Whither rail?

[peakbagger]

Cant resist the Boston reference

 

[peakbagger]

BTW Amtrak runs the Downeaster from Brunswick Maine to Boston down the Maine coast, its quite popular and has a high ridership yet it loses money every year and requires a subsidy to run. Like most of the passenger rails, Amtrak does not own the tracks, they have pay to use freight lines owned by companies that are indifferent at best to passenger rail. The freight tracks usually need upgrading to carry passenger traffic and Amtrak pays for the upgrade even though the freight probably does more damage. Amtrak is government funded so any existing carriers like Bus lines get paid to keep their services running to compete with the train. Boston has two train stations, North Station and South Station that are not interconnected by rail. So the choice is shuttle bus, an "adventure" on the MBTA system or hoofing it. On the other hand I can take the subsidized competing bus line and get dropped off at either station.

If the US want passenger rail they can have rail but it probably needs to be a nationally subsidized system funded with billions of tax dollars, that is pretty well what Europe does.

 

[begreen]

Yeah, the stations are the primary location of murders. The cars themselves are more drug use. The daughter had people on the same car smoking crack, smoking weed, and shooting up. Not all at once but she’s seen all of them. Plus crazies smashing things and yelling. The transients ride back and forth just staying on the train to stay warm. There’s almost no authority figures on the train keeping order, they seem to have been “defunded”.

Wow, where was this? Not on an Amtrak going to Portland for sure. Sounds like a bad commuter rail experience, not the same thing at all. High speed rail is more like an airport replacement. Of course, there can be crazies up at 30,000' too. Come to think of it, that's another reason why I would prefer to be on high speed rail.

Woman tries to open plane cabin door during flight, while shouting 'I am God, I am God'

Passengers wrestle woman to the ground after pilot tells them to stop her 'at all costs'

www.independent.co.uk

 

[begreen]

Captain Kirk said, "Scotty, beam us up"

That's what we need

Or Mr. Fusion powered hovercars.

 

[Poindexter]

I agree with many previous posters, a fundamental problem is being able to get around without a rental car once I get to my destination city. I think intra-city transport is the low hanging fruit we should be addressing before we go after inter-city transport.

Flying in from Alaska, I pretty much need a rental car unless I am going to Boston or San Francisco. I will pay more attention to Portland next time I visit.

 

[vbu]

Interesting post ... .

Born and raised in Belgium, moved to the US in the late 90's for a German company active in nuclear stuff and since 2005 I'm importing biomass equipment from Austria and Germany.

Question for to the OP: Did you ever take a train in Europe? Did you ever take a train in China?

I did when i was between 15 and 22 years of age.
I missed a lot of classes and even exams because the beautiful and punctinal train system in Belgium.
Believe me, the German BundesBahn and Swiss and Austrian are not much better of.

I also took once a train from Shangai to Wuhan, this was in 2007 or 2008; Before Covid
It was an experiance, that's the least I can tell you; but it's less then 20 years ago.

There is a reason why the US is the number one country on earth, and it is not because we don't have public rail transportation.

I live very close to Boston.
Take a bus from Cambridge Alewife station to Burlington; you may arrive 2 to 3 hours later if the bus does not break down.
Or try taking an Uber or Lift; after 2 or 3 cancallations and paying $35 to $65 bucks

I agree that fossil industry is king, but we need to tink out of the box; public rail transportation in not something that will help us.

We (in the US that is) are "hardwired" differently.

Just my opinion

Ha, funny to see there's someone else on here that's originally from Belgium!

I have no love lost for trains. If you want your trip to take 3 times as long and cost 5 times as much, then take the train. If you want to be late and have a legit excuse, take the train. If you want your bike stolen, you guessed it, take the train.

The punctuality is just horrific and you simply can't count on it.

Now I will say that I frequently took the high speed Thalys from Amsterdam airport to Brussels, in first class. That is indeed nice. And it would work if your destination was in Brussels, but in my case it was not.

The train will always be my absolute last resort, and I don't miss it one bit here in the US

 

[Vg3200p]

Fair. I will say that MANY of the US' problems are related to zoning. Housing, rail, road networks, urban/suburban layout... behind a LOT of it is NIMBY fueled zoning rules. Acela goes slow not for any technical reason except that the tracks it runs on in much of New England are not straight! Oh, and Acela cars are legally required to weigh twice as much as similar class rail in the EU and China.

