Oh, and FWIW... I frankly don't give a D___ about what the rest of the world is doing. I'm a USofA citizen.
KD
Perhaps you should. You and all the rest of us citizens should be paying attention to the progress the rest of industialized world is making, or we're going fall to the rear. You think American corporations, or the Department of Defence, or any other entity tied into the world economy or military-industial complex don't give a D____ what the rest of the world is doing? You bet your _____ they do! And when every member of the G7, other than Canada, plus China and South Korea - virtually all the industrialized nations in the world except the United States - has moved to high speed rail, we need to sit up and take notice. It should be a wakeup call to all but those living in caves (physical or mental).
Almost every country that has expanded rail systems has a socialist component to it. The discussion should be focused on what is the best way forward. We are where we are, how do we “encourage” with incentives private industry to solve the rail transportation issues we face. Americans can solve any problem better than anyone if we are allowed.
In general, Passenger trains were money losers since the 1920’s. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was due to the mail contracts. I like trains as much as all of you, I do not however want to waste more of our tax dollars on it. There has to be a better way.
That includes the US, the idea that everything is done efficiently by private industry or that they operate totally in the free market is a myth, there are all kinds of socialistic elements to our economy as well. The huge corn subsidies and the tax breaks and subsidies for ethanol in gasoline, not to mention the requirement for ethanol in gasoline is an example (we pay for this with taxpayer funds and credits,as well as lower fuel mileage). The automobile and trucking industries are subsidized as others have mentioned, not to mention that the costs of maintaining cheap fuel comes at a cost, military and through tax policy and subsidies through cheap leases for oil fields and the like. High tech firms have benefitted from reaserch done mostly on uncle sam's dime. Airlines exist today because of mail contracts in the early days , after WWII it was the fixed pricing of airline tickets that basically was a windfall for airlines while costly for consumers, wasn't broken up until the late 70s, not exactly free market capitalism.it was done to give the airline industry profits and was also done to force airlines to fly to places they otherwise wouldn't.
The problem with the railroads is much like the ICC rate structure that made trains at a disadvantage versus trucking, comparing something competing against subsidized competitors and pretending the free market decided it. Amtrak has been a kluged together mess competing with the likes of airplane travel and the car, both heavily subsidized directly and indirectly. If you took the cost of keeping flight corridors going and running airports and the hidden subsidies in jet fuel prices and put a similar amount in building out a modern rail network, you might find it is operable, but that isn't likely. A ny chicago high speed rail that did it in 5 hours city to city could compete w a plane for total time and that is not science fiction, just lack of funding.
My point isn't that trains aren't or are a panacea, what I am saying is we haven't really made an effort to figure that out, and that other modes of transportation that seem the product of being more viable are the result of a lot of unseen decisions,political and otherwise, not fair competition. For example, the ICC refusal to deregulate train shipping was political, there was a huge amount of politics in that decisions,employment, powerful politicians in areas that relied on trucking industry, the influence of lobbying, as well as those who relied,not on facts, but the belief that trains were a thing of the past compared to the modern truck or the long held belief trains were still the evildoers who ripped off farmers while giving standard oil sweetheart rates, which hadn't been true when the government broke up the trusts amd the sweetheart deals, known otherwise as cognitive bias. Lot of two facedness too, politicians who decry Amtrak and government subsidies while making sure other subsidies aren't cut *shrug*.
