Ahh...the Pan American. I believe there was another train called the Humming Bird that followed a similar route.
Yup.Originally Posted by surf
Rand Paul 2016
From Wikipedia on the Humming Bird:
Depressing.The Humming Bird was canceled on January 9, 1969. At that time, the L&N Railroad earned some unwanted publicity when it terminated the final run of the train en route southbound at Birmingham after a federal judge lifted the order keeping the train running after the ICC approved its permanent discontinuance. The passengers were then bussed to their destinations.
Rand Paul 2016
Sure did:Ahh...the Pan American. I believe there was another train called the Humming Bird that followed a similar route.
Yup.
Just saw this. Too cute!
Rand Paul 2016
Here is an article on why Libertarians should support transit. By and large suburbs and automobiles in this country are the epitome central planning and social engineering. Suburbia in terms of social engineering far exceeds anything the soviets ever created. Surburbia also shows how government regulations and subsidies can be unnecessarily wasteful. Roads are also a perfect example of the tragedy of the commons.
http://keephoustonhouston.wordpress....e-pro-transit/
Props to the Delaware & Hudson for preserving a couple of them.Another vehicle I love even though I consider it ugly.
Whoever wrote that missed the GM/Firestone/oil companies plot of the fifties. And Amtrak is a Soviet-style operation (thank you, John Erlichman you RINO bastard, may you rot in hell).
Last edited by acptulsa; 02-11-2013 at 11:06 AM.
I really don't get why you trolled my thread with a link to this hogwash. Anyone who read my OP and some of the posts in the first few pages will laugh at you for eventually and after much questionable 'history' getting to your punch line--that libertarians (oh, yeah, you make clear in the first paragraph you aren't even interested in libertarians, but only Libertarian Party members) should love Amtrak and want to expand it.
Bad joke, my troll.
What kid, including the kid in us old folks, doesn't love a train ride?
I thought the US already had an intercity passenger rail, called Amtrak.
The OP isn't that boring. Give it a try.
I don't get what the LP has to do with this. I support government expansions to passenger rail not because I think the government is best at doing but because of the current political situation. The government is not getting out the road business any time soon. Road and airport privatization is met with huge hostility and thus is never done. Getting rid transportation subsidies is a political non sequitur. Rather than trying to create a free market for transportation I will work towards better railroads and if they come from the government then so be it. Privatization of transportation is the eventual goal not the starting point. I would only end Amtrak if other government transportation programs are ended as well and regulations are removed. As for Amtrak's inefficiency compared to other government programs they are a drop in the bucket they cover 85% of their own costs through revenues where as government run roads barely cover 60% of their own costs through fees that really aren't fees. Amtrak in its entire existence has gotten less money then do roads get every year. People like to point out Amtrak's problems while they ignore the huge inefficiency of government roads. Why do people attack Amtrak yet ignore government roads and airports? In fact many of Amtrak detractors praise the interstates including the Cato institute. Regardless we have broken system and steps must be done toward making it less broken. I must ad that Ron Paul supported high speed rail and voted towards having it built in his state for probably reasons similar to what I describe.
You don't know what the Libertarian Party has to do with it because, even though you wish to come here and save the natives' souls you don't even know the difference between a libertarian and a Libertarian. People attack Amtrak because Amtrak is the government shoving itself onto privately owned roads--roads of steel rail, which it does not own. Your figures that show Amtrak covers eighty-five percent of what it costs completely ignores that simple fact--it puts wear and tear on freight railroads that We, the People do not own (except those of us who are stockholders in the major American railroads). And regardless of what ads you run, Ron Paul never in his life supported government subsidization of any high speed rail system, and never voted for such a thing in Congress. If you care to link to this vote you're referring to, I'll tell you what you're really looking at so you won't be confused any more.
You can be full of $#@! anywhere. But you can't get away with it here.
Last edited by acptulsa; 02-15-2013 at 07:25 AM.
