Growing up around Fort Worth, it's not surprising he would become infatuated with trains, since it's home to one of the largest rail yards in the world, which dominates the area just to the east of downtown.

Yes, inefficiency and obsolescence are romantic.

As is everything decent in life.

David --

Have you ever tried to drive into Manhattan from New Jersery during AM rush hour -- there's your inefficiency. Even the clunky near-obsolete NJT trains do a better job of getting people into town than the cars and buses going through the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and over the GWB (bridge, not president).

John: No. I lived in Manhattan for 5 years specifically in order to avoid commuting into Manhattan during rush hour, and because my housing was subsidized. I have, however, driven into Manhattan during rush hour from the north for meetings.

The question is, what does "better" mean if the alternative is awful, the price is subsidized, and still people refuse to do it.

There is nothing like a train. Nothing in the world.

It's that combination of enormous power and guiding rails.

80% of NYC commuters use mass transit--you just need to restrict the selfish ones.

My greataunt was a teacher. One of her pupils in grade school wanted more than anything to be a streetcar conductor. His parents insisted that he become a rabbi, which he did.

When he was 59, the old, abandoned train terminal in my hometown, Chattanooga, was revived as a Hilton hotel, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo, with a collection of old private rail cars on the tracks that were rented as transient rooms.

It was only about 100 yards from the terminal building to the cars, but instead of walking, the customers were shuttled on a refurbished New Orleans streetcar.

You guessed it. The rabbi gave up pastoring (or whatever the term is for rabbis) to be a streetcar conductor.

I never met him, but my aunt said he was very happy.

OJ: True so far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far. Almost all the mass-transit commuters use the subway. In other words, they are people without cars traveling within the City. People from outside the City -- those who actually have cars -- drive in and the number of cars driving into the City is greater than the number of people who use mass transit to come into the City. When I lived in Manhattan, I took the First Avenue bus to work. After I left, I took Amtrak in a couple of times. It was miserable.

Nothing is more miserable than waiting in the winter for the M-15 First/Second Avenue bus, where the usual pattern is no buses at all for 15 minutes followed by 15 buses (looking something like the helicopter scene is "Apocolypse Now") all arriving at the exact same time. It always made me wish they would finally built the damn Second Avenue subway, or that that blowhard LaGuardia had never torn down the Second Avenue el.

John: I here ya, but there was always the compensation of seeing out-of-towners check the "schedule" and then look at their watches.

Likes and dislikes are a silly way to run a city.

Subsidies and romance are no way to run a railroad.

Yes, well, we know how to make the trains run on time, don't we?

John it was the 3rd avenue EL.

So you understand my lack of enthusiasm.

David: its a shame you don't hear the music. Didn't you know that computer hacking began with the MIT Model Railroad Club? Follow the link to the NYTimes article and check Mr. O'Rourke's picture. he is 1) the happiest guy in the world and 2) a complete geek. Most of the people who post here regularly would give their right arms to be just like him.

No takers on the South(ern) Pacific allusion, eh? Ruined my day.

For rational efficiency? Yes.

Robert --

No, the Third Ave. el lasted until the Wagner Administration, in 1955. The Second Ave. el bit the dust in 1942, along with its direct connection to the Flushing Line over the Queensboro Bridge, because LaGuardia promised that as soon as World War II was over, they'd start work on the Second Ave. subway. The Third Ave. el was supposed to last until the Second Ave. line was built, and when it became obvious that idea was in Fantasyland, the el finally came down when Mobil and several other companies said they would only build new headquarters along Third Ave. if the el was scrapped.

There's nothing wrong with someone doing what he likes, no matter how strange it may seem. Heck, my dream is to own and run a combination sports and race book, a bar and grill, and upscale restaurant on a beachfront in the Spanish-language Caribbean.

geez, everyone dreams that you'll leave.

Do 'upscale' and 'race book' belong in the same sentence? After all, who would be frequenting the place, dreary Canadians, over-the-hill New Yorkers, and wannabe Europeans?

Ever been to Vegas? How about Saratoga Springs? It works for the Bellagio.

If you have to have a car to get to the train station, may as well drive on in.

I commuted by LIRR from Hicksville to 42nd Street for a (short) while. Expensive and uncomfortable.