tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111251572024-03-07T18:06:51.180-07:00Passenger RailNOTICE: As of January 2015, this blog became U.S. Railroad & Passenger Rail. The redirect has been disabled in order to access the archives. If you are looking for U. S. Railroad & Passenger Rail, <a href="http://caturek.wix.com/u-s-railroad">please click this link</a>.mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.comBlogger271125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-81431432731457425192015-01-02T15:26:00.000-07:002016-03-15T14:26:19.904-06:00NEW LOCATION - NEW LINK<a href="http://caturek.wix.com/u-s-railroad" target="_blank">U.S. RAILROAD & PASSENGER RAIL</a> - NEW FORMAT; Same great posts about railroading in America.<br />
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The contents you are looking for have moved. Please bookmark the correct page at <a href="http://caturek.wix.com/u-s-railroad"> http://caturek.wix.com/u-s-railroad</a> . The redirect has been disabled, so you may use this site to access the archives before January 2015. mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-69135737531121809902014-10-19T15:40:00.000-06:002014-10-19T15:40:04.289-06:00<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NIBN7YY" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTV-tI97tQLI16B-2zIWdAKp0l3VWUjUPN7cqcAIjZckvr_aaFN4vGc2bXIz47xS6gUj0slnfov8a2IoWhYkIzWrVuHPj6pYLuT6rz1OtU0bA2iky2zPiC9l_6azyWrQ71yi2lbg/s1600/Murder+UAV+Cover+2.7.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a>Just realized I haven't posted to this blog since Labor Day. What with getting my new novel about my train-watching detective Charlie Komensky before the reading public as of October 1, 2014, and everything that entails, there hasn't been much time for blogging, let alone writing my fiction. <br />
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Amtrak just keeps plugging along getting worse and worse, and the powers that be seem to think they are doing everything possible to keep Amtrak viable. They're not.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/us/as-trains-move-oil-bonanza-delays-mount-for-other-goods-and-passengers.html?_r=0" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/10/09/us/RAIL/RAIL-master675.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a>Part of the problem you can read about here in this article. (Click on image.) Yes! Moving crude by rail is eating up a goodly portion of the capacity of our rail network, and the feds don't seem to give a damn. The railroads certainly don't, to the extent that they are able to set rates and make money to suit their needs. The railroads do not need Amtrak, and probably some, if not all, wish Amtrak would simply go away. <br />
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Another part of the problem is Amtrak management. There is reportage, and evidence, that the current Amtrak CEO has not even tried to spend allocated funds that could improve service. He has put the railroad on the declining side of the 40-plus year old roller coaster with the old reduction of long-distance sleeper services and rationing of, of all things, bottled water for sleeper customers. <br />
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A couple of other things are also discouraging to old passenger train riders like me. No the least of these is the airline-like pricing for seats. If the airlines were actually making this system work to the extent that they were grossly profitable, this would make sense. But the airlines are on the same declining side of the roller coaster that the railroads traveled back in the 1960s, when constant reduction in service and reliability and increased discomfort and a disdain for the customer eventually led to Amtrak. Another discouragement is the push for pets on Amtrak. I don't know about my readers, but I know human nature. This is a situation that could get out of control. For an allergic person, it could be fatal. I don't see where the cleaning of Amtrak rooms and coaches is ever going to be complete enough to counteract pet dander.<br />
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The real facts are these: You can't rely on Amtrak to be on time unless you are somewhere in the Northeast or Pacific Coast. Otherwise, forget it. You can rely on Amtrak to be late, uncomfortable and too expensive for the kind of customers they are courting by turning the diners into bad fast-food restaurants and the sleepers into bad motels. At this point in time, I can almost rent an RV and travel across the country in more comfort and less trouble and expense.<br />
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So blogging Passenger Rail lately has just gotten my blood pressure up and not done a whole lot for my love of railroading. I'll go nap now and you can wake me when the feds decide to develop a comprehensive transportation policy that makes sense and includes trains that are on time and easy to ride.<br />
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©2014 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-80918958291336333532014-09-01T15:23:00.000-06:002014-09-01T15:23:47.497-06:00Passenger Rail and Labor Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNjC49wfDDvKr4FMem-85Kukmp0OrsVYQV8Vr-V4JzeAX-ulnT8CeoiNRL-1tOeA-Le_Gta_OnpTlpZ4xw5Txp82gX8W82DbzvQr-r6lz5VDLpdqZnJ5O0Qmtnv6ettNOgVsJoA/s1600/2752.1391324295.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNjC49wfDDvKr4FMem-85Kukmp0OrsVYQV8Vr-V4JzeAX-ulnT8CeoiNRL-1tOeA-Le_Gta_OnpTlpZ4xw5Txp82gX8W82DbzvQr-r6lz5VDLpdqZnJ5O0Qmtnv6ettNOgVsJoA/s1600/2752.1391324295.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
I have heard and read a number of Labor Day "histories" today. Some of them inform us that Labor Day grew out of the struggle of workers in the 19th century to get decent working conditions. Other such histories suggest that Labor Day is to honor "work," but particularly to honor the kind of work that is no longer available to the average person in the 21st century. Finally, still others think it started as a patriotic day where we remember that hard work built this country and made it great. I don't know where any of these authors are getting their information.<div>
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As a day to honor "labor" and labor struggle, Labor Day has never been that in my lifetime. (That is: 2nd half of the 20th century until today.) Labor day has always been a day to sell furniture and school supplies and for those who had a manufacturing-related job to have a good day off before fall and the so-called "holidays" set in. Too few of us now have those jobs. It's all service industry, which you can read as retail, wholesale, or transportation. Most of those jobs don't get a whole day off, or even half.</div>
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So, as this is a Passenger Rail blog, I want to start by thanking the thousands of employees of Amtrak and every commuter rail system in the country for working today, getting us where we want to go, without using up space on highways and in one of the most fuel-efficient modes of transportation. We need more of you and more of what you do. (Thanks to everyone else who is working today, as well, because I just would not have been happy if I could not have stopped into the Valero station and gotten a lotto ticket.) </div>
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I close with why we don't have more passenger railroad workers and more of what they do. It's bad management. Government management. And bad ideas filtering through a committee process that no self-respecting private corporation could tolerate and still make a buck. No matter how I figure it, I still can't see why Amtrak can't make a profit, or at least break even, if the managers and Congress will let it. Stop tinkering with the details and make a decision that America needs Passenger Rail.</div>
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One final word. The success or failure of Passenger Rail has never been about the people. Railroaders are hard workers who love the job and wouldn't stay with it if they didn't, because it's hard. It's hard on people and hard on their families. If you don't like it, you don't just do it badly, you just don't do it. So in that vein, I guess that the hard work of railroaders is what made Passenger Rail great in its heyday, and can make it great again. We built this country. Let the politicians go to blazes.</div>
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Thanks again, and Happy Labor Day.</div>
mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-85840985908790555182014-08-20T12:52:00.000-06:002014-08-20T12:52:14.476-06:00Short Video Documentary - Railroad Preservation - Worth Watching!I'm taking a different path with this entry and recommending this documentary. The filmmaker, Julien Lasseur, approached me and asked that I review the short film. It is certainly excellently done, and worth every second it takes to watch. Here's the film:<br />
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In the shadows of Cleveland's once prosperous steel mills, Charlie Sedgley and his fellow members of the Midwest Railway Preservation Society work to bring historical steam engines and railcars back to life.
