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TechnoratiAl Gore and the world's scientists have finally managed to convince most of the public that global warming is real and that we have to do something about it. Unfortunately, at this point the politicians are still abstractly talking about doing "something" as opposed to being concrete about steps we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Pleas for individuals to be more conservation-minded are nice, but the point is to implement policies that will stop global warming, not find ways for people to feel good about themselves.)
One item that should be near the top of anyone's list is promoting intercity train travel. The reason is simple: train travel is far more energy efficient than plane or car travel. If we can get car drivers and airplane passengers into trains, we can have substantial cuts in emissions.
While we are unlikely to have people taking trains from coast to coast, there is no reason that a large portion of intercity travel cannot be done by train. Europe and Japan have had trains that travel 180 miles per hour for more than a quarter century. At that speed, the travel time from New York City to Chicago is 4.5 hours. This is very competitive with a two-hour plane flight that requires an hour of advanced check-in, plus commutes to and from suburban airports. For shorter trips, such as travel between major cities on the east coast, fast trains would almost certainly be faster than planes. This means we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save time on our travel.
But instead of expanding and improving, our rail system is sinking further into a rut. Most regions of the country have no serious passenger train system, and even the Northeast corridor between Washington and Boston - the one area that actually does have reasonably good train service - is seeing the quality of its service deteriorate in recent years.
The basic problem is that it would take a large capital investment to get the train system up to speed. To effectively use high speed trains, it is necessary to lay or relay track and restructure roadbeds to ensure that they can safely accommodate trains running at 170-180 miles per hour. The Acela trains now running in the Northeast corridor actually have a maximum speed of 150 miles per hour. However, they can only attain this speed for a small portion of their routes because the track and roadbeds are not in good enough condition.
Amtrak, as a public corporation, cannot simply go out and borrow the tens of billions of dollars that would be needed to modernize its tracks. Such a move would have to be authorized by Congress. This is why Amtrak needs to be privatized. Anyone who has taken Amtrak and flown on the airlines in the last few years knows that privately run companies don't have any obvious advantages in efficiency. (Ask the Jet Blue hostages, who sat on runways for hours last winter, about the efficiency of the private sector.)
But the private sector does have one big advantage over public corporations: they can lobby Congress. When the airlines took a big hit after the September 11 attacks, their lobbyists wasted no time in running to Congress and procuring a $5 billion handout from the government. The airlines could do this because they spend millions of dollars buying presidential candidates and members of Congress. This meant that when disaster hit, they could count on a serious payback.
Until the trains are also run by greedy sleaze buckets who can buy their own political influence, train travel doesn't have a prayer. Who's going to lobby for it, the environmental groups?
There will certainly be problems associated with privatizing Amtrak. At the top of the list is the state of its current workforce, which would come under attack from private owners. But the best route would be to try to secure the protection of workers as much as possible in a transition, not leave our train system to deteriorate even further.
It's unfortunate that US politics are in their current state, but ignoring reality is not a serious political strategy. If train travel is ever going to get the government support it needs to become competitive, it will need some powerful actors to push its case. This means having private corporations run the train system.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer ( www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.
36 Comments so far
Show AllTHANK YOU, TRUTHTELLER!
I about went bawmy(er) trying to explain to people the obstructionism I have run into when trying to take Amtrak without going thru a travel agent. I speculated that Armtrak didn't really want my business because they would not even provide basic fare and schedule information in a useable form. I'm open-minded. But, since I have limited time and money, I like to know what the general possibilities are BEFORE I decide to go. I've been to Britain. So, I know It's not unthinkable.
(For the usual reasons, I avoid airports.)
I have written to Amtrak, govts, local tourism beaureaus for places I WON'T be visiting, and to the press.
The answer: "See your travel agent".Here, I am. But, maybe I'll take a Greyhound to Toledo this year.
"If the American trains ran on time, it would be an obvious tip-off that the U.S. is now a fascist country ala Mussolini."