Everything you said is completely obsurd. I do know the difference I was simply asking why the Libertarian party relevant to the discussion at all. Amtrak has to pay for usage of the tracks and this in turn makes money for freight railroads. Railroads were originally obligated themselves to run passenger trains Amtrak removes this obligation. Amtrak often improves freight railroads through capital improvement to railroads. Amtrak has in some cases has actually improved freight railroads. As for we the people we the people gave them vast sums of land, we the people gave them franchises, we the people gave them eminent domain, we the people bailed out the failing Penn Central, and we the people provide them loans at below market interest rates. Yes government is a thorn in the sides of railroads but railroads have are in large part the successful and prevalent industry they are because of government.
Ron Paul did indeed support High speed rail. For his own state mind you. He wanted the private sector to do it but he did support a combination of public and private funding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/us...po-direct&_r=0
http://www.urbanistdispatch.com/2012...-and-ron-paul/
Last edited by juliusaugustus; 02-15-2013 at 01:18 PM.
Stop making up words.
If you knew the difference between libertarian and Libertarian it would show.
No, it doesn't. It partially recompenses the railroads for their wear and tear, dispatching, and the delays to their non-priority freight traffic. It has never completely recompensed railroads for these very real expenses.
If you had the decency to read the OP of this very thread before you commenced trying to hijack it, you'd realize that Amtrak does not run all the routes that the federal government told the freight railroads were too important for them to discontinue. So, you arguing that the government removes the obligation the government declares to be an obligation is completely circular non-reasoning.
Link me to proof that Amtrak has ever made capital improvements to anything but stations and their own equipment or just stop lying in my thread, because I'm not letting you get away with it.
The government got paid back for the land grants three ways. One, the railroads built railroads, and since the government hung onto half of the grant lands in a 'checkerboard pattern' in each case, the half of the land the government kept quintupled (or more) in price--simply put, a farm is worth more if there's a way to get the crop to market (duh). The government got railroads that attracted settlers, thereby expanding government's tax base (why, yes, some settlers did come from overseas, google Mennonites duh). And the government demanded of land grant railroads that they haul strategic materials at a reduced rate right through to the end of World War II, thereby repaying the government for those lands several times over. Just how much servitude do you expect of the railroads for those long-ago 'grants'?
Franchises? A small enough thing for an industry which was a key factor in the United States' growth into the world superpower. Eminent domain? That is extensively used for highways, but you'll have to prove to me that it was extensively used for the railroads--use of eminent domain for non-government projects is a very recent phenomenon. The only cases of cut rate government loans I'm familiar with are for the original transcontinental and for Penn Central. Credit Mobilier more than repaid the crooked Congress of the Gilded Age for the one, and the other was (if possible) an even bigger boondoggle. And railroads are successful in spite of government in this country, not because of it.
I didn't say otherwise. I said he never voted for federal funding of it. Considering all of the nation, even the poorest parts of it, pay for Amtrak, but two of the wealthiest portions of the nation (the northeast and Southern California) reap almost all the benefit of it, I don't know why he would have. It's not only unnecessary and immoral, it's one of the most regressive steal from the poor and give to the rich programs the federal government runs. Hell, Oklahoma is one of the poorest states in the nation, and had to do without Amtrak until it funded a route on its own, which Amtrak was kind enough to provide ticketing services for and to connect with at Ft. Worth. It's insanity.
If you don't read my opening post and educate yourself, I'm going to accuse you of spamming my thread. There's no excuse for you displaying such ignorance in a thread designed to educate you. Come back after you claim the free clue I have laid out for you, and maybe we can have an intelligent conversation. Or don't come back at all.
Last edited by acptulsa; 02-15-2013 at 02:55 PM.
Edit: Plus eastern railroads were almost always funded by governments or subsidized.