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Julien says, "When working with Charlie, most of our footage came from the tour he typically gives for folks who visit the Society. Afterwards, we sat down with him and had a conversation. When we find a subject to profile, we prefer to approach them first and foremost as an interlocutor - one side of a dialogue between us and them, with our cameras as one of the many tools in the formula. We do our best to stay reactive, and follow wherever the conversation takes us. With this ‘sense of adventure’ or receptive approach in mind, we hope that the stories we uncover speak for themselves."
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I wish Julien the best of luck in continuing his proposed series on America's industrial heartland.<br />
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*Video copyright by the producers and/or Julien Lassseur. Contact Julien Lasseur at julienlassseur@gmail.com for more info.<br />
©2014 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com" target="_blank">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-12637329773871619302014-06-01T14:56:00.000-06:002014-06-01T14:56:53.439-06:00Ebb & FlowNo, the title of this blog is not a new country duo--nor is it the name of my legal team. It is what happens with Passenger Rail in the U.S. with Amtrak and Congress, that singularly mismatched duo, running things.<br />
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<a href="http://www.daylightsales.com/images/10112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.daylightsales.com/images/10112.jpg" height="216" width="320" /></a>During the first decade of my life, Passenger Rail was full flow. Post WWII streamliners came on line faster than Sbarro on Manhattan Island. No matter what the railroad was running things, a serious effort to please the traveling public and make Passenger Rail competitive with air travel and highways created the grand days of 20th century rail travel. The big ones come to mind. The Super Chief, The Broadway, The 20th Century Limited, The City streamliners, The North Coast Limited, The Empire Builder. There are lots more, but my childhood was centered on the midwest, so forgive my omissions.<br />
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Move on to the 1960s. Don't get me wrong. Passenger Rail was already on the skids in the late 50s. By the early 60s, no skids were left underneath and it was almost free fall. The airlines and the Interstate Highway System took big public money and made mincemeat of the Passenger Rail system. The ICC paid lip service to competition and public necessity, but nobody thought of rail as a "modern" form of transportation, least of all Congress. Regulation threatened to end railroading completely.<br />
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The onset of Amtrak . . . yes, it had an onset just like a disease . . . brought relief to the rail systems vis a vis removal of a nasty red line from the ledger, but it wasn't a panacea, and Congress was as stingy as it could get. A subsidiary disease is something I would call Turn-a-Profit-Itis. Or make that last part -oma. It's a cancer that has to be cut out of our thinking about transportation policy before it kills the patient.<br />
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Ebb and flow continued as Congress and Administrations would alternately fund and defund things, install new Amtrak administrators, and boards, and decide arbitrarily how bad the "-oma" would be. Ebb and flow.<br />
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Now we have a national system that needs a lot of work. Congress under the current administration -- it's more of a custodian -- gave Amtrak enough money for some new equipment, but not enough for new routes. The rebuild of the Northeast Corridor needs a rebuild. Somewhere along the line, Congress had the brilliant idea that the individual states would have to kick in for service, and this regulation has been administered so arbitrarily that there are some state legislatures that will eventually either want to opt out or have to as the state goes belly up. Others have embraced this bugaboo wholeheartedly and have succeeded at it for the most part. California, Illinois, Michigan, Washington come to mind. Note they are also highly liberal states. <br />
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So in a way, we also have the ebb and flow of a once private network of passenger railroads turning into a smaller public entity, now being spun off to become something less of a single entity and more of a network again, with the very real possibility that some states will find private operators, and maybe even private owners, willing to run Passenger Rail again. (Florida, perhaps California, Oklahoma?)<br />
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Ebb and Flow.<br />
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©2014 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a>mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-19414977924397400092014-04-26T15:49:00.000-06:002014-04-28T08:48:52.212-06:00Freight v. Passenger Rail<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJcZz_fM8EUcQbGmEnEL2ghXuN_oaOZSSps2MyArgzyyPs2GUUrCVWN-qJ89OTIWjGe1loFqeabQHh6GD16_QBO2mbEoe97FugQXMl_r_kR0mTm_2KnPSM2jfrt2U6XE6jgSzYQ/s1600/DSCF1249(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJcZz_fM8EUcQbGmEnEL2ghXuN_oaOZSSps2MyArgzyyPs2GUUrCVWN-qJ89OTIWjGe1loFqeabQHh6GD16_QBO2mbEoe97FugQXMl_r_kR0mTm_2KnPSM2jfrt2U6XE6jgSzYQ/s1600/DSCF1249(2).jpg" height="146" width="200" /></a></div>
This blog has reached the dubious milestone of having over 25,000 page views. That's not a lot by some standards, so I'm only tooting my horn once. Please help get more by linking and sharing. Many thanks to my regular readers.<br />
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The oil boom and consequential uptick in the number of "oil cans" on U.S. rails has illuminated a certainty I've observed for some time. Basically, it's that passenger trains no longer get the priority they need to be a viable form of medium- to long-distance travel. The exceptions are the tracks owned by Amtrak and commuter rail authorities, where the track owners can choose to give passenger trains priority. Often they don't. The problem is just going to get worse, as the feds have found out they can foist costs off on the states by blackmailing them with the loss of train service. (See Southwest Chief in Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas.)<br />
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I'm not arguing that freight should never get priority--far from it. Seeing that freight rail is possible the most energy efficient way to move heavy loads anywhere on the planet (marine is most efficient where there is a waterway and a port), a robust freight rail system, with marketplace competition and free from burdensome regulation, is necessary for future economic success. But passenger rail also approaches optimum efficiency for moving people. What are we to do?<br />
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I've made no secret that I'm not a fan of High Speed Rail (HSR), but that's mainly because of the way America is going about it. Piecemeal doesn't cut it. At the current level of funding, Amtrak will turn into a fragmented, useless entity for anything but trains on the Northeast Corridor and some other Corridor trains. Beyond those corridors and regional transportation agencies, passenger rail will disappear. <br />
