Newsflash: Trains are useful!
A rather well-researched article from a rather unknown magazine on the perils and successes of Amtrak in the States: http://americancity.org/magazine/article/a-new-era-for-train-travel/
My favorite quote
“No national rail system in the world is profitable, and all receive government subsidies.”
I would love to witness the opponents to refunding Amtrak in Congress scratching their heads and wondering why, if the trains aren’t making a profit, they are still being funded.
More importantly, this perverse reversion to previous modus operandi is really starting to irritate me. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just an upsetting one, or at the least, annoying. This country has hundreds of thousands of miles of train tracks, and they abolished them in favor of the almighty gas engine. Now, with the price of oil rising, and a sudden concern for the environment, they’ve decided to replace tracks they tore down nearly thirty years ago. Couple this with the New York Times article on reviving streetcars and you’ve got to be wondering whether it’s human behavior that constantly tends towards destruction and revision, or just an American one.