In fact the Italian trains did not run on time. Only the PR (propaganda) said the trains ran on time. Who ran around Italy at that time contradicting Mussolini?
Here are two more energy costs I left out. Vanpools cost 1401 btu/pass-mi and motorcycles 2049 btu/pass-mi. I do not have figures on electric vehicles (electric cars) but they should come in about one fourth of automobiles or at about 880 btu/pass-mi, probably less because the average auto in the USA gets about 20 mpg, and in order to maximize the battery range most electric cars if they were gas powered would get at least 35 mpg.
I have one word for everyone. Magneplane. http://www.magplane.com/ I'll get back to that.
First a comparison of energy costs. Data from the doe shows that rail freight costs about 344 btu to move a ton of freight a mile. Truck freight about 2000 btu/ton-mi, Amtrak 2935 btu/passenger-mi. You can see the low ridership, if each person weighed 0.1 ton with luggage a full train would cost about 35 btu/passenger-mi. Air carriers cost 3587 btu/pass-mi, about the same as automobiles, 3549 btu/pass-mi. City buses also suffer from low ridership, I have often seen huge buses driving around with two or three passengers, and because of that they cost 4160 btu/passenger-mi. Intercity buses, due to better ridership cost 932 btu/pass-mi. Just to round out the list of energy costs, water freight costs 417 btu/ton-mi and pipelines 1521 btu/ton-mi, although for volatile fluids pipelines have safety advantages.
How to fix this? Raise the tax on gasoline to $8/gallon and use the extra to pay for public transportation, both local and inter-city.
Now back to magneplane. There are two systems available now, both using self-banking magnetic levitation. One is a 100 mph intra-city system, the other is a 300 mph inter-city system. Beyond 500 miles it becomes cheaper to use an airplane, because of the lower friction at high altitude and the higher speed of an airplane (560 mph). However, the magneplane has one other advantage, you can not hijack it, so there is no need for security checks. Myself I would take that over flying anyday.
Each locomotive does not have 4 engines. Most mainline road freight diesels have one prime mover, usually 16 cylinders, of between 3,000 and 6,000 hp, with each cylinder dispacing over 700 cu. in. They in turn crank an alternator that puts out 600 volts, either DC or AC to usually six traction motors. The most powerful of todays locomotives can deliever up to 200,000 lbs./tractive effort to the rail at low speed. Currently, the most popular configuration for a freight locomotive is the new GE Evolution series locomotive (from the commercial with the smoke covered old timers), which gets 4400 hp. from only 12 cylinders, saving 3% on fuel consumption. Doesn't sound like much savings, but when you consider that some of these engines suck 200 gal/hr. in fuel at full-throttle, that would be 6 gallons per hr. in savings. BTW, the average newer diesel locomotive has a 6600 gal fuel tank, almost as big as a tanker truck.
Also, it's not how many cars a train has, it's how many loads their are, the maximum (or ruling) grade encountered, and total tonnage that counts. A hundred empty cars might only weigh 2-3,000 tons, whereas 75 loads could top 10,000 tons. The most I've ever seen in every day service run about 20,000 tons and about 10,000 feet in length (the practical effective limit for the air brakes to work, without mid-train helpers).
'Amtrak, as a public corporation, cannot simply go out and borrow the tens of billions of dollars that would be needed to modernize its tracks. Such a move would have to be authorized by Congress."
So get the money from Congress.
Privatize is a non-sense term that is used to steal from the public wealth to give money to the privileged rich.
The gobbledygook taught to MBA students has only one parallel: Military training.
Follow orders.
Every country in the world has found a way to make a state run passenger rail system run effectively and in the process save a whole ton of money on fuel consumption and si9gnificantly reduce their air pollution.
The next time you have to stop at a train crossing, coiunt the number of locomotives pulling a train and then count the number of cars being pulled. Yesterday I had to wait on a 92 car freight train being pulled by two locomotives.