I will grant you that railways in this country are more of a free market business however they are beneficiaries of government. In many respects american railroads are an example corporate fascism even if they are less abusive then others. I must add that JP Morgan a Rothschild agent financed many of the railroads. "The Money Trusts" who helped finance and run many of the railroads are themselves beneficiaries of government enforced central banking monopolies. I think one can atleast acknowledge that American railroads are not free market. The closest thing to free market transportation is in Asia but even there governments plays a large role.
Last edited by juliusaugustus; 02-16-2013 at 03:03 AM.
Amtrak only ever improves the tracks they own, which are (as you'd know if you read the OP) between Harrisburg, Washington and Boston. If you expect me to believe they've improved any others, you'll have to provide proof. Because I think you're either mistaken or lying.
The freight railroads were not all created by the government. They were overregulated by the ICC for decades, but this didn't last so long as a century. Some but not all railroads used to overcharge shippers in towns where they had a monopoly so they could have rate wars on competitive routes in an effort to drive their competition out of business. The city of Los Angeles was transformed from a sleepy village to a city of tens of thousands during just such a rate war. Now, if they were all the government's babies, and the government loved them all and wanted them all to be happy, why would the government order them to try to kill each other, and risk their own financial survival in the process? It didn't, of course--it created the ICC. And since the ICC was disbanded? The railroads have merged in ways that neither a person who believes in competition nor a person who believes in monopoly utilities can believe in. Look up the Western Pacific some time. Never mind you never heard of it--you have now; look it up.
To say that the SP held its monopoly in California through 'franchise' is simplistic and naive. The SP built tracks where they didn't need them just to block competitors. The SP parked locomotives on their tracks where other railroads needed to cross them so the other road couldn't put in a frog. There were other railroads in California that the SP bought. The Central Pacific comes to mind. And still the competition came in--which it couldn't have done if, as you seem to believe, the state or federal government was not allowing any other railroad to operate in the state. Stanford wound up as governor, but he never managed that trick. Just because some people were forced off their lands by force doesn't mean eminent domain was used, though arguably these incidents were extra-legal precursers to that practice. But I will confess that there were probably a few suburban commuter lines that resorted to imminent domain shortly after the practice began on a local scale. As far as the interstate railroads are concerned, however, they were in place in populated areas before the term was invented, and all further expansion of America's trunk lines were in unpopulated areas. And what you call 'mail subsidies' I call the USPS getting their freight moved in a most expeditious manner--and getting their money's worth. So which of us is right? In the beginning, the USPS was simply another shipper. In the end, it was institutionalized enough that you could argue it was a subsidy--certainly those passenger trains that didn't haul mail didn't make money--but the USPS still got their money's worth.
Ron Paul believes in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. If your state wants to subsidize some kind of intrastate service, neither the Constitution nor Ron Paul has any objections to register. So what?
J.P. Morgan did his best to control not only banking, but railroading and the government during his lifetime. He succeeded, too--to varying degrees. And never as much as he'd have liked to. Eastern railroads were often subsidized, but eastern railroads were always required to provide commuter services which more than ate up these 'generous subsidies' you glow and blather about. And you had to be forced by local municipalities or states into running these money-losing public services to ever hope for a subsidy. Railroad mileage in the U.S. peaked in 1916, and has been shrinking ever since. The central bank was founded in 1913. So, not only does your contention that central banking practices built the railroads not hold water, you're all wet. The railroads not only compete against trucking companies on government roads, barge traffic on government-dredged waterways and air freight taking off from government airports, they compete against each other. To call them uncompetitive and fascist is either ignorance, propaganda or both, and silly in either case. And to say that Asian railroads are less 'fascist' when most of them are government-owned, and you can have stock in any American railroad but Amtrak, is simply laughable.
Another massive fail. But thanks for the morning laugh.
Fair warning, establishment trolls...
Not in my thread.
'You need government to protect you from the Robber Barons like the ones that built the railroads, but railroads couldn't possibly be built without the government so obviously the very Robber Barons you need government to protect you from were the government.' This is just more evidence of the 'the propaganda doesn't need to make sense as long as it scares people' attitude that is causing the establishment to lose this battle for hearts and minds.
