We have to disperse our volume of domestic transportation from the Airlines to the railroads and the highways.

This is going to be very expensive, as the railroads are no longer in a condition to handle inter-city and interstate passenger travel.

We need to establish a new network of high speed passenger only rail lines, heavy freight trains do too much wear and tear to track to share track with high speed, 120-150 mph rail service, linking our major cities. And to encourage their use by limiting the number of air flights over the same routes.

Passenger rail has disappeared in this country because the airliner is economically more efficient. But there was no regard for security. Not only no thought that a airliner could be used as a weapon of mass destruction, but also no thought to what would happen if the airlines had to be shut down for security reason. We are now going to have to live with the idea that this is going to happen again. I know to some of you this will smack of socialism, but we are going to have to do this with government spending and regulation.  Because in-between tragedies like this, rail cant compete with airlines. Diverting people onto rail will result in a loss of efficiency to the business sector as a whole that is going to have to be made up in some fashion.

Also, along side this, we have to reembark on a massive road building effort. We have to enlarge the capacity and improve the efficiency of the interstate highway system. In rural areas the interstate highways are usually two lanes each way, They need to be 4 lanes each way with two reserved for unrestricted speed travel by passenger cars like the German Autobahns.  New ring roads and bypasses so true interstate travel can avoid urban freeways. A reduction of the number of exits and onramp on freeways. Everything reoriented to getting cars from point A to point B as FAST as possible. Get the State Police to start enforcing basic traffic rules instead of speed limits. In 1968 my father drove from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California to Belle Vernon PA, south of Pittsburg, in 46hours including stops for fuel, food, and naps. The average was about 60mph, His speed when driving averaged right around 100mph, except in cities, in his 68' Impala and he returned 20 MPG on the trip. This was before the Interstate highway system was even complete.  Such crossings, or even faster ones need to become common place again.

But we cannot ever again become as dependant on a single form of transportation again.

Any thoughts? Agree dissagree? Comments?

1: How hard is it to derail a high speed train in the event of a terrorist attack?  A train would likely carry more people than an airplane for domestic travel, making it a great target for terrorists.  The only thing it provides over airplanes is that you can't ram a train into anything that doesn't have a railroad track leading to it.  I'd love to travel by high speed train, but it would be just as bad as flying.

2: A friend and I drove non-stop to Las Vegas from Houston back in 1996.  I don't ever want to do that again.  22 hours of hell.  Interstate travel via automobile will never be at the speeds we can travel at via airplanes unless the motor vehicle as we know it changes drastically.

God Bless Texas

you really ARE a liberal aren't you?

[b]We need to get away from out dependence on Liberalism.


Aviator[/b]   [img]www.dredgeearthfirst.com/aviator.gif[/img]

Yep.

And you, it seems, wish to keep reliving this over and over again. A new recession every time we have to have a national ground hold. A new bailout for the airline industry, with billions of tax payers dollars each time.

Good idea, but what if the terrorists start to target passenger cars and primary railroads? You blow up a section of track and that whole area needs to be rebuilt. You blow up a plane, the air is still there to go through.
I still would take my chances with the airlines. I can't stand 3-4 days to get to the East coast by land.

We can all ride our tricycles

Not hard to derail high speed trains. In France they have the GIGN guarding the MagLev line all the time. If it were to derail it would be like the crash of a airliner.

HOWEVER.

You derail a train, no matter how many people on it, you only shut down that one length of rail. And a train can never be directed into a high rise building. A train can never be confiscated and used to kill 20,000 people. And even a high speed train at speed is slower than helicopters- meaning that it can be boarded by commandos. It cant be crashed if a shoot out begins on it. Passengers can carry their own guns.

We cant stop using airlines, nor should we WANT to. But we also shouldnt have to suffer this kind of economic damage because ONE form of transportation was stopped for a week.

Think about what you said now. Targeting passenger cars?  In America? Full of gun owners?

Lets just stop and consider the hypothesis that they had to stop all rail traffic in the country for a week. Well then you still have the highways and aircraft!  If you could somehow stop car traffic- you have trains and planes- this is the point, to creat alternate chanals that can take up the slack with minimum interruption.

Look at the lack of interuption in freight traffic this past week compared to the collapse of passenger traffic. You have trucks and trains, and both those industries are far more decentralised than Aviation.

sounds like Sarah Brady talk to me, if someone dies from it, BAN IT!



I couldn't give a crap about any airline recession, if they're going under because of a week without much business then maybe they shoulda just planned better, fuck 'em. They'll leave way for someone else to do it better.

