Bush proposes Amtrak to get the budget ax again

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Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: arsbanned
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
This is why more efficent service is needed. Cutting budgets to the bone once again is going to make good service less of a reality.
I guess you never heard of a express train. They are set-up for minimal transfers.
Right now if you live in the 'burbs the train is NOT a viable alternative I never argued that point.
But it IS the problem I have with the issue.

A train is only viable between cities with a viable subway system. Any other time a train is completly usless. And subways are only used in high desity cities. Ever where else people want to go in different directions. Very few people like mass tranist. Maybe we should bring back boats, you can take a few weeks to get to europe. I mean they used to use boats so they most be the greatest thing since sliced bread. The train died when the car and plane where invented get over it.

A car has nothing on a 250mph express train.
Same deal with timeframe you cannot just drive where you want whenever you want you will get stuck in rush hours and sit that car on the pavement idling.
With GPS and electric technologies cars and with a bit more speed even planes are obsolete.

That would require extensive (like a complete rebuild) upgrades to the rails that would cost a lot of money which neither the public nor anyone else will want to do. I agree our priorities are screwed up though.

The current rail network in america is a shambles! (and it is not owned by amtrak anyhow)
I say tear it down and build safer guage track. Electric and more modern saftey standards.
From what I understand running trains above 100 iles an hour leads to chewed up track and accidents with the way they are currently built. (rather were built)
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: arsbanned
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: arsbanned
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Trains are the most retard overrated way to transport people. Give me a car any day over a damn train ticket that goes 10 miles out of the way. Stops 30 times and then drops you off a good 20 miles from the place you want to go. And just to make sure they suck hope you don't want to make any connections because only 3 cities in the US have main lines going into them and then the train only runs once a day.
Thats funny becasue the scedule points out that you are full of sh1t clearly. once a day lol
http://www.amtrak.com/timetable/oct04/W02.pdf

I didn't say all the trains. Your own post shows that most lines 75% only run one train a day. For an example of how F'n retard trains are for rural areas try to go from Vermont to say albany. First you have to take a 7 hour ride to NYC then spend the night then take the train from NYC to albany another 2.5 hours. Or you could drive for 3 hours save a day and about a hundred dollars.

Exactly. They should die, and die now. Amtrak has been an interesting experiment and it has failed and should die die die. :D
The U.S. is geographically unsuited for rail service.

edit: changed "wrong" to unsuited.


Funny rail networks served this country well until cheap gas. Even built this country...next,

So did the horse and buggy before automobiles. Next!
:D

Electric and maglev trains have never had their day in this country yet.
 

Dissipate

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2004
6,815
0
0
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Originally posted by: Dissipate
But under your theory there, can't be a market for information. Remember? ;)

In any event, I wouldn't care if they sold information on where I traveled to, or at least had information on where I traveled to. For one thing it would help them price things better. For those who didn't want the information sold or given away, they could have privacy agreements.

There could certainly be a market for that sort of information - finding out where people live/drive/work/etc for marketing purposes - it's pretty easy to assess the potential value of such information (especially in aggregate).

I don't necessarily think it would be worse than the way governments sometimes handle information, but the big brother potential would still be there - or maybe it would be more like having multiple medium-sized brothers;)

You take the good with the bad. In this case you get a whole lot of good, with potentially a little bad. You forget the better traffic enforcement that would result in less fatalities i.e. compare a public bureaucracy that is out there only to get more tax dollars to a private company that wants to maximize motorist safety. An analogy is where would you rather be at 3 A.M. in the morning? Disney World or Central Park?

I wouldn't be so sure you get more good. What happens when I buy the road infornt of your house and start charging you and your friends 10 grand to enter or exit?

Communities and businesses adjacent to the roads would obviously get first chance at the buy. In any event, a road owner would have a strong disincentive to charge prices so high that nobody would use their road because then they wouldn't make any money at all. However, they could charge some customers higher prices i.e. those who drive recklessly.

Sure they might reduce the value of the road. But if they just want to get your land for cheap I don't think they would care. Oh and isn't it a little socialist to allow some people to buy the road at less then market price.