Last edited by acptulsa; 02-16-2013 at 01:03 PM.
Well. Another troll educated. Pity you have to undo what the public schools do before you can expose a mind to the truth.
That done...
I like trains. Sent the wife on a trip down to San Antonio from Fort Worth via Amtrak and she had a blast.
I just geek-out for trains, I just think they're cool. But there's got to be a better way to do them, in a free-market fashion.
That's exactly the point of this thread. There is. The Official Propaganda maintains that passenger service cannot be done without government help. Well, that might be true of commuter service in a nation that fights wars with borrowed money just to keep its oil prices down. But so far as intercity (to make Melissa happy, maybe I should say 'interstate') service is concerned, the evidence contradicts this.
The evidence is hard to come up with, as it has been over a hundred years since any nation allowed passenger service to proceed unmolested by government interference. In the OP, however, I do discuss some of this evidence. And I'd love to expand on that, if I can only get some intelligent, non-trollish comments and questions.
Meanwhile, and just because you mentioned San Antonio, the Texas Eagle:
This train rolled out of St. Louis as, basically, three trains. In the middle of the night, as the passengers slept, it stopped in Marshall and was split. The Texas Eagle proceeded to San Antonio, the South Texas Eagle took sleepers full of Houston passengers, and the West Texas Eagle proceeded through both Dallas and Ft. Worth to El Paso.
Last edited by acptulsa; 02-17-2013 at 12:43 PM.
While researching the "T" in and around Boston, I was rather surprised to find that the day to day ops are, in fact, carried out by a private contractor. The North station and the lines running south into it are the Boston and Maine tracks and the B and M ran the ops until its bankruptcy.
The name of the current operations outfit escapes me, but it is not the state of Massachusetts.
To tell you the truth, I think the demise of air travel is what is needed to bring about a renaissance of train travel. When you consider that a new 787 costs upward of $150 million each, the increasing regulatory burden, overhead costs and the hassle of air travel, and everything else, the airline business is a failed model as "mass transit". You can't charge the money that you really need to do, in order to cover that astronomical overhead and make a healthy profit. Thus, every time the economy $#@!s the bed, the airlines come crawling for a bailout.
The public would latch onto a luxurious and speedy train trip as an alternative to air travel, I think.
Market it as a "land cruise" that could actually take you to a destination that you needed to get to.
In spite of the latest Carnival nightmare, the cruise business is booming, and who would have thought that 50 or 60 years ago?
All that needs to happen, as is usually the case, is to get the ever $#@!ing government out of the way.
American and U.S. Airways just merged. The Teamsters are trying to woo their mechanics.
Other than Southwest, they're all incompetent, all including Southwest are beset by an incompetent government, and suffering because the TSA is chasing their customers away. But they do have advantages, like government-run pavement and government-sponsored air traffic control. So, if government is subsidizing them and they still can't survive the government regulations, imagine what the non-subsidized railroads have gone through.
Between that and the liability situation, it's no wonder the railroads are afraid to even talk about passenger service today. And yet, the Union Pacific's excursions remain the finest way to travel in this nation.
Last edited by acptulsa; 02-17-2013 at 03:11 PM.
I found the AA and US merger interesting. Reminds me of all the Class 1 mergers...Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific...the list goes on.
As far as private rail travel, there is the All Aboard Florida project from Florida East Coast Industries (parent company of the Florida East Coast Railway). The trains are expected to travel up to 125 mph, which will make it America's fastest train outside Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. There is also the Vegas X Train which just recently reached an agreement with Union Pacific to use the tracks between LA and Vegas. I also wouldn't be surprised to see a project in Texas soon.
