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GBNorman

OBS Chief
Joined
Feb 26, 2017
Messages
573
...this presentation at the Cato Institute.

https://www.cato.org/events/romance-rails-why-passenger-trains-we-love-are-not-transportation-we-need

Here is a synopsis:

Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need

Book Forum

October 10, 2018

11:30AM to 1:30PM EDT

Hayek Auditorium, Cato Institute

Featuring the author Randal OToole, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; with comments by Art Guzzetti, Vice President of Policy, American Public Transportation Association; Jim Mathews, President, Rail Passengers Association; and Marc Scribner, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute; moderated by Jason Kuznicki, Editor, Cato Institute.

Like many Americans, Randal OToole loves passenger trains, yet he acknowledges that intercity passenger trains and outside of the New York region urban rail transit play little role in American life today. The replacement of passenger trains with cars, buses, and airplanes is similar to many other recent technological replacements: word processors replacing typewriters, calculators replacing slide rules, telephones replacing telegraphs, and cell phones replacing land lines. However, only for passenger trains has the government spent billions of dollars a year attempting to turn back the clock and slow that replacement. OTooles book Romance of the Rails asks why this is so and whether passenger rail has a significant role to play in the future. Art Guzzetti, an advocate for urban rail transit; Jim Mathews, an advocate for intercity passenger trains; and Marc Scribner, an advocate for free-market transportation, will offer their comments on the book.
Click to expand...
The panel discussion runs for an hour and a half. I watched the first twenty minutes. While some might expect any presentation by the Cato Institute to be a passenger train "bashing", this appears to be otherwise.

More time, I'll watch more of it.
 
GBNorman said:
...this presentation at the Cato Institute.

https://www.cato.org/events/romance-rails-why-passenger-trains-we-love-are-not-transportation-we-need

Here is a synopsis:

Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need

Book Forum

October 10, 2018

11:30AM to 1:30PM EDT

Hayek Auditorium, Cato Institute

Featuring the author Randal OToole, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; with comments by Art Guzzetti, Vice President of Policy, American Public Transportation Association; Jim Mathews, President, Rail Passengers Association; and Marc Scribner, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute; moderated by Jason Kuznicki, Editor, Cato Institute.

Like many Americans, Randal OToole loves passenger trains, yet he acknowledges that intercity passenger trains and outside of the New York region urban rail transit play little role in American life today. The replacement of passenger trains with cars, buses, and airplanes is similar to many other recent technological replacements: word processors replacing typewriters, calculators replacing slide rules, telephones replacing telegraphs, and cell phones replacing land lines. However, only for passenger trains has the government spent billions of dollars a year attempting to turn back the clock and slow that replacement. OTooles book Romance of the Rails asks why this is so and whether passenger rail has a significant role to play in the future. Art Guzzetti, an advocate for urban rail transit; Jim Mathews, an advocate for intercity passenger trains; and Marc Scribner, an advocate for free-market transportation, will offer their comments on the book.
Click to expand...
The panel discussion runs for an hour and a half. I watched the first twenty minutes. While some might expect any presentation by the Cato Institute to be a passenger train "bashing", this appears to be otherwise.

More time, I'll watch more of it.
Click to expand...
The author of the book (Otoole) appears to be very much about passenger train bashing based on the book summary, but at least they did invite other folks to the discussion to give opposing points of view. This does not appear to be just about the LD trains, he is critical of government funding of Amtrak as a whole as well as transit agencies and argues that the future is our roads and planes and that's where the investments should be made. Given his affiliation with CATO institute, not surprising. His agenda is about cutting public spending as well as benefitting the petroleum industry as they pull the strings in many of the republican organizations (that's not meant to be politicking - I am fairly politically neutral as far as parties go - hate them both equally!)
 
lordsigma said:
GBNorman said:
...this presentation at the Cato Institute.

https://www.cato.org/events/romance-rails-why-passenger-trains-we-love-are-not-transportation-we-need

Here is a synopsis:

Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need

Book Forum

October 10, 2018

11:30AM to 1:30PM EDT

Hayek Auditorium, Cato Institute

Featuring the author Randal OToole, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; with comments by Art Guzzetti, Vice President of Policy, American Public Transportation Association; Jim Mathews, President, Rail Passengers Association; and Marc Scribner, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute; moderated by Jason Kuznicki, Editor, Cato Institute.

Like many Americans, Randal OToole loves passenger trains, yet he acknowledges that intercity passenger trains and outside of the New York region urban rail transit play little role in American life today. The replacement of passenger trains with cars, buses, and airplanes is similar to many other recent technological replacements: word processors replacing typewriters, calculators replacing slide rules, telephones replacing telegraphs, and cell phones replacing land lines. However, only for passenger trains has the government spent billions of dollars a year attempting to turn back the clock and slow that replacement. OTooles book Romance of the Rails asks why this is so and whether passenger rail has a significant role to play in the future. Art Guzzetti, an advocate for urban rail transit; Jim Mathews, an advocate for intercity passenger trains; and Marc Scribner, an advocate for free-market transportation, will offer their comments on the book.
Click to expand...
The panel discussion runs for an hour and a half. I watched the first twenty minutes. While some might expect any presentation by the Cato Institute to be a passenger train "bashing", this appears to be otherwise.
More time, I'll watch more of it.
Click to expand...
The author of the book (Otoole) appears to be very much about passenger train bashing based on the book summary, but at least they did invite other folks to the discussion to give opposing points of view. This does not appear to be just about the LD trains, he is critical of government funding of Amtrak as a whole as well as transit agencies and argues that the future is our roads and planes and that's where the investments should be made. Given his affiliation with CATO institute, not surprising. His agenda is about cutting public spending as well as benefitting the petroleum industry as they pull the strings in many of the republican organizations (that's not meant to be politicking - I am fairly politically neutral as far as parties go - hate them both equally!)
Click to expand...
I watched the whole thing. An interesting debate - two panelists (Otoole and Marc Scribber) are for eliminating passenger rail and support private bus transit and road travel while Guzzeti and Mathews argue for transit and passenger rail.
 
GBNorman said:
...this presentation at the Cato Institute.

https://www.cato.org/events/romance...trains-we-love-are-not-transportation-we-need

Here is a synopsis:

The panel discussion runs for an hour and a half. I watched the first twenty minutes. While some might expect any presentation by the Cato Institute to be a passenger train "bashing", this appears to be otherwise.

More time, I'll watch more of it.
Click to expand...

lordsigma said:
I watched the whole thing. An interesting debate - two panelists (Otoole and Marc Scribber) are for eliminating passenger rail and support private bus transit and road travel while Guzzeti and Mathews argue for transit and passenger rail.
Click to expand...

I ran across Randal O'Toole's book today at the Public Library. I went to the "385" Dewey Decimal section to see what railroad books were in the stacks. I read about 10 minutes of his book, pages 202 - 206, where he explains how many other nations mostly truck their goods, but in America, we move quite a lot of goods by rail. I loved his analogy of how, while countries like Japan think they are being environmentally friendly because only 56% travel by Auto and 30% travel by rail... But 60% of their freight shipments travel by road, and only 4% travel by rail.

While in the US, 43% of freight shipments travel by rail. He states "America's rail system is the envy of the world, carrying more than six time as many ton-miles of freight each year as all of the EU-27 nations combined."

The other book I checked out today was "Train" by Tom Zoeller (2014).
 
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