Re: GM killed US rail network

Dear Lon,
It is not a legend or conspiricy theory, it is historical truth if you want to spend time to reading the federal records. The "highway Lobby" whcih includes the auto manufactureres still battle today to elimitate intercity rail and mass transit funding. They got a big surprise in the 1990s then the federal funding had three money pots; one for highways, one for transit and one other put that could be spent either way. They thought that they would get most of the third pot, but quite a bit of it went for mass transit instead. This is why we have more commuter rail and light rail systems in this country than we had in 1990. I have been in the business working for a commuter rail system for 17 years. One irony of the highway lobby fighting against railway funding and taking it "away" from them, is that they will get around half of the rail construction funds anyway since they are the ones who build the railroad embankments, culverts, bridges, highway grade crossings, etc. (And now back to narrow gauge....)
Sincerely,
Andy