Rand Paul 2016
ah, fond memories of Union station when it was completely full of trains:That's exactly the point of this thread. There is. The Official Propaganda maintains that passenger service cannot be done without government help. Well, that might be true of commuter service in a nation that fights wars with borrowed money just to keep its oil prices down. But so far as intercity (to make Melissa happy, maybe I should say 'interstate'
The evidence is hard to come up with, as it has been over a hundred years since any nation allowed passenger service to proceed unmolested by government interference. In the OP, however, I do discuss some of this evidence. And I'd love to expand on that, if I can only get some intelligent, non-trollish comments and questions.
Meanwhile, and just because you mentioned San Antonio, the Texas Eagle:
This train rolled out of St. Louis as, basically, three trains. In the middle of the night, as the passengers slept, it stopped in Marshall and was split. The Texas Eagle proceeded to San Antonio, the South Texas Eagle took sleepers full of Houston passengers, and the West Texas Eagle proceeded through both Dallas and Ft. Worth to El Paso.
"The station opened on September 1, 1894, and was owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. Designed by Theodore Link, it included three main areas: the Headhouse, the Midway and the 11.5-acre (47,000 m2) Train Shed. The headhouse originally housed a hotel, a restaurant, passenger waiting rooms and railroad ticketing offices. It featured a gold-leafed Grand Hall, Romanesque arches, a 65-foot (20 m) barrel-vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows. The clock tower is 280 feet (85 m) high.
Union Station's headhouse and midway are constructed of Indiana limestone and initially included 42 tracks under its vast trainshed terminating in the stub-end terminal.
At its height, the station combined the St. Louis passenger services of 22 railroads, the most of any single terminal in the world. At its opening, it was the world's largest and busiest railroad station and its trainshed was the largest roof span in the world. In 1903, the station was expanded to accommodate visitors to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
In the 1940s, it handled 100,000 passengers a day. The famous photograph of Harry S. Truman holding aloft the erroneous Chicago Tribune headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman", was shot at the station as Truman headed back to Washington, DC from Independence, Missouri after the 1948 Presidential election."
I'm almost reluctant to ask what that Big Brother box marked ATX is...
Found it, part of a telemetry system. pg 52 www.wabtec.com/railroad/WabtecFreightCatalog.pdf
I liked the AA/US Airways merger, but only because the value of the stock jumped up from ~1.40 to it's current level (as of closing on Fri) of 2.54.
I'm a pretty loyal AA flyer, so I was pleased to hear the combined company will remain AA, Tom Horton will stay on as (non-executive) chairman of the board, and that they will be keeping the AAdvantage program, of which I am Elite Gold. I like AA and their oneworld alliance, what can I say. We'll see how it all flies when the merger is finalized Q3 2013 and they actually begin merging services sometime in 2014.
All that aside, AA was doing a bangup job during their bankruptcy and restructuring. We'll see, I guess.
FRED
Flashing
Rear
End
Device
One of the reason we no longer have cabooses.
Rand Paul 2016
Union Station. It's still beautiful. I have some great photos of it, but they're on film and I haven't digitized them yet.
Forty-two platform tracks served by two triple-track wyes. Chicago would have been more impressive, except that Daley refused to allow a proper union station to be built. There is a Union Station, but it never served all the railroads in and out of Chicago. He decreed several stations because he wanted through travelers to have to walk or take a taxi from one station to the other. He figured it would be good for the local economy.
Forty-two stub platform tracks (stub meaning they all dead-ended at the station). They were on wye tracks, meaning at the other end of the platform tracks from the station you encountered a switch that would allow you to curve either left or right; generally trains were backed in. Triple-track wyes meaning there were one hell of a lot of crossings in those curves. It must have been amazing...
Found an old image. It won't fit in one of these vbulletin boxes, so you'll have to click.
http://trra-hts.railfan.net/ctrspec2001.html
Good for you.
Me, I'm boned with the United/Continental merger.
$#@! Jeff Smisek.
$#@! a bunch of Airbuses.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Connect With Us