Considering that they were never allowed to build the road themselves in the first place, no.

Ok so I don't like my neigbhors so I buy the road infornt of my house which they have to travel on or drive 10 miles out of their way. What is to stop me from charging them a large sum of money to use a few feet of road. I then get some one on the other side to purchase the road we then effective can prevent the land owner from coming and going. He would be forced to sell his propery.

Why in the world would you go through all that trouble? If you don't like your neighbors then you move.

This is like saying: "I'm going to build a grocery store, and it will be the only one in town. Then I'm going to not sell groceries to my neighbors because I don't like them."
 

arsbanned

Banned
Dec 12, 2003
4,853
0
0
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: arsbanned
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: Spencer278
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
This is why more efficent service is needed. Cutting budgets to the bone once again is going to make good service less of a reality.
I guess you never heard of a express train. They are set-up for minimal transfers.
Right now if you live in the 'burbs the train is NOT a viable alternative I never argued that point.
But it IS the problem I have with the issue.

A train is only viable between cities with a viable subway system. Any other time a train is completly usless. And subways are only used in high desity cities. Ever where else people want to go in different directions. Very few people like mass tranist. Maybe we should bring back boats, you can take a few weeks to get to europe. I mean they used to use boats so they most be the greatest thing since sliced bread. The train died when the car and plane where invented get over it.

A car has nothing on a 250mph express train.
Same deal with timeframe you cannot just drive where you want whenever you want you will get stuck in rush hours and sit that car on the pavement idling.
With GPS and electric technologies cars and with a bit more speed even planes are obsolete.

That would require extensive (like a complete rebuild) upgrades to the rails that would cost a lot of money which neither the public nor anyone else will want to do. I agree our priorities are screwed up though.

The current rail network in america is a shambles! (and it is not owned by amtrak anyhow)
I say tear it down and build safer guage track. Electric and more modern saftey standards.
From what I understand running trains above 100 iles an hour leads to chewed up track and accidents with the way they are currently built. (rather were built)

Are you familiar with the Acela? It's only more proof that Amtrak needs to be shut down. Read a history of that project. It's positively embarrassing.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
The Acela has been always seriously underfunded and the track is substandard.
It is a bit unfair to judge something that noone ever really gave a fair shake to IMO.
 

Pliablemoose

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
25,195
0
56
I'll never understand the US's reluctance to adopt/support/develop mass transit, we don't even build sidewalks for people to walk on from point A to B.
 

Dissipate

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2004
6,815
0
0
Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
I'll never understand the US's reluctance to adopt/support/develop mass transit, we don't even build sidewalks for people to walk on from point A to B.

I already explained why. Roads have been made free, or at least perceived to be free.
 

cwjerome

Diamond Member
Sep 30, 2004
4,346
26
81
What the hell is a modern day government of a major industrialized nation doing owning/controlling a rail company? It's.... so 1920s. It's unreal the conditioning people have gone through to believe only government can do certain things, and only government can do certain things well. Trapped in a mental box...

By the way, the NY subway system was built private and operated private I think until the 1940s.
 

Infohawk

Lifer
Jan 12, 2002
17,844
1
0
Originally posted by: cwjerome
What the hell is a modern day government of a major industrialized nation doing owning/controlling a rail company? It's.... so 1920s.

So how is it that most modern day goverments do own rail companies?
 

Dissipate

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2004
6,815
0
0
Originally posted by: cwjerome
What the hell is a modern day government of a major industrialized nation doing owning/controlling a rail company? It's.... so 1920s. It's unreal the conditioning people have gone through to believe only government can do certain things, and only government can do certain things well. Trapped in a mental box...

By the way, the NY subway system was built private and operated private I think until the 1940s.

I don't think steeplrot and his cronies have ever seen a government program they didn't like.
 

cwjerome

Diamond Member
Sep 30, 2004
4,346
26
81
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: cwjerome
What the hell is a modern day government of a major industrialized nation doing owning/controlling a rail company? It's.... so 1920s. It's unreal the conditioning people have gone through to believe only government can do certain things, and only government can do certain things well. Trapped in a mental box...

