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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (218367)	2/9/2005 7:48:17 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575430

Amtrak was a combination of failed private enterprises. The government thought that combining them would make it viable. The original idea sold to taxpayers was to run it and make it profitable enough to make it private again. Part of the problem is that Americans expect their trains to be profitable without subsidy when, in fact, we subsidize cars and planes. I don't know of any train system in the world that is profitable. Please note I said system......there are some train routes that are profitable but they are rare and usually due to unusual circumstances. However, many developed countries are promoting train travel because trains use fewer resources per capita than cars and planes and are less polluting. Your comments and the ones you responded to are inflammatory partisan spin. Not true. I got hooked on train travel while in Europe and have used Amtrak actively for the past ten years. Over that ten year period, I have noted that the GOP has worked diligently to derail Amtrak. Each year, the Dems have had to fight to leave some money for the system. Apparently, some GOPers view train travel as an activity that is not unlike prostitution. You have failed to mention that many of the traditional value rooted states are served by Amtrak as well as the liberal ones. Over the past twenty years, passenger train travel between most towns and small cities in this country has been drastically reduced or stopped altogether. Those states that still have substantial train traffic must subsidize that service to make up for the federal shortfall that grows bigger each year. Those states typically are blue states. Many communities in the center of the country will lose their transportation ties to liberal cities. Those train ties were broken long ago. The cost to those traditional communities will be much greater than the loss to the big city commuters who have taken advantage of discount travel between New York and DC. Those towns have relied on buses for years, not trains. Train travel is rare in this country. For an example, there are only two trains per day between LA and Chicago..one going east, the other going west. However, between LA and SD there are approximately 11-12 trains per day each way. Its the big cities aka blue cities that will be hurt by the the loss of train service, not the small towns. Where were you on the failure of Continental and Greyhound? If the GOP succeeds in killing Amtrak, there is a whole infrastructure of tracks, equipment and buildings that either will be lost or will be allowed to deteriorate. With Greyhound or Continental, there are other bus companies or airlines that will pick up the slack. In the meantime, the roads and airports will continue to be maintained. GOPers wouldn't be caught dead in a train. But if they threw caution to the wind, and took a train trip, they would realize how much more pleasurable it is than a trip by car or plane. In the meantime, the Europeans and Japanese move ahead in another area that we are vacating. ted