And my personal opinion for why zoning rules in the US are so weird compared to other countries... historical racism.

I must ask how does zoning rules about train tracks have anything to do with racism? That sounds rediculus

 

[Vg3200p]

As a related subject. I don't think mass transit works well even in all major cities. The big city closest to me is indianapolis. Up until about 6 yrs ago there was hardly even a bus system (called indygo). There is freight tracks through the city but I don't know if there is passenger. Anyway bout 6 years ago the launched a huge huge bus improvement called redline(taxpayer funded I'm sure). They have since expanded with blue and purple line I think. It ruined traffic flow on more than a few major streets in the city as they put the stops in the middle of the road. It cause countless businesses to go under. Due to loss of access during construction or if they made it through that loss of parking on redesigned roads. Indigo invested in a bunch of electric busses. They opened the line in winter and the busses wouldn't work so disaster there. No one would ride them and they had to make them free for I think the first year to even get people to use them. Huge waste of tax money and killed countless small businesses for more government control. My opinion is that if somewhere is already developed without mass transit infrastructure in place. Then adding it latter does way more harm than good

 

[Ashful]

I must ask how does zoning rules about train tracks have anything to do with racism? That sounds rediculus

They're not. People make the mistake of extending classism to racism. While class is unavoidably associated with race, there are far more people discriminating against the poor, than someone's skin color.

But the result is the same, here. Running track through poor neighborhoods, or more often neighborhoods turning poor due to proximity to the tracks, does result in them becoming less Caucasian and more "other". Unfortunate reality of our society, but not driven specifically by racism.

 

[Vg3200p]

I agree with you ashful. When i saw that post from woodgeek I had to ask. Regardless of color I think it's a cultural thing. Not color related. There will always be rich and always be poor. Life is not fair. You can choose to better yourself or you can choose to not. Some people have it harder than others. That is the beauty of USA. You can make of yourself what you want

 

[Ashful]

...You can make of yourself what you want

Oh, that's a whole other rabbit hole, best to avoid. While always possible to climb, the lower your starting position, the harder it is to reach the top.

I think @vbu, along with most of @Highbeam's original post really nailed it. The likelihood of new rail line to drag down the value of any community through which it runs, whether justifiably or not, is just one more straw on this camel's back.

 

[boomfire]

As someone who lived in big cities, crowded urban areas and took public transportation for over 90% of my life from first world to third world countries. Getting on trains (local or long distance) makes me uneasy. So many occasions I had to watch my back constantly. From getting robbed, getting into fights, walking home from train/bus station. I personally avoid it all costs and only take one as a last resort.

That said, if High speed rail helps some folks, why not.

 

[begreen]

They're not. People make the mistake of extending classism to racism. While class is unavoidably associated with race, there are far more people discriminating against the poor, than someone's skin color.

But the result is the same, here. Running track through poor neighborhoods, or more often neighborhoods turning poor due to proximity to the tracks, does result in them becoming less Caucasian and more "other". Unfortunate reality of our society, but not driven specifically by racism.

Well put, It's not just tracks, our national expressways did the same thing.

Funny about the comments in Europe. I have trained there many times and thought the systems worked very well and dependably. Last trip was from Vienna to Budapest. It went like clockwork and this was on the regular rails. Their high-speed rails are better than flying and easier.

We have been on trains and even used subway systems around the world. Sometimes they are an adventure, but amazingly, they always worked. Maybe we were just lucky. The trains in India were definitely interesting. We've traveled on their first class coaches and on the mail routes. No hooligans met, though the conductor was needed to move the 6'+ Sikh (complete with swords) out of our reserved coach once. There were many amazing tales on that rail journey through Rajasthan.

 

[boomfire]

No hooligans met, though the conductor was needed to move the 6' Sikh (complete with swords) out of our reserved coach once.

Were those sikh's wearing Kirpan or carrying normal swords? Were they travelling in your coach illegally?