Each locomotive had 4 diesel engines producing the electricity needed to run the motors which pulled that long train. Had all that stuff been pulled by 18 wheel rigs how many more engines using how much more fuel and producing how much more pollution might there have been?
Now figure that the several hundred people capable of being fit into far fewer passenger cars and pulled by one locomotive and keeping as many cars off the road and the fuel savings and pollution reduction grows exponentially. Couple that with reliable shuttle bus service and cars can be relegated to occasional trips for vacation and such. you think it would have taken?
To Outer Beltway;
You, and all of us are the stockholders of Amtrak. Making the freight RR's stock holders in exchange for their old passenger equipment was financial hocus pocus(sp?). The RR's carried that transaction on their books as a write-off at the time, and have a small say on Amtrak since they run over their tracks. I too have long advocated public ownership of the rights of way, much like a turnpike, with any company able to field a qualified train eligible to operate over the track.
The Class I freight railroads in the U. S. are all Fortune 500 corporations, extremely powerful and poltically influential, and all major GOP contributors. Most of their officers gave the $2,000 limit in 2000 to the Bush campaign. They will not be easily dealt with, if at all in the current climate. For the most part, they regard federal regulations and the FRA as nats to be tolerated and occasionally swat at. Oh, sure they give lip service to safe operations and the public good, but believe me, if they could operate in a total vacuum to the rest of the World, they would. This is why you have so many infrastructure related accidents, why crew fatigue is such a problem and cause of human factor accidents. They push everybody to the limit, trying to get more out of fewer people to avoid the overhead costs of additional employees and needed maintenance. The average mainline freight railroader works 50-60 hours/wk., more at busy times.
There is no way that Amtrak can survive without government subsidy. For nearly 100 years that subsidy came in the form of U. S. mail contracts. When that ended, the passenger trains had to be taken over by the government directly. The conversation we need is whether we are willing to make the necessary investments in Amtrak and rail infrastructure to have a decent rail passenger system in this country. High-speed rail in and of itself is not the answer, and is probably not a very energy efficient way to move people in most situations. Clearly, the end of easy and cheap oil will change the picture in favor of passenger rail, but the infrastructure does not exist for Amtrak to pick up the slack.
What I find most interesting about this thread is that someone offered a really, really good idea that would have actually solved the problem, and no one payed any attention.
The idea was for Progressives to hire an investment banker to take Amtrak "private" as a company whose stock was owned directly by the public. That would solve both the management problems and the finance problem. What if Goldman Sachs was hired by MoveOn to take Amtrak private, and one owner (SSN or EIN (a business's SSN)) could only hold, say, 0.01% of the total outstanding shares?
Relatedly, I point to another forum participant who spent his life working for, and advocating for Amtrak. He told us what the problems were on the Northeast corridor: the infrastructure is too old, and Amtrak's stockholders are ambivalent about increasing ridership.
The rail-bed owners want to curtail Amtrak because it interferes with freight operations, which is where all their profit comes from. In order for passenger rail to work, our society needs to make passenger service slightly more profitable to the rail-bed owners than freight is, and then the conflict of interest will evaporate.
The way that's going to happen is if the public makes a big bet on rail service: new road-bed, new overhead wires to power the trains, new rolling stock, and a big cash kitty so trains can be run more frequently (even if they're not full of passengers) until the point that customers start to switch to trains. This would mean hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 1-2 decades. And a heck of a lot of political capital.
It's worth it, I think. I'd much prefer to go into debt building train systems than dropping bombs on Muslims.
Thanks, truthteller for the summary. As a rider, I was wondering why the routes using CSX and UP tracks are so unreliable. At least the UP trains like the Zephyr and Coast Starlight have dramatic scenery while your'e running late...
Hey WmC, explain how there is $5-$15 PER GALLON subsidy for auto drivers in the US?
As for Amcrash, I think not only should it remain public, but it should be completely overhauled. Someone earlier mentioned how the tracks are still owned by the same robber barons of old. True enough. which is why they should be replaced entirely. See, most every accident on the tracks is due to the lack of maintaining the tracks. Of course they are in fact owned by companies other than Amtrack. The other problem with Amtrack is that all their wengines burn diesel fuel and are essentially real bad polluters.