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I do not now and never have given purchase to the argument that the federal government can't make enough cuts to fund something really important. But, with the media in the corner of the politicians, it would take one helluva piece of investigative journalism pitched to the public by one helluva believable news personality to demonstrate that the wool has been pulled over our eyes for years. Forever for younger folks. Once we free up all that taxpayer money, put it into a real network of HSR. <br />
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The professional politicians will never let this happen.<br />
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Some additional links:<a href="http://krcc.org/post/railroad-west-trinidad-freight-and-passenger-rail-are-linked" target="_blank"> http://krcc.org/post/railroad-west-trinidad-freight-and-passenger-rail-are-linked</a><br />
<a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/389258/news/santa-felamy-passenger-rail-trips-look-set-to-return.html">http://www.abqjournal.com/389258/news/santa-felamy-passenger-rail-trips-look-set-to-return.html</a><br />
<a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-us-oil-boom-is-putting-the-squeeze-on-amtrak">http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-us-oil-boom-is-putting-the-squeeze-on-amtrak</a><br />
<a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2014/04/22/nm-railroads-to-focus-on-freight-not-passengers.html?page=all">http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2014/04/22/nm-railroads-to-focus-on-freight-not-passengers.html?page=all</a><br />
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©2014 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com" target="_blank">mistertrains@gmail.com </a><br />
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<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-37160152151834759092014-04-02T17:49:00.000-06:002014-04-02T17:51:06.287-06:00Please People!This could have been a lot worse.<br />
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At least nobody was killed. I'll let you use your imagination what the injuries in the SUV could have been like.<br />
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As light rail, commuter rail, and passenger rail in general gets more and more popular, we need to get back some of the common sense that people had back when streetcars and frequent and fast passenger trains were the norm.
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©2014 C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.commistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-28536258119078106092014-03-26T13:52:00.000-06:002014-03-26T15:21:48.893-06:00Is HSR Possible in the US?I haven't posted at the blog for a long time. Maybe it's because I haven't found anything I like enough about the state of Passenger Rail in the United States to spend the time on.<br />
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Today I read this article.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-high-speed-rail-system-america-needs/30518.article">http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-high-speed-rail-system-america-needs/30518.article</a><br />
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It's one of the best, most comprehensive arguments I have read in favor of Hight Speed Rail (HSR), and probably one of the most realistic. Please read ALL of the comments accompanying the article. You can cull the good ones from the crackpots. All these commentators are right on, and yet here we are, still jumping the same old hurdles.<br />
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HURDLE ONE: Money. This is a catch all for "we don't like HSR so we're just going to make it cost so much that you'll give up." It's a political hurdle similar to Mr. Obama's vow to make coal burning plants so expensive that the power companies will just give up. It doesn't have to cost so much.<br />
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So - the real hurdles are political.<br />
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HURDLE TWO: It will only benefit the Northeast. Yes. In the short term. But it's the best chance we've got of demonstrating the good HSR can do for the country.<br />
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HURDLE THREE: It will displace a lot of people and take a lot of land off the tax rolls. This is one and the same, if you think about it. People never like to lose their homes or their land, but we've done it with Interstate highways, and we do it for things as mundane as shopping centers or low income housing. Come on people! Really?<br />
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HURDLE FOUR: We don't know what form it should take. That's a cop out. Other countries have just jumped right in and rolled with the punches (mistakes). How did we get so risk averse? America should be able to design and build the absolute best HSR transport in the world - HSR that is truly American!<br />
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HURDLE FIVE: It'll ruin the environment. This is the fall-back for anyone who wants to oppose anything in this country. Want to build a sidewalk? There may be an Indian artifact under it! Want to cut down a tree. Heavens! Logging should not be permitted as there might be a bird up there. The environmentalists should embrace HSR, but collectively they won't. When it comes right down to it, they'll throw up roadblocks just because they can. It's about power, and we've given the real power away to the wackos and kooks for too long.<br />
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HURDLE SIX: It won't make a profit. I'll repeat my mantra again. You can search it to see how many times I've said it before. Passenger Rail does not make a profit anywhere in the world. You can redefine profit, yes, so that some private enterprise comes out in the black after government subsidy. What HSR will really do is reduce the need to tax people to provide that subsidy, spur nearby economic growth, and encourage travel for business and pleasure. All good economic outcomes.<br />
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By having a balanced transportation policy, with all kinds of rail transport, including HSR, America can grow itself out of an economy in eternal recession and become a world leader in HSR.<br />
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The time for HSR is NOW!<br />
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©2014 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-68678031954337341672014-01-14T11:04:00.000-07:002014-01-14T11:04:38.710-07:00Wherefore Art Thou (Or Wilt Thou Be) Southwest Chief?The following is a comment posted on <a href="http://trn.trains.com/" target="_blank">Trains Magazine</a> newswire in response to [<a href="http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20News/News%20Wire/2014/01/New%20Mexico%20legislator%20to%20introduce%20funding%20bill%20for%20Southwest%20Chief%20route.aspx" target="_blank">this article.</a>]<br />
