Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums

[Tim May]

On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 07:58  AM, Harmon Seaver wrote:

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 02:21:20PM +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Thomas Shaddack wrote:

I don't know how it works in the US, but railroads are both comfortable
and pretty reliable in Europe.

A bit too expensive, especially in Germany. I also like being able to work
on the train -- given that here cities are only a few kilotons apart and
ICEs are pretty speedy flying can take longer.

Otherwise I agree, bahning beyond 5-6 h starts to become tedious.

I'd love to see more and better train service in the US. Great way to
travel, work, read, watch the scenery. I don't mind at all taking a few days,

Great, and when you can find enough other people who also wouldn't mind taking a few days, including the business travelers who make up the bulk of travelers, then you should have no problem creating the demand for such travel.

But of course you are in the minority. Very few families, even fewer business travelers, are willing to spend a few days on a train. You may be, but clearly others are not.

(The logistical and safety issues of children on a train are interesting to contemplate.)

and, unless it's a real emergency, I'm very sure at this point I'll never fly a
commercial airline again. Trains seem to work quite well in the rest of the
world -- why not here?

Asked and answered. You clearly are either not reading, or not agreeing with, the several posts which have already addressed this issue. Which is OK, that you don't agree. But asking the question yet again will not help.

I'm not in favor of gov't subsidies for anything -- but,
as I said before, we don't live in a libertarian fantasy world, so if transport
is going to be subsidized, the trains should get their fair share.

They do, for good transport. This is why there are so many railroad tracks in the U.S.

However, people, for the various reasons discussed in posts here recently, choose not to travel by train. Lots of reasons.

Both railroads and highways have logistical and national defense reasons they have been subsdized: trucks and freight trains, obviously.

However, for very obvious reasons, once highways have been built they can be used by automobiles as well as trucks. The same sort of thing cannot happen with trains. (Though there are a few specialized trains which transport passenger cars between New York and Florida, for example, thus allowing snowbirds and vacationers to have their own cars in Florida.)

The mixed use of roads--passenger cars, motorcyles, buses, freight trucks, delivery trucks, emergency vehicles, etc.--is why roads and highways are generally so much better a solution than fixed path rail lines are.

I understand your politics is lefty...this has been shining through for years.

But your analytical skills are lacking. If you wish to persuade us that the world should be different than it is, you need better arguments than "I would be willing to spend several days traveling by train."

--Tim May