The reality is that the technology used on the bullet train systems which use electromagnetism to move the trains at over 300 miles an hour were developed here in the US back in the late 60's. There is currently not one American company which can build such a system. we sold the technology to the Germans, French and Japanese years ago and they have snce developed and deployed it rather well. We would be wise to give our Congress and other Federal elected officials a pay cut to go towards developing our own hi speed rail system across the country. Why haven't we done so?
Back to the tracks. They are owned and the owners will not develop them, let alone keep the tracks in good working order. I think we should declare Eminent domain on the tracks and give the robber barons about 1/4 of a penny per mile of trakc and then go about replacing the system one section at a time with a newer bullet train system. We could improve intercity travel in the US and eliminate the pollution entirely of Amtrack as it presently is. This will create jobs and help create new growth in the economy as well. It amazes me today that this has never come up in a public debate. It could also be used to replace the freight trains eventually which still move a lot of the nation's commerce while also polluting with diesel fuel.
Automobile drivers enjoy a subsidy--though mostly indirect--that amounts to somewhere between $5-$15 per gallon of gasoline. Does anyone doubt that Amtrac would be a smashing success if it received a similar subsidy?
Last month it took me and wife well over 24hours to travel from Portland, Me. to Surfside, SC via Amtrac, bus & car. Only train service from Portland is local and leaves you north station and NE service is in south station, so it was bus, there are no services from Florence, SC to the beach, a hours drive via local roads. The conditions and ownership of the tracks outside of the NE corridor is disgaceful. This appears to make connection timing nearly impossible.
On the return drove to Washington and took the Acela to NY 2 hours + a fine ride.
As for going private, there is no money in it so no one will take it.
The shameful underfunding of Amtrak is a crime. Instead of wasting billions of dollars on war, the government should start up a New Deal style complete rebuild of the rail system in America, with new tracks for passengers that do not need to be shared with freight trains. Rail travel is the greenest method of passenger transport in existence and Germany, France, Japan, and others have shown that it can be efficient, fast, and safe.
Instead of privatizing, they should ask the Germans for help.
"Amtrak, as a public corporation, cannot simply go out and borrow the tens of billions of dollars that would be needed to modernize its tracks. Such a move would have to be authorized by Congress. This is why Amtrak needs to be privatized."
No ... that's why congress needs to authorize it. Duh.
I have rarely read such mis-information about a topic. I guess it's because you have finally hit an area of my expertise. I was a cafe attendant for Amtrak for 14 years in the Northeast, and have been an advocate of better rail passenger service for going on 30 years.
Amtrak was created to get the freight railroads out of the passenger business. Rail passenger service does not make a reasonable profit ANYWHERE in the industrialized World. I say reasonable, because the disaster that is the privatized BritRail cannot be called reasonable. Amtrak is a quasi-public/private corporation, whose only stock holders are the freight RR's that turned over their equipment to start it up in 1971, and the American people. Amtrak was set up to fail, to give the freight RR's a graceful way out of their money-losing service committments. It was never intended to last more than 5 years. But something happened that the powers-that-be never expected. It turns out that Americans like riding trains and would not let that be taken away from them. They have consistently raised an outcry every time that ending Amtrak has been seriously proposed. This has kept Amtrak going at a basic level for going on 36 years (next week).
There is no doubt that part of the solution to our energy wastefullness is improved and expanded rail passenger service. We already have the infrastructure in place with Amtrak to operate that service, when and IF the political will is found to fund it. The single biggest improvement that could be made relatively quickly, given the funding, would be to operate at least TWO trains/day on every long-distance route 12 hours apart. This would give areas only served at night, like Ohio, daylight service and greatly increase the travel matrix possiblities. Three a. m. arrivals at inner city terminals are not a desirable travel option for most people (snark).
