The problem Hank, is that railroads are no longer part of the American Psyche.
When we had decent passenger service, people thought about trains, because Grandpa and Grandma would use them to come out for a visit or the individual could ride them to Uncle Elmer and Aunt Phoebe's farm for a couple of weeks in the summer.
Amtrak changed all that. Because of chronic underfunding and the lack of a national will for passenger service, the people who used to equate trains with travel no longer think about them. With Amtrak, this is very understandable.
I live in Cheyenne, Wyoming, we have poor to nonexistent intercity bus service, no airline service (as in zero) and, despite being a terminal for Both UP and BNSF, no passenger train service. So if you want to go by train,you drive to Denver or LaJunta Colorado. If you want to fly, you go to Denver International Airport. If you want to take the bus... Put out your thumb and good luck.
This is the State Capitol. Of course, there is no Passenger Train Service in the entire state.
If you want to see an (inter)national will for passenger trains, go to the EU or the UK. The trains are clean and fast. Please don't tell me about Europe being small. I can take a train from Berlin to Paris in less than 6 hours and the speedometer in the lounge cars pegs at 200 kmph. This is just an Inter City Express train (ICE) and not the really high speed Eurostar trains. These trains are fast, clean and efficient. Amazingly enough, new Eurostar routes are coming on line.
I know that we have a "Unique" situation in the USA. The most unique thing is that instead of contributing to the most fuel and energy efficient method of transport, we are trying to fix highways which per ton mile use way more fuel than a railroad would ever think of using.
So it is not surprising that people complain about those noisy, stinky old trains. They are just blocking the road that they want to travel down, or waking them up in the motels across the tracks at night. It's because trains are nothing to them but something that "Interferes" with their quality of life.
These vocal idiots have no idea of how much the railroad makes their quality of life better and brings them goods less expensively than any other mode of transportation, save barge.
But look at the bright side, if the D&S shuts down (I'll bet it doesn't), Just look at all the equipment available for the C&TS...
Rick
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2018 01:48PM by Rick Steele.