And they should have planned better security too, they have always had the option themselves of putting some of their own people inside those planes who could take control of this kind of situation but they've never thought of that (they should have) and slacked off to the point that they let this happen and they can no longer be trusted to fly around in their planes without the feds having to step in...and thats what EVERYONE really wanted right?

what I'm really trying to say in regard to airlines if you can't run your business (or life for that matter but different topic) good it will be crushed by recession and I don't think it's the job of any government of mine to bail it out.

Why should the airlines have an automatic draw against my resources to bail them out? I don't fly, and if they can't survive and stay in business then they shouldn't be in business or be stretching their resources so thin.

If people had to do with less or without maybe they would realize a few things?

Later

IAJack

I actually used to ride the train Weekly from Orlando To Ft. Lauderdale when I was in Orlando. It meant I could visit family as often as I wanted for $200/year. Now, I live in Pensacola and the train only comes through here every 3 days and those are not coordinated to allow weekend jaunts. For exapmle if I take the Sunset Limited From Pensacola at 6:00 AM I would arrive in Orlando at 8:45 PM. But, guess what the last train leaves Orlando at 4:40 PM, so I'd be stuck there until 11:40 AM when the first train leaves Orlando, and arrive in Ft. Lauderdale about 4:00 PM. That means I would have to spend 15 Straight Hours on a Train just to spend another 15 waiting for the next train. No thank you, I've already booked my flights. Worse yet are people in So. Dakota who have no Passanger Train Tracks.

Rail would work for travel from The Northeast to Sutheast and that's about all. A 1 Day trip from New York To Miami is OK, but 3 Days on a train from Orlando To Los ANgeles is ridiculous. In addition, Amtrak wants $400 for a sleeper car for Orlando to New Orleans which is one night. I can't afford to pay $400 a night for lodging on a train.

Basically, if you are travelling down the east or west coast a train is a viable alternative (no need to sleep.), but on those long trips from East TO West or Vice-Versa it would be very easy to See $500 Fares and $2000 for lodging. I will never pay $2500 to fly to L.A. Why should I pay it to ride a train there ?

As for Roads, forget it ? Driving 600 Miles a day can tire a person out making a drive to L.A. a week long. When I drove to Pennsylvania, it took 4 Days from Miami. Yet a train ride is less than a day and a plane only takes 5 Hours.




IF AMERICA COULD DEVELOP A SYSTEM LIKE EXISTS IN EUROPE AND NEW ENGLAND, then we could talk. New England already has High Speed rail, but its too damn expensive, unless you buy a pass which will cost $5000 a year for unlimited tarvel throught North America (U.S. & Canada currently, but will soon include Mexico.) Amtrak is the worst for ripping you off because the only option for interstate travel is a North America Travel pass, but if you are a foreigner you can get One Week passes or even East Coast, New England Only passes for much less than americans have to pay fot their only option. And Amtrak requires proof your not american.

As for guns, they have no metal detectors and I have brought my guns on trains in my bags with the bolt removed and unloaded. But their policy says NO GUNS, NO MATTER WHAT, NO EXCEPTIONS.

That has to be the dumbest thing I have heard yet.  Now beam me up Scotty.

Replacing air travel with rail travel will probably never work.  Rail travel will never be as fast as air travel for starters.  But most damning is it will always be too expensive for travel over long distances.  Pick a distance that rail travel is a reasonable economic alternative to air travel.  SanFrancisco to Sacramento is probably a good example.  That is in the neighborhood of 150 miles.  So buying and maintaining a highspeed train and 150 miles of high speed track is roughly equivalent to buying and maintaining an airplane and two runways.  Now consider SanFrancisco to NewYork.  You still need an airplane and two runways in the case of air travel. But look at what you need for highspeed rail travel.  You need your train, but you now need 2000 miles of right-of-way to run it on.  A mode of transportation that makes sense for intercity traffic on our coasts, or in a relatively small country like France just doesn't work when your talking coast to coast transportation.  You can postulate as many social advantages of rail travel as you want.  We live in a relatively free society and people will choose the mode of transport that gives them the best value.
The other advantage of rail for intercity transport is that the stations can be located in city centers whereas airports are usually on the outskirts of the city.

Silly me, I meant passenger rail cars. You have a good idea, it's just that we as a nation have become very reliant on air travel.
I only live 260 miles from Las Vegas, a four hour car ride. I would rather spend 80 bucks on an airline ticket than sit in a car for four hours. Even with this horrific event, air travel is still the safest way to travel.

Maybe the French should surrender their high speed rail lines before someone gets hurt.