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  1. Ozark Southern

    All Aboard Your Amtrak

    Good points. The one time I've gotten to ride on an Amfleet was on NTD last year, and I was very impressed with the quality. I don't know if it was a new car, or recently refurbished, but there wasn't a thing broken on it at all. I think if that car were the norm here, that it would really...
  2. Ozark Southern

    All Aboard Your Amtrak

    To be honest, I'm coming at this from the state of the interior on the Horizons, which I believe are close to 30 years old now. The upholstery is ripped, locks don't always work right, bathroom doors sometimes have kinks in the door track. I don't really know much about the mechanical life, but...
  3. Ozark Southern

    All Aboard Your Amtrak

    Well, we all know the system can stand some improvement, but I'll pick a couple of priorities: 1. The LD routes do a good job for the most part connecting the major cities (with some notable exceptions with which we are all familiar), but not always at convenient times. I would run 2 daily...
  4. Ozark Southern

    Grand Central's Century of Grandeur

    NPR had a great story about this today on All Things Considered. "It is, after all, a temple of transit, full of people going somewhere else in a hurry." As it ought to be. Link to audio with full transcript...
  5. Ozark Southern

    "Only 42% of the $202 bn spent on US roads in 2010 came from

    That's an interesting idea. If we were to actually do this, and do it right, it would end the absurd situation where it costs us less to own our own home on a half acre in the suburbs than it would to rent an apartment half the size in the city. That's most of why we live where we do. We're...
  6. Ozark Southern

    KCY Hotel recommendations?

    With MAX (BRT), there are a whole lot of options for downtown. Main St. MAX stops at Union Station, and goes south to Country Club Plaza. Marriott's got a couple of properties (Fairfield and Residence) on Union Hill (Main & 31st), and just about all the chains have something at Country Club...
  7. Ozark Southern

    "Only 42% of the $202 bn spent on US roads in 2010 came from

    Hmm, I suppose one could see it that way. Thing is, though, around here, we don't pay for anything we're using. The amount of money we receive in federal programmes far exceeds the amount we pay in federal taxes. It's like the thought never crosses our minds that some guy in New York is actually...
  8. Ozark Southern

    "Only 42% of the $202 bn spent on US roads in 2010 came from

    Exactly! This is the point I've been trying to make. A lot of us live in areas like this. I should be clear that I live in the Springfield-Branson metropolitan area. Springfield is a city of 160,000, and there's about 250,000 in the metro area. My town is small, sure, but it's by no means...
  9. Ozark Southern

    "Only 42% of the $202 bn spent on US roads in 2010 came from

    Yes, there is. I live in a town of about 3,000, in a very sparsely populated county, in a metro area that has next to no public transit. There simply aren't a lot of people here, and poor transit connections, so it would certainly go almost completely unused. But it is a good place to live. It's...
  10. Ozark Southern

    "Only 42% of the $202 bn spent on US roads in 2010 came from

    One major problem with that idea in some areas is geographical. Out here in the Ozarks, there generally are not alternative routes, since building them would have required blasting another giant hole in the mountains. So our two Interstate highways were conversions of the existing federal...
  11. Ozark Southern

    Who in the world are you?

    Having been around here a couple of years now, my story is in a few places, but I'll share it here. I'm 27, married with three kids, 5, 3, and 1. I've always loved trains of any kind, from a very early age. Growing up in the Ozarks, however, they were never really a practical part of my life...
  12. Ozark Southern

    New Talgos moving westward for testing

    Well, I'm glad they have a good home. They will be well used in the Northwest. It's still sad that the Midwest can't seem to have anything nice. Still, I am looking forward to the new rail cars when they arrive in a couple of years. The Horizons really are starting to look their age. I'm willing...
  13. Ozark Southern

    Will China Have to Rebuild An HSR Line?

    Very true. And at the risk of making the same mistake, I'll chime in with an anecdote of my own. We have a friend who grew up in the States and now lives in China. She has told us she takes the train often in China, and has never once been on Amtrak. Now, I won't generalize based solely on her...
  14. Ozark Southern

    St. Paul Union Depot

    Yeah, in many ways, the Twin Cities are becoming what the Bay Area was in the 90s: a gay-friendly center of business and education, whose citizens are conscious of social and environmental issues, and are ditching the cars in favour of bicycles and public transit. I'm glad you were impressed by...
  15. Ozark Southern

    St. Paul Union Depot

    As one of the few big projects in the Midwest right now, the SPUD renovation is a project that very much interests me. My wife and I rode the light rail line back in 2007 from downtown all the way out to the mall and were very impressed. I'm glad to see the Twin Cities really pushing for better...
  16. Ozark Southern

    Civil Right Suit in WI over Roads vs. Transit

    IMO, this is exactly what the self-proclaimed "fiscal conservatives" do. They decry what they term "tax and spend," even when we actually vote for a tax increase in order to fund a project we want and need. Then they go and blow a whole lot of money on something without any real plan to fund it...
  17. Ozark Southern

    Amtak has no monopoly on bad service

    I enjoyed reading the OP. I really haven't experienced poor customer service much on either Amtrak or any of the airlines. In both cases, some employees I encountered were better than others, but none were truly bad. I admit my experience is limited (about a dozen Amtrak trips and about a dozen...
  18. Ozark Southern

    A History of the Michigan Central

    From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120708/METRO/207080302#ixzz205zVapsE
  19. Ozark Southern

    19 hours in Coach- Doable?

    Congratulations! I used to be involved in the Geography Bee when I was a kid. In 8th grade (1998 for me) I ended up in 3rd place in Missouri, with only a question about La Niña separating me from a trip to Washington and a chance to meet Alex Trebek. I've never forgotten that question.
  20. Ozark Southern

    You just never know

    I guess I fit in that age bracket, as I was 24 when I was introduced to Amtrak. It was in 2009, my wife was pregnant with our second child, and we were taking a trip to Chicago. Flying was out of the question, and we thought eight hours in a car a bit long for her too. A woman I used to work...
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