General Amtrak Discussion

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Oh, yes they can. There is precedent in American history for taking things. Just ask Native Americans who had their ancestral lands taken and had those treaties broken.

Not a very good precedent. Private ownership of property without threat or actuality of government theft of it is the basis of our society.

*generally motions to the entirety of the interstate highway system*

[FlippantCitizen]

Nationalizing some railroads and some oil companies would be a good move IMO.

Honestly just the infrastructure would be enough IMO. Treat it all like roads or airports, have private companies operate on public ROW infrastructure. It’s where the gov gets the most bang for their Buck in spending anyways

Totally agree. The tracks and ROW. Let the carriers continue to be independent. At least if the government owned the track then priorities could be balanced in the public interest. The tracks and ROWs should be considered utilities.

Regarding my oil company comment... oil is just going to be a bad biz going forward, it's moribund. We can't break the oil habit all at once and not for a long time but it would be better to have some government entity operating in the public interest to dampen energy shocks that will probably only be more common in the coming years due to geopolitical circumstance. In specific times over the next 50 years the answer might be drill baby drill to soften the blow of an acute crisis. We can't rely on the private sector to be ready to do so if the economics aren't there. The shale boom and bust followed by new geopolitical challenges ala covid supply shocks/demand shocks and Ukraine War illustrate that starkly.

[beautyfromashes]

At one time, it wasn't though. The whole country was built by taking land from people living on it and enslaving, or exploiting other people to build the economy.

And you want to go back to that time? I'm confused on the reference.

[beautyfromashes]

*generally motions to the entirety of the interstate highway system*

The government never took privately owned highways. They purchased, sometimes through eminent domain, farm land that they then built the highways on. They paid, in most instances, way above the farm land price for the land and it was generally seen as a good deal for the land owners because the value of all the land they owned next to the highway went up in value. If you want to pay above market prices for the railroad lines, it would be the largest purchase by cost in the history of man...just astronomical. What seems to be suggested is nationalizing private property with below market token reimbursement. That would literally crash the entire economy of America because property and industry owners would see it as a precedent to further government grabs of private property. It would make people question the security of their assets making their value tank. Terrible idea.

[TheLastGentleman]

I'm not sure how buying up rail would be any more of a money hole than any number of the U.S's other gaping money pits that eat incomprehendible amounts of money. If the govt secretly took out and buried $trillion in the middle of nowhere, would we even notice?

This is one of my main issues with the "fiscal responsibility" angle criticizing public improvements. Like, who exactly is even going to miss this money? As CA HSR cost has "ballooned", for instance, is anyone actually feeling that?

My favorite example of this is when a historic landmark structure gets a rehabilitation. "Wow Big Ben, public building, international landmark and architectural treasure, is renovated BUT AT THE EYE WATERING COST OF 80 MILLION POUNDS!!! OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

[WoodDraw]

We don't know how to build or run rail. Probably wouldn't take it over and crush the economy because, I don't even know why? For fun?

[FangKC]

Again, the UK rail system was privatized, and it's completely in crisis.

In comparison, the Swiss rail system is mostly federalized (and has been for 120 years) and operates in one of the most challenging physical environments on Earth. Yet:

Switzerland was ranked first among national European rail systems in the 2017 European Railway Performance Index for its intensity of use, quality of service and strong safety rating.[22] Switzerland had excellent intensity of use, notably driven by passenger traffic, and a good rating for quality of service and a very good rating for safety. Switzerland captured high value in return for public investment with cost to performance ratios that outperform the average ratio for all European countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_tran ... witzerland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Railways

The top six rated rail services in Europe are federal rail systems as well and they are very efficient. They are Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Austria, Sweden and France.

Just because something is administered by government doesn't mean it's bad. Medicare is the most efficient health insurance program in the USA. It devotes the smallest amount of its premiums to administration of any health system and has higher satisfaction rates than private health insurance companies. Same with veterans' health insurance and Medicaid.

[WoodDraw]

I don't disagree, but Amtrak doesn't know how to board trains. What is one rail project that the federal government has undertaken that gives you any confidence they can run a nation wide rail system?

[phuqueue]

The federal government has vastly greater resources than any other organization in the country, probably more than any other in the world except, I don't know, maybe the Chinese government. There is nothing it "can't" do. There is a lot that it simply chooses not to do, like building out a national HSR network, and a lot that it does only grudgingly and with a bare minimum (or less) of resources and effort, like running Amtrak. I don't know what the answer is as far as making politicians care about and prioritize Amtrak or passenger rail service in general, but don't confuse the fact that the government doesn't want to run a nationwide rail system with the idea that it "can't."