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I live in New Mexico and have been following the politics of railroads in the state for some time, and write an occasional blog on passenger rail. It is supreme irony that, in order to keep Amtrak running through Albuquerque, we now have to fund maintenance on the track that Gov. Martinez effectively gave back to BNSF precisely because it would be too costly to maintain. (I do not think a rerouted Southwest Chief would stop in Albuquerque. Instead, the likely result of the reroute would be a stop in Belen, NM with bus--ugh!--service to Albuquerque. Only if New Mexico Rail Runner gets involved could we expect an "all rail" ride from Albuquerque or Santa Fe. That would be predicated on Amtrak actually making connections, as I would hate to have to wait hours at a Belen station.) But back to the topic: In all fairness, Gov. Richardson should never have entered into a deal to purchase the BNSF line from Albuquerque to Raton, but he was desperate for political points, had an open purse, and BNSF saw him coming a milepost away. Rep. Gonzales has the right idea, though. It's the best result coming out of a bad situation, and would be in line with Gov. Martinez's other so-called initiatives to garner more business and tourism. The only good I could see coming from a reroute would be if New Mexico decided to fund a regional Amtrak route from Belen to Las Vegas, NM, or Raton (or jointly with Colorado to Denver) that would serve Santa Fe and NM Highlands University in Las Vegas.<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;">Photo by Drew Mitchem credit to Trains Magazine.)</span></span>mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-24404551146601425312013-12-03T11:35:00.000-07:002013-12-03T11:35:23.737-07:00PTC Redux - Or When The Knee JerksDon't you just love it when the establishment news media get their hands on a railroad story they know nothing about? Grinding my fingernails down a chalkboard (a magical graphic device used in old-school classrooms, for those of you in perpetual puberty) would be both more pleasant and more productive.<br />
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Four fatalities on a commuter train in New York, and many injuries, are certainly tragedies that apparently could have been avoided by the magic of Positive Train Control. At least that's what NBC News decided when presenting this story early Monday morning on Today. And, guess what, there is this technology called PTC that's established fact. I can't quote the story directly right now, because I can't find a transcript on the Net, but it went something like, "There is technology that could have prevented the accident." Really?!!! <br />
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So the railroads that have spent upwards of 9 figures, if not 10, trying to implement this "existing technology" are just throwing away their money trying to design and build systems that they could have gone to NBC and purchased "out of the box" to comply with Congress' arbitrary deadline? Apparently, railroads are so stodgy and unfeeling toward the victims of such tragedies that they would lie a thousandfold just to keep from having to implement something so simple and so extant that it should have been done yesterday. If only those railroads would stop concentrating on being the most fuel efficient from of transportation on the face of the planet, pound for pound and passenger for passenger, and start concentrating on what's really important!<br />
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Fact is this: If Congress had de-regulated the implementation of PTC in a similar way that they de-regulated the railroads thirty years ago--that is, remove all government regulations as far as placement and testing, bandwidth, radio frequencies, environment, etc.-- then PTC "would" be working today!<br />
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Fact is this: PTC only existed as a concept on the engineering drawing boards when Congress got involved, functional only in test situations on very short segments of track.<br />
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Fact is this: There IS technology that dates back to the first half of the 20th century called Automatic Train Stop. Lots of railroads have it, but its based on switches and relays and brute force mechanical systems that Congress doesn't understand. Oh, wait! They don't understand what it is taking to implement PTC, either. Furthermore, it's not fun for Congress to mandate something that already exists.<br />
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My guess: This latest tragedy can be blamed on technology--but probably not on the lack of it. Check your text messages while running a train, anyone?<br />
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©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com<br />
<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-16276630495664329972013-11-12T14:57:00.001-07:002013-11-12T14:57:22.840-07:00Does the Left Hand Know?As I write this, several things are going on with railroads that can be lumped under the tentative heading: Government Intervention. Two of these things will affect Passenger Rail. One has grown out of what I believe to have been a sincere desire on the part of some in government to improve Passenger Rail safety.<br />
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Let's talk about that one first. Just days after the 2008 collision of a Metrolink commuter train with a Union Pacific freight near Chatsworth, California, the government mandated that PTC be in place on something like 60 thousand miles of railroad by 2015. PTC is Positive Train Control, a collision avoidance system that, on the surface and to Congressmen, appears like a simple concept. So not only did they mandate this system and set a somewhat arbitrary deadline, but they told the railroads that they'd have to pay for it. No federal budget item for PTC! <br />
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As an aside, let me note that Congress is seldom anything but superficial when it comes to passing laws, especially if those laws mandate an end result that will require anything of a highly technical nature to get to the result. This bunch knows what they want and when they want it, and you, by cracky, had better get it done! (See Affordable Healthcare Act)<br />
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Getting back to my point, some "parts" of government are starting to understand that PTC isn't going to happen; at least not without some more hefty Government Intervention. The price tag is already on the fancy side of the tracks of $5 billion--with a B. If you stop and use your head, you're going to realize that this is nothing like an aircraft collision avoidance system. For one thing, with the mass of railroad trains being in the neighborhood of millions--with an M--of tons, radar just can't stop a moving train by the time it's close enough on the ground to be seen on radar. This has to be a digital radio--wireless--system that depends on computers on the ground, in centralized locations, and on board every train, as well as the global positioning system, communicating at all times and in all locations. ON THE GROUND! (What if those satellites get too old? Stay tuned.) And it has to be overlaid on existing signal systems, at least to begin with, or the costs triple or more.<br />
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So now the railroads want to build radio towers for all these wireless signals along their rights of way. But wait . . . doesn't the FCC have to approve them? U-betcha! Not that the FCC can't ramp up, but they're getting into the game way late; they just realized it. So no towers are going up. Then there's . . . I bet you think I'm going to rag on the Environmentalists . . . you'd be wrong. Something called the National Historic Preservation act gives the Indian nations the right to inspect every site for possible Indian artifacts. So call out the brigades of Native American inspectors, you say? At current estimates and rates of inspection by qualified tribal personnel, this is going to take 50 years--with a Y. Thank Congress for thinking things through! (Not to be crude, but here goes: Most of Congress thinks a global position is something ENTIRELY different.)<br />