Amtrak's biggest problems are it's bureacracy and the need to operate outside the NEC on the freight RR's. There is little doubt inside the railroad community, that CSX and UP have done just about everything in their power to sabotage and put Amtrak out of business. They have powerful friends in high places. After all, former CSX CEO John Snow became Sec. of Treasury. Amtrak's new President came from UP. Republican Presidential candidates have freight RR provided campaign trains with fancy office cars. Democrats charter Amtrak trains.
Amtrak is NOT partly owned by Triple A, although their travel agents send many customers Amtrak's way every year.
The primary reason that Acela trains cannot reach 150 mph over most of the route is due to the nearly 70 year old overhead cantenary wire system left over from the Pennsylvania RR days. Acela operates at 135 mph South of NY and hits 150 briefly over new right of way in RI and MA. Most regular service trains between Washington and NY are now allowed 125 mph.
Democratic control of Congress offers the remote possibility of improvement in Amtrak service. At the very least, it should offer a respite from the relentless pressure of the neo-con liars and crooks who have tried to do away with it ever since Reagan's Presidency.
No one has mentioned the fact that Amtrak even though publicly funded is also partially funded by AAA, American Automobile Association. Until we take the power away from the AAA it is unlikely our passenger train service will improve. The AAA does its best to keep Amtrak operating only at a minimal level. No we don't need more privatizing of Amtrak. For all the waste that is spent in Washington we could have a decent efficient operating passenger train service.
dinelson7:
Welcome to the forum.
Amtrak sucks! I wish it wasn't so, but it does. And while it is a huge problem that the privately owned tracks are not well maintained, generally single-tracked (which means passenger trains must pull over whenever a freight train comes along), and subject to fee schedules that penalize every late Amtrak train (which means once one is running late, they let it get later and later when one train must yield to another), the people who run the system don't even do the basics to make it worth riding. For example, on a recent trip that was supposed to take 3 and a half hours from Fresno to Richmond, California--a jumping off pint for the BART system--the trip actually took over seven hours because of problems with the tracks during last 30 miles of the trip, which took almost two and a half hours, not the 30 minutes it should require. Did the people on the train tell anyone about the massive delay ahead so they could get off in Pittsburg to take BART? Nope! Did anyone think to arrange an Amtrak bus to shuttle people past the problem? No chance! Did anyone waiting for arriving passengers in Richmond and points beyond get any warming that they train would be hours late on the phone or internet information systems? Of course not! They NEVER do! Instead, they just incrementally add time to the updated information that amounts to how long it would take for the train to make it from wherever it was last reported to the destination in question if it was running at normal speed--which they often are not.
This is not the first time the trip took more than twice as long as scheduled, although being an hour or two late on a three and a half hour trip is more common. But the people on the train before me were even more upset. Their train was canceled without warning. They had to crowd into my train three hours later (it should have been two hours later, but the train was already an hour late by the time it got started on its way). They they got to spend more than seven hours getting to a destination that one can drive to in about four hours even in the worst traffic congestion. So, altogether, those people were in transit hell for about eleven hours to go 200 miles on an overcrowded train with the snack bar sold out and closed before the journey was even half over.
SCREW AMTRAK! Double decker buses are much more energy efficient than any passenger train. And they run on public roadways without outrageous fees and discriminatory policies that doom rail transportation in the U.S. Too bad Greyhound was able to drive Trailways out of business before reducing service levels to the point that Amtrak can still attract a few well meaning or desperate people who choose not to take planes or private automobiles to make intercity journeys.
I refuse to fly since Chenney/Bush et al have made it so uncomffortable. I take AMTRAK every where including cross country. The trains are quite comfortable and the employees are extremely helpful and pleasant.
The problem is that the passenger trains are required by the freight trains to go onto a siding so that a slower freight can pass by, thereby slowing the whole thing down. We need new double tracks all over the country so that passenger trains can move on time.