[WoodDraw]

Saying we have unlimited resources is great way to spend a lot of money being awful.

The ne corridor is perfect for high speed rail and it's awful by any world standards. Let's see the feds so one thing right on a normal budget and then come back.

[grovester]

Saying we have unlimited resources is great way to spend a lot of money being awful.

The ne corridor is perfect for high speed rail and it's awful by any world standards. Let's see the feds so one thing right on a normal budget and then come back.

"normal budget", we talking European budgets? Think we'd have a much better system1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies

[beautyfromashes]

The perceptions of Europe being all in on rail travel are a little overstated. Sure, it was the primary means of travel 25 years ago when I took the train around Europe during college. Now, cheap air travel seems to have taken over. Yes, you can get from Paris to Milan by train fairly easily. But, it takes 7 hours, and that's a high speed train. Business travelers especially are choosing to take the 1 hour flight and save the day. While I love train travel, it's quaint and relaxing, I don't think spending ungodly amounts of money to build an old system beyond between a few close major cities makes logical sense. I'd much rather spend that gazillion dollars on commuter rail or streetcars.

[herrfrank]

We have a left-of-center Congress plus pro-rail President and executive branch, including the Sec'y of Transportation Buttigieg. And we have a favorable environment for passenger railroads (periodic and recent meltdowns of the primary long-distance travel system -- namely, private airlines).

Yet these same people are saying, by actions if not words, that Amtrak is not a top priority. While I like Amtrak, and it works in certain limited ways, the federal government is still grounded in reality. HSR is not going to be a solution for a highly diffuse, 400-million passenger system travelling about one thousand miles per journey (est. US enplanements), especially with a functional, extant network of interstate highways and nearly universal car ownership.

Rail is not the solution to our problem. The solution is already in place -- cars and airplanes. The solution requires constant investment, and incremental improvements are welcome, but the overall system is not getting replaced.

[WoodDraw]

Saying we have unlimited resources is great way to spend a lot of money being awful.

The ne corridor is perfect for high speed rail and it's awful by any world standards. Let's see the feds so one thing right on a normal budget and then come back.

"normal budget", we talking European budgets? Think we'd have a much better system1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies

It's a stupid and lazy argument. All transit is funded with a mixture of sources. What portion comes directly from a fee vs others, I don't care here.

I want to see can you build and operate a high speed rail network for the same price as Spain or Italy.

[phuqueue]

Saying we have unlimited resources is great way to spend a lot of money being awful.

The ne corridor is perfect for high speed rail and it's awful by any world standards. Let's see the feds so one thing right on a normal budget and then come back.

If the federal government adequately funded rail transport -- which, yes, it has ample resources to do, and currently does not -- and adopted international best practices in building and managing the network, which it also currently doesn't do, what is it about the federal government itself that you suppose leaves it just inherently incapable of running a nationwide rail system? You accuse grovester of making a stupid and lazy argument, but I can't read your last few posts in this thread as anything more than standard "the government can't do anything right" complaining, devoid of any real substance.

[TheLastGentleman]

The rail system of "developing" country, China.

[WoodDraw]

You guys are missing the point. We're bad at it. Like really really bad. It has nothing to do with funding.

[grovester]

Saying we have unlimited resources is great way to spend a lot of money being awful.

The ne corridor is perfect for high speed rail and it's awful by any world standards. Let's see the feds so one thing right on a normal budget and then come back.

"normal budget", we talking European budgets? Think we'd have a much better system1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies

It's a stupid and lazy argument. All transit is funded with a mixture of sources. What portion comes directly from a fee vs others, I don't care here.

I want to see can you build and operate a high speed rail network for the same price as Spain or Italy.

Glad you agree with my lazy and stupid argument?

[phuqueue]

I think you are the one missing the point, which is why we're bad at it, and funding is a symptom of the deeper problem, which is that our leadership simply doesn't care about or prioritize it. Our government is not uniquely, fundamentally incapable of doing what other governments around the world already do, our government just doesn't want to do it.

[WoodDraw]

That’s simply not too. The people in charge have been interviewed and they’re like OMG it’s so hard here. It’s not.