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Then there's the clamoring in Congress for somebody to re-regulate freight rates for those shippers who feel overcharged or under served. Congress, in it's infinite inability to think things through, will probably do it, forgetting that before deregulation of the railroads there was the distinct possibility that 2013 would not SEE any private railroads running in America. Perhaps that's the goal. In any case, imposing higher cost or lower profitability on freight railroads will make it harder for passenger systems to negotiate track use and dispatching, and possibly cause the freight railroads to cross their legs and refuse any and all intercourse with passenger systems. Between this and the PTC fiasco, on which the bigger railroads have already spent a wad of cash, the butt cheeks of the railroads are tight enough to hold up those transmitter poles all by themselves.<br />
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-20052509689031100192013-09-28T15:15:00.000-06:002013-09-28T15:16:55.288-06:00Are The Steaks Really Worth It?After marketing my new novel with a railroad fan's slant - <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/charlesaturek/home/the-steam-locomotive-murders" target="_blank">The Steam Locomotive Murders</a> - I have to get back to blogging about real Passenger Rail issues.<br />
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This article discusses gourmet food on Amtrak:<br />
<a href="http://arbutus.patch.com/articles/steaks-on-a-train-amtrak-ups-its-culinary-game-78e29ea9">http://arbutus.patch.com/articles/steaks-on-a-train-amtrak-ups-its-culinary-game-78e29ea9</a><br />
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I've been thinking about it awhile, so it is now time for me to put in my 2 cents. This may be both figuratively and literally, because that's about all I'd give you for so-called gourmet food on Amtrak. At least not until Amtrak learns to get other things right.<br />
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First of all, it's not real gourmet food. It's trendy food served as gourmet. These days, any kind of food that has an unusual name and is gluten free is touted as gourmet food. Second, it's going to increase food service costs, or the quality is going to be soooo bad that it'll ruin ridership. Third, it's only a matter of time before Congress decides to cut food service altogether. (The last time was a disaster!) So why bother upping the cost of what we're going to cut?<br />
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As I see it, the majority of us want two things when it comes to food on a train. First, we want a dining car, not a snack wagon or a corner of the basement in the lounge car. Second, we want good American cuisine at reasonable prices: Steaks and chops, salads with fresh vegetables, good coffee (without the hoity or the toity), and a desert selection that would make Dr. Oz cringe. I don't see why it would be so hard for Amtrak management to visit successful mom & pop restaurants in each train's geographic area and emulate the menus. Don't hire chefs! Hire people who can cook. And absolutely don't let the pop media govern what you serve! (Did I say management should do something? Horrors. They're too busy pleasing Congress.)<br />
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So there's my brief rant about food on Amtrak. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.<br />
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.commistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-38568357818539366382013-09-24T14:09:00.000-06:002013-09-24T14:09:26.380-06:00Be The First<div style="margin-right: 0px;">
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mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-53330391872908422692013-09-19T14:53:00.000-06:002013-09-19T14:56:56.585-06:00The Steam Locomotive Murders Now Available<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.commistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-76644146923501266722013-09-15T14:31:00.000-06:002013-09-15T14:31:21.527-06:00Steam Locomotive Book This Week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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Those of you who read this blog (ir)regularly know that I am also an author of fiction novels. <br />
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My latest, <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/charlesaturek/home/the-steam-locomotive-murders" target="_blank">The Steam Locomotive Murders</a>, officially launches this week, 9/18/13. This is the second in the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/detectivecharliekomensky/" target="_blank">Charlie Komensky</a> detective crime fiction series. In addition to being a fictional detective, Charlie is also a railroad fan. This book features settings that include the narrow gauge of northern New Mexico, the Milwaukee Road and Santa Fe northern type steam locomotives, and "in and around" Chicago Union Station., as well as having the detective spend hours on Amtrak.<br />
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The first book of the series, <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3972131" target="_blank">The Flat Tire Murders</a>, included visits to the CRANDIC and Mason City in Iowa, as well as other railroad settings and references.<br />
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Both are available through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EYMOG8C" target="_blank">Amazon </a>and <a href="http://www.createspace.com/4391556" target="_blank">CreateSpace</a>.mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-66727428302523470952013-08-27T13:00:00.000-06:002013-08-27T13:00:45.934-06:00Any Future At All?I've started many posts to this blog with something like: "It got me thinking." I guess that's what's supposed to happen in the blogosphere. <br />
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Today, I read an article published by Railway Age and written by Frank Wilner. The topic of the article is two very new pieces of tech that could make the railroads obsolete in 10 years. You may link to the article [<a href="http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/frank-n-wilner/railroads-beware-technology-is-gaining-on-you.html" target="_blank">here</a>]. Prognosticators are more often wrong than right--it's the old 50-50 chance with a little thrown in on the "against" side because of the inherent risk in trying to predict an unpredictable future.<br />
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Nonetheless, I agree with the basic thesis, and that is this: You've got to stay ahead of technology if you want to stay in business. There was a time when railroads, and Passenger Rail railroads in particular, were always ahead of that curve. In fact, they were the cutting edge of technology in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Not so today.<br />
