.

I don't believe electric trains will save the world, but they will help, especially if they are powered by climate change gas free energy. I have long supported the rails, because it is my pleasure to live in New Jersey, where there is an excellent electric mass transit system, mostly powered by nuclear energy.

You. Are. AGAINST... ...the world's largest source, by far, of climate change gas free energy. And like most anti-nukes you're just whining and whining and whining and stamping your little feet. The anti-nukes are trying to vandalize nuclear energy in my state, because they don't give a fuck about dangerous fossil fuel waste.

They never have. They never will.

If you can fucking produce a single rail system of this entire planet that is fueled by cute solar and wind yuppie toys, you're welcome to do so. But you can't. Like the rest of the anti-nuke crowd, it's all talk. You couldn't care less about action.

It is absolutely amazing how much whining about civility there is from petulant little yuppie brats who most likely much of their time <em>driving</em> to "aren't I noble and gracious?" happy face pseudo-environmental love-ins. I note, with contempt, that few of them are able to intelligently discuss energy, because they are lazy and get all of their information by googling to happy talk websites.

By contrast, I spent part of my evening going over some recently published papers on the cute biodiesel industry's plans for for expansion of palm oil plantations, all of which were published in the upcoming issue of Environmental Science and Technology and Energy and Fuels and a pretty disturbing paper, also in Environmental Science and Technology on the "reduce phosphate only" strategy for addressing the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, about which I expect you couldn't care less.

Now.

Why don't you have a nice glass of Allen's Coffee Brandy and a few glasses of locally grown whine with a few sockpuppets? You can all cry about mean NNadir is to you because you can't count exajoules, and because you couldn't care less what the world's sixth largest company is doing. I always hear from you guys all about the latest "world's largest" solar station - complete with "percent talk" and watt/joule confusion. And what is the sixth world's largest company? That would be Gazprom, Gerhard Schroeder's owners. With Gazprom's growth, it seems like the payoff paid off.

Heckuva job, anti-nukes! Heckuva job!

Here is a listing of the world's largest corporations: http://media.ft.com/cms/ac6bbb8c-2baf-11dc-b498-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=95d63dfa-257b-11dc-b338-000b5df10621.pdf

Of the world's 15 largest companies, 3 of them have bought prominent anti-nukes outright. Of those 3 companies, two, Gazprom and Royal Dutch Shell are oil and gas companies, and one is a "car culture" dependent business, Walmart. Gazprom owns Schroeder, and Royal Dutch Shell and Walmart - chipped in to buy Amory Lovins, because he's a little pricey, even for rapacious corporations.

Let me say it again: Heckuva job, anti-nukes. Heckuva job.

I couldn't care less what you and your fellow cute little Tesla Sportscar enthusiasts think about me. If you must know, I am in deep mourning, because the world spent too much time listening to your paid (off) anti-nuke friends. We're in a world of hurt, and you're still holding your breath until you turn blue because I don't like you because you're one of the anti-nukes trying to hurt my family. And let's be clear. It's my children who will have to breathe that shit you're selling if you succeed in your ignorant quest to destroy the infrastructure at Oyster Creek. This is no fucking theory. This is my children's flesh.

You haven't read a single life cycle analysis of energy production in your entire life. If you had read such a paper, you wouldn't be here with your cute little anti-nuke rhetoric and you certainly wouldn't be proud of it.

Tough shit if you can't handle my anger. I couldn't care less. I am not here to make polite kissy face with ignorance. I am here to fight ignorance. Ignorance KILLS.

Fly to Maine. Have a few glass of Allen's coffee brandy and talk all about "world's largest" solar installations. Maybe it will make you and your little friend feel better and give you some more guts. Don't worry about the peasants. They probably won't be able to find you in the sustainably managed forest, even when you light the wood fired oven.

[Vogon_Glory]

12. FYI, Railroad Passenger Advocacy Groups

For DU'ers who are interested, there are at least two rail passenger advocacy groups that I know of. The National Association of Railroad Passengers has been around for a long time. Their web site address is www.narprail.org. There is also another group called Friends of Amtrak. I know very little about that one.