John, The arguement breaks down on the cost to build rail service to every small town in order to feed the big towns. Regards, Bob S.
On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 2:08 PM, John Sessoms <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Bob Sullivan >> >> It's the distance between cities that kills rail here. >> Except on the east coast, travel times between big cities require an >> overnight ride. >> Planes are so much faster for anything over 200 miles. >> Been that way since 1947... >> Regards, Bob S. > > There are a couple of flaws I find with that argument ... > > Who says service has to be only between big cities? Seems to me local > services are what makes rail transportation viable. Feed from the small > towns into the big cities and back again; and take the high speed expresses > between big cities. > > The government spends a whole lot of money building and maintaining > highways. Building and maintaining rail lines should get as much attention, > but we gave away the tracks built with government subsidies to corporations > who don't maintain them unless they get more government subsidies. > > And planes aren't a lot faster any more, once you factor in the time it > takes to get to the airport and the time you have to wait so you can go > through security. > > ... and all the delays once you're finally through the gate waiting for the > aircraft to load. > > ... and all the delays waiting to take off once the aircraft HAS loaded. > > ... not to mention all the fees and surcharges for boarding fee, fuel cost > surtax, security tax, extra fees because your bag weighs more than 25 > pounds, extra fees because you have a camera bag as well as a suitcase, > extra fees because your camera bag isn't the exact dimensions the airline > specified for a carry-on bag ... > > Don't get me started on jet-lag and breathing the crap the airlines pass off > as "air" inside the cabin if you finally manage to get off the ground. > > The cattle going to the slaughterhouse in Chicago's famous stockyards get > better treatment than American Airlines passengers going through O'hare. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