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I've often marveled at how the basic concept of wheels with flanges running on gauged track has not changed since the 1850s. Science has certainly developed better materials for the wheel-rail interaction, and maybe that's what has kept the basic engineering viable a century and a half later. In all fairness, monorail (in the 1940s - 1960s) and maglev (more recently and continuing) have promised the same thing that Musk's "hyperloop"--as mentioned in the article--promises for Passenger Rail. Basically, it's higher speeds, greater safety, and greater comfort. Neither mono- nor mag-rail has panned out.<br />
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The other tech mentioned in the article, the 3-D printer, has the greater probability of putting pressure on railroads through the lowering of demand to ship parts, particularly small, light parts. But this is for freight rail to worry about.<br />
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Passenger Rail is in dire need of a high-tech innovation that is incremental, rather than all-or-nothing. (The 3-D printer is an example of incremental--a logical and progressive extension through generations of engineering refinement starting with the line-printer and up through dot-matrix to now. The hyperloop is all-or-nothing, requiring a radical change in almost everything engineered around transportation needs today.) People like change, but they don't like radical change. The general Public may ride a bullet-train-like high-speed railroad today, but I'd bet the farm they won't allow themselves to be shot through the ground in tubes yet. <br />
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It took eleven years after the Wright brothers for air travel to be come a commercial enterprise, but it took another 35 years for it to become a competing form of passenger transport. It was advanced, cutting edge tech, but it was too "out there" for the average passenger. I still believe it was largely because of WWII and the number of military personnel who were exposed to flight during that period that airlines of the 1950s took off as they did--pun intended. "If we could do it during wartime, then it's a piece of cake with nobody shooting at us!"<br />
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I keep hoping that those incremental changes I talked about will keep people riding Passenger Rail for the short term, so it won't die out as a transport mode before something realistic in the way of high tech comes along.<br />
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©2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a>mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-78422452393738351282013-08-02T15:54:00.000-06:002013-08-02T15:54:42.051-06:00No Worse and No Better[<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2013/07/09/passenger-on-amtrak-train-stuck-for-horrible-14-hours/" target="_blank">This link</a>] is to a Fox News article that reports the horrible time recently had by some Amtrak passengers on a disabled train. The reason I'm blogging it is that I've had similar experiences. What makes this remarkable to me is not that I had the bad experience, but that I had it so long ago, and nothing has changed. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that a lack of power and of light on board a mid-winter train is just as horrifying as on board one in the middle of a summer heat wave.<br />
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This happened to me well over a decade ago, and I can't say that I was uncomfortable as this Fox article depicts, but I've known the media to exaggerate - Tell me it isn't so! - and I think Fox would have described it in similar terms. What I can't understand it that the organization that supposedly provides the most energy-efficient form of transportation to our nation hasn't gotten it right yet. Yes, attitudes and habits in the railroad industry are hard to change, but the freight railroads have generally, over the past decade, been successful in changing them. What (pick a place) has Amtrak's head been in all these years. People want to ride the train! Please, oh, please don't give them a reason not to!<br />
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Then I think about a train trip I took in the early 1960s. The Baltimore & Ohio still ran passenger trains back then, although they probably didn't want to. They did everything short of substitute cattle cars - What are those, Geezer? - to discourage ridership so that the feds would let them abandon passenger trains. My trip was in early spring: cold cars, failed water systems, leaky windows, <i>etc. ad infinitum</i>. The whole attitude of the crew was, "So what?" and at that time was only a few years short of causing Amtrak to happen. (Some congressman laid an egg and the sun hatched it.) <br />
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What I'm getting at is this: Is there a real or hidden agenda in Amtrak that just wants people to stay away so the feds can put it out of its misery? I sincerely hope not, but that's not what it looks like from here.<br />
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.commistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-26267314481181646302013-07-09T13:07:00.003-06:002013-07-09T13:07:46.993-06:00Recently Posted on Trains Forums re: Megantic Oil Tanker Derailment<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
The idea of posting a security guard at the location of the stopped train was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about this runaway. But there are just so many different versions coming out right now, that it is hard to understand exactly what happened. Bottom line: The railroad is the source of the disaster, if not the cause, and will get blamed for any damage done to life and property.</div>
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Even with the "fire on the locomotive" scenario that seems to be emerging, it appears that somebody had to have uncoupled the tank cars from the locomotives. If so, and at that point, an appropriate number of cars' handbrakes should have been set.</div>
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And . . . YES . . . on my railroad, the crew would have had to be sure the entire train was secure from ALL hazards before packing it in for the night.</div>
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mistertrains@gmail.com</div>
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. . . blogging at <a data-mce-href="http://railroadpassengers.blogspot.com" href="http://railroadpassengers.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" title="Passenger Rail">railroadpassengers.blogspot.com</a></div>
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While this has mostly nothing to do with Passenger Rail, it kinda sorta does when you think about how many routes today that are hosting passengers are also hosting oil tank trains. With the uptick in this kind of business, safety must be at the top of everyone's list.</div>
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General content ©2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a></div>
mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-77034562709622941542013-06-21T10:48:00.002-06:002013-06-21T10:51:16.630-06:00Trainsforming AmericaDespite the appearance of, ugh, politicians in the trailer, this may be a worthwhile film. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/y38oN793F8Q?feature=player_embedded" width="427"></iframe><br />
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You may also want to visit the <a href="http://www.trainsformingamericafilm.com/" target="_blank">website</a>.<br />
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Or read<a href="http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130621/NEWS/130629972" target="_blank"> this article</a>.
