June 15, 2006
THE 11TH COMMANDMENT--THOUGH SHALT BUILD MORE RAILWAYS:
U.S. Railroad Profits Tied To New Investment (Oxford Analytica, 06.15.06)
With nearly 160,000 kilometers (km) of track, U.S. rail infrastructure is more than double that in Russia or China. It is also the most efficient and profitable network in the world.However, the system suffers from increasing delays and bottlenecks. Rail customers are up in arms. A cadre of company representatives recently descended on Washington to lobby Congress for reforms aimed at reducing and more fairly distributing the costs created by delays. This capacity crunch has been caused by dramatic traffic growth...
You can never have enough. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 15, 2006 5:30 PM
Good news, but they ain't making money carrying passengers.
Posted by: jdkelly at June 15, 2006 5:54 PMIsn't that the !#@$%&$% Commandment?
Posted by: David Cohen at June 15, 2006 6:15 PMBlaspheming trains violates the 12TH.
Posted by: oj at June 15, 2006 6:26 PMNah. To paraphrase the Herald of Hibbing, it takes a car to laugh, it takes a train to cry.
Posted by: jdkelly at June 15, 2006 6:43 PMRail is great for freight.
Planes are good for getting around the country.
Posted by: kevin whited at June 15, 2006 6:56 PMAnd cars are for sheer exuberance!!!!!
Posted by: erp at June 15, 2006 7:05 PMerp:
Motorcycles are for exuberance.
I had the opportunity to ride the Amtrak Autotrain two weeks ago. It transported me and my '68 Plymouth Road Runner to the Orlando area for the start of the Hot Rod Power Tour.
It takes 16 hours for the train to go from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL. The Amtrak employees are uniformly polite and helpful. The ride is extremely boring with the train making multiple stops to switch tracks and load the next morning's breakfast. There is no direct track from the DC area to central florida and the ride we took showed that.
Taking the train only made sense because we needed to get our vintage iron to central florida. I couldn't see using it otherwise.
Posted by: Pete at June 15, 2006 7:59 PMSadly, motorcycles are for organ donors, as they say.
Posted by: jdkelly at June 15, 2006 8:35 PMI'm looking forward to the fur flying as the train advocates try to take back the bicycle trails.
Posted by: pj at June 15, 2006 8:59 PMAh, the ties that bind. The ballast of sanity.
Posted by: ghostcat at June 15, 2006 9:33 PMAlas, Bryan, not since they make you wear helmets.
Posted by: erp at June 15, 2006 10:33 PMI need a flying car... preferably one that can strafe trains.
Posted by: lebeaux at June 15, 2006 11:48 PMerp:
I wear a helmet on a bike out of habit just like I wear my seatbelt in a car out of habit. Once you get used to it, it's no bother at all. And, just like seatbelts, even if there wasn't a law, I'd still use one.
jdkelly:
Oooh, I've never heard that one before! Know what they call motorcycles in emergency rooms? Donor cycles! Har har har! Gosh, that joke just keeps getting funnier. Doesn't make motorcycles any less fun to ride, though.
Bryan, I'm only kidding. I was born too soon to be a biker although I've ridden one years ago and loved it. Helmets, like seat belts, were unheard of back then.
We live near Daytona Beach and twice a year there's an orgy of bloody horrible deaths when the unhelmeted (the helmet law was repealed) aging and overweight bikers much the worse for beer and sun meet head on with cars driven by people whose reflexes aren't what they once were and can't react fast enough to get out of the way of bikers riding en masse dodging in and out of traffic.
Locals know to stay off the main roads during bike weeks.
Bryan: Just so long as you're not really Tom Brady.
Posted by: David Cohen at June 16, 2006 9:59 PM