Bush's Amtrak plan headed for derailment

[Save Our Trains Michigan]

Amtrak does not make money, has never made money and will never make money. But why should anybody be surprised? If the Bush Administration would take the time to go back to the history books, they would find that that is why for-profit freight railroads got out of the rail passenger business more than three decades ago. The private sector isn’t expected to -- nor should it -- provide all services. As the old saying goes, if you don’t learn from history you are condemned to repeat it.

Now the administration wants to bankrupt and eliminate Amtrak with the belief that states and the free-market system are sitting there waiting to grab hold of passenger operations. First, the freight railroads do not like Amtrak. Anyone who believes the freight railroads want several different passenger companies operating over their freight lines needs psychiatric help.

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[Poindexter118]

In Europe & Asia, the passenger railroads are heavily backed by the Gov't. Why we put so much money into Interstates & airlines, but not Amtrak is beyond me. As most everyone knows, the trains can haul more passengers /gallon of fuel than either cars or airplanes. With more and more oil being imported every year, backing Amtrak seems like a no brainer.

With the airlines in financial trouble seemingly every day, it would seem that the Gov't should be backing Amtrak more & more.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

And if Gunn didn't have W's sock in his mouth, he ought to get the CEOs of a half-dozen of those other-countries' pax railroads into a joint press conference to get the fact into the public and Congress' awareness that all the well-regarded and well-run passenger rail operations around the world ARE gov't subsizidized, and do NOT make money, and that to require Amtrak to make bricks without straw, as the administration is trying to do, is stupid, wrongheaded, and is breaking faith with the country on this issue. One would think that the press would be interested in something like that, and that Congress would hear about it pretty quickly from the citizenry if such a press conference were to happen, with the facts then repeated on the 6 and 11 pm news. It would certainly make it a lot harder for Mineta to be believed when he gets to a podium and spouts his garbage, or for these other guest-editorial jerks to find a sympathetic ear for their lies..

 

[Midland Valley]

With gasoline selling at $2.309 per gallon, what could be better for the Bush oil interests than kill one of the few feul economozing modes of transportation in the nation?

 

[Noordam]

Just saw this toon and thought of this forum

 

[Midland Valley]

I was just reading my new "March" issue of the NARP News. I am wondering, does the President or any of his advisors read the columns or editorials in the newpapers from across the country (exerpted in the NARP paper) which should be telling him something about the grave concern Americans have regarding his intense crusade to kill Amtrak? Maybe the question should be, does the President or his advisors read?