HIGH SPEED RAIL...Remember when Gov. Rick Scott was brutalized by the Progressives for turning down the BILLIONS for a HIGH SPEED LINE in Florida

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak

The first section is the history of rail in the US... it's worth a read before the next govt solution. If that matters.

PkrBum wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak

The first section is the history of rail in the US... it's worth a read before the next govt solution. If that matters.

Whelp... I guess I know how to kill a thread... provide context. I'm going to paste the history anyway... same old story.

Causes of the decline of privately operated passenger rail service [edit] The causes of the decline of passenger rail in the United States were complex. Until 1920, rail was the only practical form of intercity transport, but the industry was subject to government regulation and labor inflexibility. [15][16] By 1930, the railroad companies had constructed, with private funding, a vast and relatively efficient transportation network, but when the federal government began to construct the National Highway System, the railroads found themselves faced with unprecedented competition for passengers and freight with automobiles, buses, trucks, and aircraft, all of which were heavily subsidized by the government road and airport building programs. In 1916, the amount of track in the United States peaked at 254,251 miles (409,177 km), compared to 140,695 miles (226,427 km) in 2007 (although it remained the largest rail network of any country in the world). [17][18]

Some routes had been built primarily to facilitate the sale of stock in the railroad companies; they were redundant from the beginning. These were the first to be abandoned as the railroads' financial positions deteriorated, and the rails were routinely removed to save money on taxes. Many rights-of-way were destroyed by being broken up and built over, but others remained the property of the railroad or were taken over by local or state authorities and turned into rail trails.

Government regulation [edit]

From approximately 1910 to 1921, the federal government introduced a populist rate-setting scheme. During World War I the railroads proved incapable of functioning as a cohesive network. This forced the United States Government to nationalize the rail industry temporarily. In the 1920s railroad profits stagnated, many redundant and unprofitable lines were abandoned, and many passenger facilities were allowed to fall into a cycle of deferred maintenance, all of which in small ways drove passengers away, either by higher fares or less appealing service. [16] At the same time, the rise in popularity of the automobile and US Highways such as the Lincoln Highway began to eat away at local rail passenger traffic. Increases in labor costs also further hindered the railroads ability to make profits on smaller and more sparsely populated lines. [16]

The primary regulatory authority affecting railroads, beginning in the late 19th century, was the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The ICC played a leading role in rate-setting which would at times hindered railroad's ability to be profitable in the passenger market. In the 1930s, train speeds were ever increasing, but no advance were being made in signalling and safety systems to prevent collisions. This led to the horrific Naperville train disaster of 1946 and other crashes in New York in 1950. In 1947 [19][20] the ICC issued an order requiring US railroads, by the end of 1951, to install automatic train stop, automatic train control or cab signalling wherever any trains would travel at 80 mph (130 km/h) or faster. [21]

Such technology was not widely implemented outside the Northeast, [22] effectively placing a speed limit in other areas which is still in effect today, and why the 79 mph (127 km/h) maximum passenger train speed is common in the United States. In 1958, the ICC was granted authority to allow or reject modifications and eliminations of passenger routes (train-offs). [23] Many routes required beneficial pruning, but the ICC delayed action by an average of eight months and when it did authorize modifications, the ICC insisted that unsuccessful routes be merged with profitable ones. Thus, fast, popular rail service was transformed into slow, unpopular service. [15]

The ICC was even more critical of corporate mergers. Many combinations which railroads sought to complete were delayed for years and even decades, such as the merger of the New York Central Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad, into what eventually became Penn Central, and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and Erie Railroad into the Erie Lackawanna Railway. By the time the ICC approved the mergers in the 1960s, slower trains, years of deteriorating equipment and station facilities, and the flight of passengers to air and automobile transportation had taken their toll and the mergers were unsuccessful at preserving these railroad's passenger train service. It is important to note the Erie Lackawanna was never a major hauler of passengers, nor its predecessor roads, and was mostly a freight railroad. The Penn Central merger was a failure because it merged two large struggling railroads on paper only, two separate management structures remained with little or no integration of assets or management of the former Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central system. The massive overhead costs of this operating scheme played a far greater role in the Penn Central failure than any actions take by the ICC or any other US Government agency. [citation needed]

Taxation [edit]

At the same time, railroads carried a substantial tax burden. A World War II–era excise tax of 15% on passenger rail travel survived until 1962. [24] Local governments, far from providing needed support to passenger rail, viewed rail infrastructure as a ready source for property tax revenues. In one extreme example, in 1959, the Great Northern Railway, which owned about a third of one percent (0.34%) of the land in Lincoln County, Montana, was assessed more than 91% of all school taxes in the county. [15] To this day, railroads are generally taxed at a higher rate than other industries, and the rates vary greatly from state to state. [25]