By the way, the NY subway system was built private and operated private I think until the 1940s.

I don't think steeplrot and his cronies have ever seen a government program they didn't like.


These are the people with the "Cuban" mindset, just slightly more subtle. If shoes were invented today, they would demand a government bureacracy guided by congressional committees that built government owned factories with government workers and determined how many shoes would be produced, how many shoes people would recieve, and at what price they would be. After all, shoes are very important, and if government wasn't involved how would we make sure everyone had shoes damnit!

The left sees government as THE solution and only means to accomplish virtually every end. I think it stems from their basic psychological appraisal of Man and Existence- that man is an impotent nothing, ugly, stupid, and doomed. Anyways, they cannot conceive of anything else, and certainly cannot comprehend that the Free Market is better in almost every way in almost every situation.

I can go into my local supermarket and choose from over 30,000 different products from around the world. I can go to another country and a stranger who doesn't speak my language will give me a car. All I have to do is give him a piece of plastic and sign a paper. I can stick that card into a slot at a bank I've never heard of and it will spit out $300. A month later I get a bill and it's accurate to a penny. The private sector performs miracles like this everyday. It's the ultimate democracy, where people vote with their wallets and doing so DEMANDS competitors to adjust millions of changes a second around the world.

Government is a primitive, inefficient slug whose purpose should be to grease the gears of people and markets (mainly objective laws on private property, contracts, and security)
 

Crimson

Banned
Oct 11, 1999
3,809
0
0
Originally posted by: miketheidiot
Originally posted by: Crimson
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
I have to disagree with you about your statement that your traffic is the same.
I am sure it is worse here becasue of geographical limitations. (And we haven't banned the damn cars yet.)
We have 24/7 buses within a few blocks of everyones home.
And I do not even know anyone with a car. A car is a obsolete and a burden to have when their is a viable alternative.
The statement that people is USA do not want trains is bunk LOTS of people use trains. Heck I know plenty of people who have never had a licence and never will most likley. People who live somewhere with no trains I could see not understanding though.
US males have some angup on their car like it has some direct correclation to pen0r size. Attitudes will have to change yes. But then time marches on.
If you want to have a car good for you, enjoy your rightly deserved 8$ gallon of gas while we ride in style.

By contrast, in Milwaukee and the surrounding communities.. I do not know ANYONE who has never had a car or a license.. EVERYONE I know, whether they live in downtown or in the burbs owns a car.. From the poorest to the richest, everyone has a license, everyone has a car.. and we have buses that run everywhere too... People don't WANT to use them.. they want the convenience of their own car.

I'd gladly pay the $8 per gallon of gas if you agree to pay the $15 per trip on the bus that the actual cost is rather than the $1.50 you are paying now.

$20,000 car every 5 years

$4,000 a year

$11 a day just to own a car

plus gas, insurance, maintainance, interest, etc etc.

Your probably paying no less than 6 grand a year to use and own a single car.


Originally posted by: Crimson

So, your definition of a dying technology is one that is growing like crazy? I'm confused I think... Why are cars dying?

And, if I understand your reasoning correctly on these 'dying' cars.. one day, cars will simply cease to exist.. All at once.. Not sure if this is because some sort of alien craft is going to vaporize them, or what.. But what makes you think we will not have the ability to build more train tracks in time for this sudden mass disapearance of cars?

Of course, thats all assuming rail be the solution, which I don't think it will be.
they are dying, but their death is inevitable and imminent. Thats what happens when you can't find or pay for gas.

Originally posted by: Crimson
Originally posted by: miketheidiot
Originally posted by: Crimson
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
I use the bus daily and I make it to work fine, economiclly it kicks ass all over a car and a lot less pollution.
Isolated suburbanites with road-rage are a thing of the past!
Naysay all you want but soon this is seriously going to have to be considered, why not start now?

I disagree.. I don't think trains will EVER be a solution in this country.. no matter how bad the traffic gets. You live in San Francisco, don't assume that your cities traffic is the same as my cities traffic. Why is taking the bus cheaper for you? Because you are only paying a very small percentage of the actual cost.. the rest of us are picking up the tab for you to use the bus..