We all need to lobby our congress critters to actually fund AMTRAK. If we can subsidize airlines, trucking companies, big pharma, halliburton and any other thing that bush likes, we can certainly fund AMTRAK. \
By the way, I loved the sarcasm!
I love Amtrak, so please don't privatize it. Privatization is the religion of Cheney/Bush and the root of all evil.
Well, private capitalism seems to be uncanny in that it always makes the most inefficient choices from an energy and environmental perspective (Can anyone versed in this issue explain why?).
So, government should be involved in supporting the more efficient modes. River navigation, followed by rail, are the most efficient way of moving freight. As far as moving passengers, assuming all seats are occupied, it would probably be: electric train, greyhound-type bus, diesel train, subcompact to mid-size car, new-generation airliner or longer flight, SUV, airliner on short-haul flight.
Rebuilding and expandind our rail system should be one of our highest priorites.
Yes, the US does need a massive public high speed rail system linking the entire country with efficient, clean service. Greyhound, in comparison, should be bombed.
The level of cluelessness about Amtrak (and railroads in this country in general) can be quite astonishing. Having ridden it a few times, and knowing people who work for them, I've seen a fair bit about what's going on.
The single biggest obstacle to Amtrak being decent is quite simply, the freight railroads. Although passenger traffic is supposed to get priority over freight traffic, this oft does not happen, resulting in delays from "freight interference." Another common delay cause is "slow orders" to reduce speed over old, inadequately maintained track (and then the maintenance-of-way operations needed when the rail finally gives out and splits). Plus, in many cases, working with the freights (particularly the Union Pacific, although all RR companies are essentially very silly) can be exceptionally frustrating. We're at the level of developing countries when it comes to rail infrastructure.
Plus one other thing: another significant cause of delays is trains hitting people and cars; either people walking along active railroads when they shouldn't, or people not paying attention to grade-crossing signals. Althoguh removing grade crossings with over/underpasses and better fencing in right-of-ways would help, a greater educational effort to teach people that a railroad is not a pedestrian trail would help much.
Irrespective of whether this article is sarcastic or another example of market fundamentalism (ie laissez faire capitalism can solve ALL problems, except where corporate welfare is a possible alternative), an objective look at U.S. transportation history tells us that the only way to make privatized rail passenger transportation succeed is to privatize all other forms of tranportation. In other words, all public roads, airports, air traffic control, navigable waterways, locks, dams, etc. need to be sold to and operated by the private sector.
One hundred years ago when the railroads freight and passenger transportation market share exceeded all other modes combined, taxpayer-funded transporation infrastructure and operations was very limited.
The railroads owned 98% of their infrastructure (tracks, bridges, tunnels, docks, stations and other buildings) and paid property taxes on all of it.
As taxpayer-funded roads, bridges, river dredging, dams, locks, airport construcion and operation grew exponentially during the past century, the property taxes the railroads paid were increasingly used to construct and operate those alternate modes of transporation. President Eisenhower effectively killed the passenger train and crippled rail freight transportation when he approved the Interstate Highway System.
Since Amtrak's May 1, 1971 birth, opponents have decried the taxpayer subsidies needed to sustain it. They fail to mention that taxpayer spending on railroads are meager compared to what is spent on roads, airports, air traffic control, dams, locks, dredging (not to mention the costs of destructive flooding caused by the construction and maintenance of navigable waterways).
To level the playing field, privatize all modes or subsidize all modes.
Amtrak's problems have nothing to do with it's organizaton or management. As a fairly frequent rider who has ridden several of the the cross-country routes, they do a hell of a job with the resources available. The staff's courtesy under the hassles of snafu's completely beyond their control is admirable.
Amtrak's problems are that they are kept at a continuous state of near-financial starvation and, except for the NE corridor, relies of the mercy, and run only at the convenience of the freight railroad's lines.
A crash program of all-new network of high-speed passenger railroad lines need to be developed - as extensive as the interstate highway system. Of course such a project will be public-sector.
..but unfortunately, in an era where privatization is even being touted for public highways and public schools, the topic of privatization has moved beyond parody.