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Look for my future posts.<br />
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Any commentary © 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com. No copyright is claimed or intended for content to which this blog post is linked.mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-71688031807936333192013-05-27T11:46:00.000-06:002013-05-27T11:46:50.786-06:00Fighting Dogs and CatsI've read with interest and not a little horror about Amtrak possibly allowing passengers to travel with their pets. Congress would have to authorize this, and there is apparently a move afoot for Amtrak to designate at least one car in each train where passengers could travel with their pets.<br />
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First, let me note that I am extremely allergic to cats and some dogs. I mean life and death allergic. I have never been around other mammalia that much that I have learned of, or developed an allergy to, any others. So perhaps I would also be allergic to hamsters. So you know that I am coming from the position of having a deep love for passenger rail travel on the one hand and an urgent need not to be embalmed on the other.<br />
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I find so many societal things wrong with pets in certain places, including supermarkets, restaurants and, yes, public transportation, that I will not list them all. Just let me say that, from a societal standpoint, I believe that the need to take pets everywhere evidences a narcissism that borders on neurosis and a degradation, if not a total rift, in the social fabric. (I exclude from this criticism all people who need service animals, though even that definition suffers from the pressures of a liberal interpretation for almost everything. Service chicken? Come on!)<br />
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But the biggest thing wrong with pets on Amtrak is cost to the American taxpayer. Knowing railroad operations as I do, I guarantee increased costs to Amtrak (which is cost to us) as; (a) maintaining a pool of designated pet cars in the proper place, time and order, (b) cleaning and deodorizing cars, (c) policing the situation such that riders obey the "pet rules," and (d) paying for alternate transportation in case of breakdown and emergency for passengers, like me, who absolutely cannot ride in the same air supply as dog or cat dander.<br />
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As far as the cars are concerned - and I've seen this in hotels - they won't ever be exclusively used for no-dogs-allowed. In a pinch, a car used yesterday for pet friendly service will be shunted onto a train that needs a car for just regular non-pet passengers. Once a pet has slept on a bed, I guarantee you that it's dander will remain in the bedding until the bedding is sterilized or burned!<br />
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And given the sorry state of society today, are you going to arm conductors to enforce a pet moving from car to car or settling down in the galley waiting for food scraps? You may have to!<br />
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Until or unless Amtrak has such a large pool of cars that it can afford to pick another "clean of pets" car from the unused stock of cars to account for emergencies or just increased ridership, this whole pets on Amtrak thing is a bad, bad, BAD, idea! (ALLERGISTS PLEASE COMMENT!)<br />
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©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.commistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-44859309759185436672013-04-16T13:41:00.000-06:002013-04-16T13:41:10.906-06:00Why Are We All Excited?Those of us who would see Passenger Rail grow and prosper in America have been burned before.<br />
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I can understand mainstream media getting excited. There is too much news media and not enough content, so every gurgle that issues from the mind or mouth of a politician gets reported. In the fashion of the "new journalism," the enthusiasm of the journalist, or the disdain, shows through on the page, or in the TV news article.<br />
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But I think those reporting in such specialized areas as Passenger Rail should learn to hold their water. Let's face it. Bigger Amtrak budgets don't always result in better Passenger Rail service. When and if they do is the time to get excited. I would much rather hear about the successes resulting from the use of funding than about projected funding that may or may not materialize.<br />
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If all of the excited speculation of the past decade had resulted in solid passenger rail service, we would be riding HSR trains on dedicated rights of way from Chicago to Detroit and from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we would have Amtrak service that made money, and we would be light-rail commuting in a dozen small cities that are barely able to keep bus service solvent.<br />
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So let's not get too excited!<br />
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For another view on what is and is not possible and probable in passenger rail, please see RailwayAge guest blog [<a href="http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/william-vantuono/guest-blog-amtrak-is-not-the-problem%E2%80%9D.html" target="_blank">here</a>].<br />
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©2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmial.com" target="_blank">mistertrains@gmail.com </a>mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-88803141408669842842013-04-04T14:19:00.002-06:002013-04-04T14:20:55.928-06:00National Train Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/O9YOZRMecWE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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All about Amtrak and trains. See also [<a href="http://www.nationaltrainday.com/press/pdfs/press_releases/national-train-day-fact-sheet.pdf" target="_blank">press release</a>] and [<a href="http://www.nationaltrainday.com/press/pdfs/fact_sheets/newmexico_fact_sheet.pdf" target="_blank">NM info</a>].</div>
mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-52642496616093624162013-03-20T15:36:00.000-06:002013-03-20T15:36:48.799-06:00Letter to Republican Elites from a Conservative Rail EnthusiastDear Republican Elites:<br />
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Passenger trains are not archaic dinosaurs that eat up public money that can be better used to cut the debt. They are public conveniences, nay even necessities, that eat up public money in order to make the economy and our lives better. Stop treating them as something to be cut from budgets or sold off to whatever idiot wants to buy them from Amtrak. They are the most fuel efficient mode of mass transportation of human beings on the planet. They are part of a comprehensive transportation policy that includes highways, buses, air and waterways. <br />
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Limited and constitutional government envisioned by conservatives does not automatically mean the curtailment of all public subsidy for transportation modes. If it did, we would all be going back to horses, wagons, and private toll roads on private lands. Limited and economical government does mean that public funds should not be used by the government to favor one mode of transportation to the exclusion of another, except for the purposes of national defense. <br />
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The Obama regime appears to have gotten passenger rail and high-speed rail right for all the wrong reasons. When stimulus money was rolled out, it didn't go to transportation as part of a comprehensive plan. The regime wanted money to go to an industry that it perceived did or would employ labor union members who would vote Democratic. The right reasons? America needs more than one mode of transportation for people and their belongings that can meet the need to travel long distances in short times. Airlines have met this need for years, but are becoming more inconvenient due to their vulnerability to attack, hijack, and conversion (to flying weapons) by any person or group of nefarious bent. In fact, a comprehensive transportation plan for the rest of this century should envision a third mode, possibly high-speed commercial highways that are independent of rail and air travel. I hate to say it, but with the advent of computerization, rail doesn't have to be the only so-called self-guiding mode out there.<br />
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Sequestration has made it clear that the Washington Elites, whether on the left or right, are only going to cut those things that will hurt the general public the most. So it would not surprise me if Amtrak and commuter rail funding dries up. It doesn't have to be that way. Though the DOT is one of the leanest in Washington, it is still a bureaucracy. If it's a government-run entity, there is still plenty of fat to be trimmed before we really need to curtail trains and transport, or let highway bridges crumble into rivers.<br />