Besides, I am perfectly capable, and willing, to pay the extra cost to have my own car. Why should you tell me I can't? Besides, I am sure you, even if you don't own your own car, have hopped into Friends cars when it was convenient to go somewhere.. I'm sure you didn't say for them to go ahead and you would take the trolly.


Long range trains can easily replace airlines (fast, cheap, and don't take up tons of land). Not to mention long distance travel in general. On top of that the suburbs are going to die in about a generation or two.

Are you on some sort of mind altering substance? Planes travel through the AIR.. they have nothing to do with LAND other than for takoff and landing.. So you have an airport taking up say 10 square miles of land in every city.. As opposed to rail lines running everywhere? And you think they won't take up any space? Especially if they are high speed lines? They would take up TONS of space and need space all around them.

Railline take up much less space than an airport. Even 100 feet wide and 100 miles in length in even city, thats still less than 2 square miles, not to mention its quieter, cleaner, and doesn't use oil., and costs less.

Trains don't use oil?! This is just unbelievable.. Its difficult to even have a conversation based in reality with you people. What do you think trains run on? Solar power? The wind? They burn FUEL like everything else does.. or run on electricity which is generated by fossil fuel plants. Sure, they probably don't use as MUCH as cars would based on the amount of people, but to say they don't use oil is just absurd.

They are quiet? Have you ever been next to a train going by? They shake, make noise, blast their horn, etc..

As for the cost, who are you to tell me what I can and can not spend my money on? I don't want to take a train. Why is it the same people in this thread who are saying they should take MY choices away are the same ones screaming about Bush supposidly taking away their rights? Oh, nevermind.. I get it.. its OK for lefties to take the rights away from people for doing things THEY don't like.. But, if a right winger suggests prayer, or is anti-abortion.. SHOOT THEM DOWN!! TAKE AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO SPEAK OR DEMOSTRATE!

Yeah.. I get it..
 

wirelessenabled

Platinum Member
Feb 5, 2001
2,190
41
91
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: conjur
Sure, let's scuttle mass transit and put more people in cars, buying more gas, polluting the air more.



Wonderful.

I have a better idea. Let private industry take over mass transit. There is absolutely no reason for the government to be subsidizing transit. Transit, like any other good in the economy can be provided by private enterprise.


I have a better idea! Let's have private enterprise take over the roads in your neighborhood! No reason for government to run them. Private enterprise can do it all better! Private enterprise is always better than government!
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
who said you should have freedoms removed? Electric trains are very quiet compared to diesel maglev doubly so. Fossil fuel plants are old tech new cleaner coal fired power along with solar wind and tidal are also power sources.
Listen to the horn on light rail and you will see that they have 2 horns for rural and urban areas.
Passanger rail is not frieght.
Got your panties in a bunch much? Wipe the froth from your chin and straighten up, and welcome to the thread, Crimson. you and your strawman take a seat and learn something before flying off the handle. geez
 

Train

Lifer
Jun 22, 2000
13,572
66
91
www.bing.com
Originally posted by: wirelessenabled
Private enterprise can do it all better! Private enterprise is always better than government!
In most cases, but not all. Don't polarize the issue to the extremes to kill the argument.

.......

cwjerome, nice post. Kinda like dissipates stance except with a little more realism and a little less fantasy.
 

Dissipate

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2004
6,815
0
0
Originally posted by: wirelessenabled
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: conjur
Sure, let's scuttle mass transit and put more people in cars, buying more gas, polluting the air more.



Wonderful.

I have a better idea. Let private industry take over mass transit. There is absolutely no reason for the government to be subsidizing transit. Transit, like any other good in the economy can be provided by private enterprise.


I have a better idea! Let's have private enterprise take over the roads in your neighborhood! No reason for government to run them. Private enterprise can do it all better! Private enterprise is always better than government!

