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

To: TimF who wrote (705630)	3/24/2013 10:18:21 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578145

They don't make an overall profit. If they did it would be largely because of greater density (compare Europe to North America or even just the US), and high European taxes on fuels, and high tolls, but even with those things high speed rail in Europe is subsidized not profitable. Hi speed rail lines in Europe ARE profitable. Its the slower lines to smaller cities that are not profitable. And the reason they are profitable is because they are fast.....faster than cars........and provide a great alternative to flying. France is now trying to make hi speed rail profitable between smaller cities like Nancy and Strousburg by cutting some of the frills found with hi speed rail lines between the larger cities. I'll let you know how that works out. And if you want to cut waste, please start with the military which is notorious for paying humongous prices for run of the mill items like toilet seats. And when you get done and after your pols do the necessary cutting, then we can talk about how we can make hi speed rail more effective and less expensive. We know this because high-speed rail systems in other nations were not built, and are not operated, anywhere near so cheaply as Obama suggests. In the past decade, Taiwan built a single 215-mile high-speed passenger route for $15 billion. Germany, France, and Italy, often cited as advanced railroad nations, subsidize their rail systems heavily: Between 1995 and 2003, Germany spent $104 billion on subsidies, France spent $75 billion, and Italy spent $64 billion, according to a 2008 study by Amtrak's inspector general. Rail ridership in Europe far outpaces that in the U.S., but in spite of these huge subsidies, trains have lost a significant portion of their market share to automobiles and planes since 1980. The right makes claims like these all the time.....referencing studies and articles that others have done but never provides a footnote to back up their claims. Why? And maybe its true but I think its important to point out that the EU which is only slightly bigger than the US has rail ridership of nearly 400 million vs 31 million in the US. In fact, many countries smaller than the US........like Egypt, Japan, the UK and the Ukraine have a greater number of rail passengers each year: link