Labor-related issues [edit]

Railroads also faced antiquated work rules and inflexible relationships with trade unions. Work rules did not adapt to technological change. [15] Average train speeds had doubled from 1919 to 1959, but unions resisted efforts to modify their existing 100- to 150-mile work days. As a result, railroad workers' average work days were roughly cut in half, from 5–7½ hours in 1919 to 2½–3¾ hours in 1959. Labor rules also perpetuated positions that had been obviated by technology; for example, when steam locomotives were replaced with diesel locomotives the rules required a fireman or stoker aboard the engine at all times, even in switching yards. [citation needed] Between 1947 and 1957, passenger railroad financial efficiency dropped by 42% per mile.

Subsidized competition [edit]

While passenger rail faced internal and governmental pressures, new challenges appeared that undermined the dominance of passenger rail: highways and commercial aviation. The passenger rail industry declined as governments put money into the construction of highways and government-owned airports and the air traffic control system. As automobiles became more attainable to most Americans, the freedom, increased convenience and individualization of automobile travel became the norm for most Americans. Government actively began to respond with funds from its treasury and later with fuel-tax funds to build a non-profit network of roads not subject to property taxation. Highways then surpassed the for-profit rail network that the railroads had built in previous generations with corporate capital and government land grants. All told between 1921 and 1955 governmental entities, using taxpayer money and in response to taxpayer demand, financed more than $93 billion worth of pavement, construction, and maintenance. [15]

In the 1950s affordable commercial aviation expanded as the Jet Age arrived. Governmental entities built urban and suburban airports, funded construction of highways to provide access to the airports, and provided air traffic control services.

Loss of U.S. Mail contracts [edit]

Until 1966, most U.S. Postal Service mail was transported on passenger trains. The mail contracts kept many passenger trains economically viable. In 1966, the U.S. Postal Service switched to trucks and airplanes, subsidizing planes instead of trains, which no longer had mail as a source of revenue.

ZVUGKTUBM wrote:Rail will be roaring back one day. This come-back will be driven by the cost of one commodity: petroleum.

The achilles heel of the airlines is jet-fuel. Experiments have been made with powering jet engines with biodiesel mixtures, but it all eventually returns to good old Jet A/B derived from petroelum.

Airlines have already drawn the line at about $150 per barrel of oil. Above this price, jet-fuel will be so costly that many airlines will simply fold. That is why so many airlines are retiring 3 and 4 engine planes. Two engine planes are more fuel-efficient, and one of the key features designed into Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner is fuel-efficiency.

When it one-day becomes too expensive to run airlines, rail will supplant them for moving passengers. Trains are the 3rd most fuel-efficient means for moving passengers and goods, with a fuel-efficiency just behind motorcycles. Even today, the CSX Railroad advertises that it can move a ton of goods 500 miles on a gallon of fuel. This is what will one day bring passenger rail exploding back.

Unlike jet airliners, trains can be run on just about any kind of fuel too, which will ultimately give them an advantage.

But first, the price of oil needs to go up. An incident like a sudden war that engulfs the Persian Gulf region might just do the trick. Barring this, for the foreseable future, America's bounty of shale oil should help keep the price close to where it currently lies.

Not in your or my lifetime nor our children's.

Markle wrote:

ZVUGKTUBM wrote:Rail will be roaring back one day. This come-back will be driven by the cost of one commodity: petroleum.

The achilles heel of the airlines is jet-fuel. Experiments have been made with powering jet engines with biodiesel mixtures, but it all eventually returns to good old Jet A/B derived from petroelum.

Airlines have already drawn the line at about $150 per barrel of oil. Above this price, jet-fuel will be so costly that many airlines will simply fold. That is why so many airlines are retiring 3 and 4 engine planes. Two engine planes are more fuel-efficient, and one of the key features designed into Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner is fuel-efficiency.

When it one-day becomes too expensive to run airlines, rail will supplant them for moving passengers. Trains are the 3rd most fuel-efficient means for moving passengers and goods, with a fuel-efficiency just behind motorcycles. Even today, the CSX Railroad advertises that it can move a ton of goods 500 miles on a gallon of fuel. This is what will one day bring passenger rail exploding back.

Unlike jet airliners, trains can be run on just about any kind of fuel too, which will ultimately give them an advantage.

But first, the price of oil needs to go up. An incident like a sudden war that engulfs the Persian Gulf region might just do the trick. Barring this, for the foreseable future, America's bounty of shale oil should help keep the price close to where it currently lies.

Not in your or my lifetime nor our children's.

I agree and also it has to be remembered how important the convenience aspect of train travel is.  In Japan, the bullet train leaves major stations  4 or so times per hour.