A lot of the roads in my neighborhood are private, including the one running right in front of my house.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: Dissipate

A lot of the roads in my neighborhood are private, including the one running right in front of my house.


thats called a driveway..... :laugh:
 

Dissipate

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2004
6,815
0
0
Originally posted by: cwjerome
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: cwjerome
What the hell is a modern day government of a major industrialized nation doing owning/controlling a rail company? It's.... so 1920s. It's unreal the conditioning people have gone through to believe only government can do certain things, and only government can do certain things well. Trapped in a mental box...

By the way, the NY subway system was built private and operated private I think until the 1940s.

I don't think steeplrot and his cronies have ever seen a government program they didn't like.


These are the people with the "Cuban" mindset, just slightly more subtle. If shoes were invented today, they would demand a government bureacracy guided by congressional committees that built government owned factories with government workers and determined how many shoes would be produced, how many shoes people would recieve, and at what price they would be. After all, shoes are very important, and if government wasn't involved how would we make sure everyone had shoes damnit!

The left sees government as THE solution and only means to accomplish virtually every end. I think it stems from their basic psychological appraisal of Man and Existence- that man is an impotent nothing, ugly, stupid, and doomed. Anyways, they cannot conceive of anything else, and certainly cannot comprehend that the Free Market is better in almost every way in almost every situation.

I can go into my local supermarket and choose from over 30,000 different products from around the world. I can go to another country and a stranger who doesn't speak my language will give me a car. All I have to do is give him a piece of plastic and sign a paper. I can stick that card into a slot at a bank I've never heard of and it will spit out $300. A month later I get a bill and it's accurate to a penny. The private sector performs miracles like this everyday. It's the ultimate democracy, where people vote with their wallets and doing so DEMANDS competitors to adjust millions of changes a second around the world.

Government is a primitive, inefficient slug whose purpose should be to grease the gears of people and markets (mainly objective laws on private property, contracts, and security)

I agree, except I think your example of the banking industry is a bad one to illustrate your point. The banking industry is actually still in the stone age in terms of technology(hence PayPal and other online payment systems which have had to pick up the slack), and is operated under the government monopoly cartel of the Federal Reserve.
 

Dissipate

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2004
6,815
0
0
Originally posted by: Train
Originally posted by: wirelessenabled
Private enterprise can do it all better! Private enterprise is always better than government!
In most cases, but not all. Don't polarize the issue to the extremes to kill the argument.

.......

cwjerome, nice post. Kinda like dissipates stance except with a little more realism and a little less fantasy.

Is this more or less than the fantasy you engage in when you pay homage to your almighty Government?

"Hey daddy, look, those are government men! Let's pretend that we must obey their edicts!"
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
You all are so full of sh1t it's coming out your ears.
When I go to bed tonight i'll make sure I put the red side of my comforter up, ok comrades? :laugh:
 

Finalnight

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2003
1,891
1
76
Japan has privatized govt rail. Works great, you can take bullet trains everywhere. And they make it so user friendly, when a person who knows no japanese can go all around tokyo by himself then take a ride out to a exburb an hour away, that is user friendly.
 

Mill

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
28,558
3
81
I hate to see Amtrak die, but it was bound to happen. It is fairly ineffecient, though. I priced a train ride from Birmingham to San Francisco with a One room liner or whatnot and it was 980 bucks. Sheesh, plus it took me to Virginia first, too. I could fly first class on Delta for that price. Maybe I was doing something wrong?

steeple, think you could help?
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: alphatarget1
Bush's revenge on the northeastern states that didn't vote for him.



Actually there likely wont be a problem with amtrack in the northest, as they have the ridership to support their commutter trains.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: Mill
I hate to see Amtrak die, but it was bound to happen. It is fairly ineffecient, though. I priced a train ride from Birmingham to San Francisco with a One room liner or whatnot and it was 980 bucks. Sheesh, plus it took me to Virginia first, too. I could fly first class on Delta for that price. Maybe I was doing something wrong?

steeple, think you could help?


If your looking for cheap I'd say greyhound, fast would be plane no contest there.
In 2005 taking the train cross country is a vacation / Recreation thing IMO.
(One I wish I had the ability to do right now) it's a beautiful way to see the country especially in the rockies.
If you have a kid and the time I would highly reccomend it while it is still possible Mill.