A long time ago, specifically, Friday afternoon, December 20, 1957, the day Boeing first publicly demonstrated the 707 liner, the management of the railroads should have begun to view themselves as being in the transportation business, rather than the railroad business. Had they done so, along with some "Delta-T" thinking (what will be different over a change in time, such as crowded, low-service, high-priced air travel and rising fuel prices), things might be a lot different and possibly better than they are now, with regard to our viable choices for long(-er) distance transportation.
However, this type of industry, at this scale, crossing state and other geo-political boundaries, doesn't exist in a vacuum. It has historically involved, for better or worse (depending on how a reader's political opinions filter their inputs and mental processes) some form of governmental action. Well, based on what we've seen, good and bad, in the various segments of the aviation industry since WWII, from the involvement of our governmental decision-makers, I couldn't really hazard a guess as to how different things might look. Before anyone thinks I'm a naïve Libertarian or anti-government radical, I would just offer this reminder: we elect those folks ... My slightly off-topic synopsis of this on-topic thread, Steve in Memphis ... ... where the "decision-makers" with the City of Memphis and the "management" of the Canadian Pacific have been battling for many, many weeks over who's responsible for the repair of a sinkhole caused by the collapse of a 100-year-old cistern, disrupting local service by Amtrak's City of New Orleans, which runs from Chicago to The Big Easy. If you'll please pardon me for even putting the abbreviation on this board, it's just SSDD. From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:40am 11:40 To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Transportation to October conference - take Amtrak! Holy Moly!!! That's just horrible! Something to think about, for sure ... Jan's airplane invitation sounds much better (there is a small airport about 10 minutes from me) I agree -- both times I was in Ireland I took their trains everywhere. Incredibly reliable. The US has a ways to go to catch up (soapbox on: the result of cheap gas: soapbox off) Karen Only a side note about AmTrack. I have taken it skiing to Colorado and on two other shorter trips. On the trip to Colorado, the train arrived 6 hours late. On the way back it arrived 13 hours late! No break downs nor blizzards nor other unexpected catastrophe. Just waiting for freight trains to pass! On two short trips (scheduled 3.5 hours), both were over 1 hour late. Amtrak does not own the rails and has to pull over and wait for any freight trains to pass. Other than the horrible on time record, it was not a bad ride. Perhaps going East will be better? Having visited Germany this year, I was quite impressed with thier train system. If Amtrack could maintain a decent on time schedule such as in Germany, people would use them more! -Bob