 

[Ashful]

Funny about the comments in Europe. I have trained there many times and thought the systems worked very well and dependably. Last trip was from Vienna to Budapest. It went like clockwork and this was on the regular rails. Their high-speed rails are better than flying and easier.

Yeah, the few times I've used high speed rail, I was always impressed by it... even Italy! But I wasn't depending on it for my daily commute, and probably too easily impressed by all its good points, which was all new to this American.

One thing that has been bothering me about trains the last 20 years is that, while we have pretty stringent airport security, we still have no problem packing 1000 people onto a commuter rail train with nearly zero security. I know there are historical and physical reasons for that, but still...

I was a daily SEPTA regional rail commuter in 2002, and we had an explosion while riding thru the tunnels under city hall in Philly. It blew all the breakers and caused a power outage. I'm sure every passenger sitting in the dark with me had the same thought as me, just waiting for the next explosion. It turned out to be a simple short-circuit between the overhead wiring and the train body, nothing nefarious, but it did wake us all up to the vulnerable state of things.

 

[woodgeek]

I must ask how does zoning rules about train tracks have anything to do with racism? That sounds rediculus

I appreciate you asking, but I won't derail the thread. Anyone who wants to learn about it can just surf the internet themselves. You can just google 'sundown towns' or 'redlining' to get started. Both things went on for close to a century, and have left their marks all over the layout of our city neighborhoods and built environment, and make both different from what is found in many other countries.

 

[begreen]

Were those sikh's wearing Kirpan or carrying normal swords? Were they travelling in your coach illegally?

I don't recall, just that he was quite large, well-armed, and sitting seriously in the middle of our bed. The conductor came by and asked if we found our cabin and we explained that it seemed to be already occupied. The conductor had a bit of a chat with the Sikh and then bruskly ushered him out scolding him all the way. It was a funny sight to see a 5'6" conductor hustling out the 6'3"+ fellow. There were lots of stories like this from that trip. On the train ride from Bikaner to Jodhpur, we were hustled by some eunuchs.

We saw many Sikhs that were very well-armed, including kirpans, during Diwali when we went to Amritsar. That trip was on a first-class fast train that was really nice to travel on.

 

[Ashful]

I appreciate you asking, but I won't derail the thread. Anyone who wants to learn about it can just surf the internet themselves. You can just google 'sundown towns' or 'redlining' to get started. Both things went on for close to a century, and have left their marks all over the layout of our city neighborhoods and built environment, and make both different from what is found in many other countries.

I guess we should be clear, in that while I was speaking of more modern ethics, you're speaking about historical issues. But I guess one doesn't have to refute the other.

I'd like to think that, excepting some exceptionally stupid, ignorant, and belligerent small fraction of our society, pure racism is more a historical artifact than a present issue, in this country. I know that's not completely true, but I do believe the tide is far enough against this sort of stupidity that those who still harbor such irrational thoughts are kept in check by our improved societal ethics.

Classism is real. When someone drags down your property value with a proposal to punk a trailer park or section 8 housing down next to your property, this can even be understandable. This can have the unfortunate appearance of racism when viewed on the macro scale, as we all know that class and race have been interlinked in this country from the beginning. But I do have trouble understanding, or really even believing it's at all prevalent, or that our government (and quasi-governmental agencies like railroads) are presently and actively discriminating against a group of people based solely on their skin color.

 

[Vg3200p]

Ashful. I agree with you. Has our country done really racist things In the past? Yes of course we have done horrible things. I would add that almost all countries have committed horrible acts of genocide or murder or racism . And some world superpowers still do. Look at china's genocide of Muslims going on right now. I also agree with ashful that in this country this is down to a tiny fraction of the population. To woodgeek I have been extremely poor at times in my life. I have since bettered myself with lots of hard work. At one time I made minimum wage and lived in a trailer park with 400 trailers that was in between a tire factory that reeked of burning rubber all the time and on the other side the town dump that reeked of trash all the time. Making minimum wage I was probably one of the better off people in there. I think there was one black family. It was 99% white. So forgive me but I have a hard time believing in this racism that your talking about. Bad situations (like living next to a train track for example) affect poor people. I just don't see it as a race problem

 

[begreen]

Speaking of trains. This one is heading to the Inglenook.