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Lets wake up and get a clue. Despite what liberals might profess, conservative does not have to equate with 'stupid.'<br />
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
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<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-28675755140666746632013-02-18T14:33:00.000-07:002013-02-18T14:33:26.944-07:00Contingency PlansThe recent near disaster on board the cruise ship Carnival Triumph got me thinking about transportation policy. (The cruise was neither a Triumph nor a Carnival.) In previous posts, I've discussed transportation policy as a government function. For many, many years, federal and state governments have decided what transportation projects get the nod and what ones don't. However, every major transportation company (Southwest Airlines or Union Pacific, for two examples) should have its own transportation policy. I'm sure that most actually do. What the near disaster makes me ask about policy is, "What are your disaster contingencies?"<br />
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Nowadays, disasters come in all shapes and sizes, and are mostly defined by the media. A good definition seems to be anything that puts a great number of lives, or a great dollar amount of property at risk. For the purposes of this discussion, I would like to suggest that a good definition of disaster is a major disruption in the scheduling, forwarding, and delivering of freight and passengers. <br />
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I'll get back to the Carnival Triumph in a minute, though only tangentially. This is, after all, a railroad-focused blog. But I would like to take these transportation policy risks from the bottom (of the river) up and demonstrate how our neglect of redundancy in transportation policy puts America at risk.<br />
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A river barge hits a bridge. It may be a highway bridge, a railroad bridge, or (call the environmentalists) a pipeline bridge. It could be a bridge that carries all three. River traffic is disrupted for days, maybe weeks, while spilled fuel is cleaned up. Do we have alternate waterways? You know we do not. The likelihood that there is any other mode of transportation capable of moving the barge commodities safely during the outage is small. Probably the railroad can reroute trains, truckers and travelers can drive another highway, and there may even be a redundant pipeline.<br />
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An Amtrak train is wrecked. I mean thoroughly wrecked. God forbid it results in loss of life, but in any case there is major loss of passenger equipment. Amtrak schedules have to be fixed, equipment has to be borrowed from other routes. A general degradation of the entire system occurs. There's just not enough passenger equipment, inspected for safety and in good repair, that Amtrak can just field another trainset. No redundancy. <br />
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A giant cruise ship is crippled. There apparently aren't enough other cruise ships not already on their schedules to send one to offload passengers from the crippled ship from an environment that will become sheer hell for most of them before the crippled ship gets towed to port. Or maybe there's no mechanism to get them onto another ship. I don't know. It seems like there should be. We have enough engineering students in America to make this happen. <br />
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Airlines are grounded due to a terrorist threat. Or, alternately, the air traffic control system suffers a major glitch and has to be shut down. Do we have a contingency plan? Can all those thousands of passengers count on the railroads to put on more trains? No. Can they all take a bus? I think not. How about driving? Major traffic jams in major metro areas. <br />
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For passenger rail, there should be long-term plans for new tracks, trains, and modern signaling systems to make it all work. Years ago, these plans should have been implemented so that, today, we would be on our way to true HSR and true independence of passenger rail from the freight system. Nobody foresaw that Amtrak would be having record years, nor did they see that at the same time as there is record demand for passenger rail there would be record freight delivery by rail. I don't know why not. Rail has for as long as I can remember been the most efficient and energy friendly way to move freight and passengers in terms of energy used per passenger-mile or per ton-mile. Yet it is still thought of as a dinosaur. That's because government has become the curator of a museum instead of the owner of a modern transportation system. <br />
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Privatize Amtrak? Now may be the time. Build more rail right of way? Yes. Let the NIMBYs be damned! Plan for the future? Definitely. Stop making risk a dirty word? Most important of all. And let's stop building things with projected useful life, and start building things to last! We could surely better handle "disaster" if we did.<br />
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Rant over.<br />
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
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<br />mistertrainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06908806266880517883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125157.post-59429928520752779712013-01-27T15:14:00.001-07:002013-01-27T15:16:09.291-07:00US Transportation Policy is No Policy At AllThose of you who have followed this blog or visit often enough to get my political drift know that I am a strong believer in a comprehensive United States transportation policy that includes passenger rail. I'm going to link to two recent reports that are - or will be - interesting reading, because they both address how our "no policy" approach has put the US behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to transportation.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.bafuture.org/pdf/Building-Americas-Future-2012-Report.pdf" target="_blank">[first report]</a> is from a bipartisan organization called <a href="http://www.bafuture.org/" target="_blank">Building America's Future</a>. Before you get into the report and read the statistics that should scare the pants off any user of transportation (freight or passenger), consider its source and understand that the chair-persons for this organization are on the liberal side. So take some of it with a grain of salt in that there may be a tendency to slant in the direction of higher subsidies for all modes, not just for high-speed rail and freight rail. In my opinion, the report is on the money in its criticism of how we handle transportation policy and where this will lead us in the not-too-distant future. Frankly, if we can't move goods and people around fast, in high volume, and in an energy-efficient manner, the United States will continue to fall behind other countries. Additionally, the solution, I think, is not just in subsidy or government money, but in general tax and business policies, and an easing of regulations, that will help private enterprise get this accomplished. Even though the report's slant may be liberal, mine is definitely conservative.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.asce.org/ascenews/featured.aspx?id=23622322886&blogid=25769815007" target="_blank">[second report]</a> hasn't really come out yet. The link is to an article on the <a href="http://www.asce.org/ascenews/" target="_blank">Amercian Society of Civil Engineers</a> site that describes the expected March 19 report in generalities. Nevertheless, the conclusion is the same: The United States needs a comprehensive transportation policy that includes all modes, and needs to spend a lot more money on infrastructure for all modes. Again, the slant is probably liberal, as one would expect from a highly commercialized academic society, but the need can be met by applying conservative political principles. <br />
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Bottom line: It would be an extremely bad idea to continue treating rail, and passenger rail in particular, as an anachronism or as a second cousin to so-called "modern" modes like air and highway. My opinion is that it would also be an extremely bad idea to demand that government fund all of the needed improvements, as liberal political influences would have it. It would also be an extremely bad idea for government to dump modes that it currently subsidizes - Amtrak, for example - with no backup plan, as conservatives would have it. Limit taxes on transportation modes and their profits, dump unnecessary regulation, and promote general business prosperity, and the rest of the plan will take care of itself. AS LONG AS WE HAVE A PLAN!<br />
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© 2013 - C. A. Turek - <a href="mailto:mistertrains@gmail.com">mistertrains@gmail.com</a><br />
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