I repeat - it was parody - he was being SARCASTIC.
Privatizing the Passenger Rail system is a terrible idea. We need to look no further than Mexico. Trains privatized, prices tripled, no riders, passenger service halted. All bus now. For a more recent example the Ferry system from Mazatlan to La Paz in Baja Sur. Same scenario; privatized, prices tripled, no riders, passenger service halted. This happened 7 weeks ago, during Carnaval with no warningl. It left many celebrants stranded with useless return tickets.
The problems with AMTRAK are that for a generation and more the subsidies have been parsimonious and reluctantly given at that. Air travel and highways have been the recipients of hundreds of billions of subsidies and the rail system is forced to cobble together scant resources. I try to take the North American Rail Pass (30 days wherever US and Canada) most years. I took the train often pre-AMTRAK and remember the different business entities causing difficulties. If the system is privatized what regulations can be enacted? The profitable North East corridor will be separated from the rest of the system and the entropy of neglect for the rest of the country will set in. Not a pretty picture. With the waste and corruption from Iraq it will be a long time before we will accept the role of the government in saving this vital transport link.
NGOs in this country (like the above mentioned MoveOn and the AFL-CIO) don't have the resources to purchase and operate something on this scale. Few corporate entities would be able to purchase it outright. The breakup would be assured and lesser served areas, like New Mexico where I live, would be cut from the picture.
Baker does make some valid comments, who is going to lobby for the system?
In my opinion, airplanes take the travel out of traveling.
I think Mr. Baker's sarcasm went over a lot of heads here...
I read a lot of Dean Baker's stuff in Dollars and Sense Magazine. Rest assured, he was being sarcastic and is fully aware all the best national rail systems are publicly owned.
I think that the worst thing you could do is privatize Amtrak. Put our trains in the hands of a corporate system that is so dysfunctional that all it does is produce Wal Marts, Halliburtons, and Enrons? No thanks! Look at what happened to British Rail when it was privatized. Amtrak is indeed awful, but privatizing it will make it even worse. Congress needs to spend some of the billions we're wasting in Iraq on our rail system.
P.S. Mussolini did not get the trains to run on time that whole comment was meant as a sarcastic joke in Italy. Sorry another Fascist-Rove parallel but it was nice of you to give him the benefit of the doubt
Amtrak is a nightmare alredy. Setting it on fire would be an improvement. This is a golden opportunity for the Green movement to prove it is workable. Get together and BUY Amtrak. Put in the investment to make it simultaneously profitable and enviromentally friendly. Progressives should become the greedy sleazebags. Pay your people living wage with generous benefits maybe even Co-OP it or something. Clean up and speed up service. I think Republicans and Democrats would be glad to ditch this albatross. Can the AFL-CIO or Moveon or some other movement legally own it? You have the resources and they aren't doing anything in Washington D.C.
Nearly all great train systems of the world are publicly owned. The reasons that Amtrak has a pathetic records are:
1. The tracks are still owned by the private robber baron corporations set up in the 19th century and the tracks are still a breathtaking testament to the technology of that era. If railroad tracks were apartment buildings, Burlington Northern and Southern Pacific would be slum lords.
2. If the American trains ran on time, it would be an obvious tip-off that the U.S. is now a fascist country ala Mussolini. Karl Rove has made sure the trains run on a random schedule to prop up the illusion that we still live in a free society. :-)
The solution is not simply to privatize Amtrak, but to nationalize the railroad tracks, make sure existing tracks are upgraded to support highspeed in two directions (double track road beds). THEN, open up the tracks to private competition. This is what we have with the state highway system (publicly owned roads with private competition)
Living in Switzerland we have an excellent state sponsored rail system. I can leave for all major cities every hour.
France has both private and public and since some parts have been privitized those parts have suffered.
The English system went from good to nightmare when Maggie privitized the rail system.
We need a good rail system BUT it should be a government iniative much like building the highway system was in the 1950s.