AMERICA SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THE NATION’S RAIL SERVICE

…An example of an electric high-speed passenger train.

Thank the conservatives for Amtrak being our very poor US passenger rail system.

It is now confirmed that the train wreck outside of Philadelphia that took 8 lives and injured many more, it probably would not have occurred if the Positive Train Control System (PTC) would have been installed as was agreed years ago by the US Congress.  Even if it is confirmed that a projectile came through the train’s windshield, the PTC would still have shut down the train.  But with the continuous cutting of the Amtrak budget by the Republicans, the budget for implementing the PTC has continually been pushed out.

Amtrak’s funding has been cut by the Republicans for years.  Due to those cuts, the US rail system is now down there with other 3^rd world nations.  Where the US spends just 1% of our GDP on infrastructure growth and maintenance, China spends 9% of their GDP.  Other industrialized nations spend between 3% and 7% of their GDP.  What that means is that the US will spend $1 billion next year, while China will spend $128 billion.  China has the almost totally silent “lev” trains that go over 250 MPH, while in the US  we are lucky if our old loud locomotives can maintain 65 MPH.

Any idea why the Republicans are so against spending on the nation’s trains and infrastructure?

Well, the most accepted explanation is that today's Republican party is dominated by Southern states.  But the center of heavy infrastructure needs and costs are located in the Northeast.  The Republicans refuse to spend on states that don't vote Republican, which most of the Northeast states vote Democratic.  Unfortunately, this truth is not properly reported as part of the wide partisan scandal that it is today.  

 

For example, although federal disaster relief is uniformly passed from the seasonal wake of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc., the Hurricane Sandy relief bill for New Jersey was passed only when the "Boehner Rule" was lifted to allow a bill to pass with largely Democratic votes. Why is that?  Because only 70 House Republicans could be found who were willing to vote for federal emergency hurricane relief if the affected area was on the Northeast Coast.

To emphasize how ridiculous the Republicans in Congress have been, the day that this latest and deadliest train derailment occurred in Philadelphia, the House voted along party lines to cut the Amtrak budget another $100 million.  The 2016 Amtrak budget is also even less than the 2015 budget.

The reality is that even though all of our nation’s infrastructure is falling apart, the Republican federal budget that was just passed thinks that the US can ignore any upgrades in our nation’s infrastructure maintenance and improvements for at least another decade.  That includes all the nation’s pot-holed roads & highways, dangerous bridges, dams, federal buildings, schools, airports, harbors and of course, Amtrak.

But, as usual, the Republicans are certainly taking care of the nation’s wealthiest families.

 

Now the conservatives want to totally eliminate the estate tax. Under the latest plan, backed by corporations and business groups, family estates would pay zero taxes. Furthermore, estate heirs wouldn’t owe any capital gains taxes on the increased value of those assets over the deceased’s life. That move alone, would let billions of dollars in income and assets escape all US taxes. The plan would cost the US government a minimum $269 billion in lost revenue over a single decade. 

 

This revenue could be one example of tremendous help for helping to make the US once again #1 in infrastructure.  However, this will never occur as long as the GOP has their iron grip on the nation’s purse strings.  I had always thought that US tax revenues were there to make all of the average American citizen’s lives easier, not for just the top 10% and those in the Southern states.

For years, Americans have been asking “Why can the trains in China, Europe and Japan go over 200 MPH and the best we can do is average about 60 MPH in the Eastern corridor”. 

 

The reality is that to go over 200 MPH it takes a separate set of tracks just for the high speed passenger trains and those tracks have to have very few slight curves.  The tracks that Amtrak uses are not owned by Amtrak, they are owned by the train freight companies and they are used for both Amtrak passenger trains and freight trains.  These old routes also have deep curves that high speed trains have to slow down for.  Many of the tracks are also not in good enough shape for dealing with any train-speeds over 50 MPH.

The stories against Amtrak have been going on for years because there are still so many Americans that have never even ridden on a passenger train.  Many states, especially in the South and the Midwest, are against any government financing of Amtrak, as that has nothing to do with helping them in their states get from place to place.  But in the Northeast, millions of Americans use Amtrak every day. 

 

In the transportation corridor from New York City to Washington DC, 2.2 million passengers ride Amtrak every business day.  As with many New Yorkers, many of these Americans in the Northeast don’t even own a car.  They use Amtrak, taxi’s, busses and the subway or local Metro Light Rail systems.

There are many Americans that think that if the country would get behind a national high-speed train systems, that it would help bring the country together.  They feel that major hubs such as Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, St Louis, Salt Lake, Phoenix, San Jose, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and LA would see their businesses grow while more Americans would also get to know these cities.  That is, instead of just flying over them, as they do today.

This is what has happened in many of the major cities in those other countries that have embraced true high-speed passenger rail.  No dealing with crowded airports, airport security lines, airport parking lots or airport rental cars.  You also have the ability to arrive directly downtown in every major city. 

 

While traveling to Shanghai, it was great to arrive at the airport and then take a quiet, modern, high-speed train to downtown where you could walk, or take a short taxi ride, to your hotel.

But those others that deal with our nation’s budgets, they think that high speed rail is a waste of money.  They always complain that these systems always require tax payer subsidies.

Well, the reality is that there is no national passenger rail system or highway system anywhere in the world that doesn’t require government tax payer subsidies.  It is well understood that for affordable transportation for the average citizen, the national governments must pay for a portion of the cost.  Just as the US Interstate Highway System is paid for by US tax payers, a national high-speed passenger train service would also be owned and maintained by the US government.

When I was a little, my father worked for a railroad in Missouri, and that’s where I fell in love with trains.  Today, I belong to a functioning steam-train museum that runs trains on their own tracks just to keep them around for young and old Americans to see and remember how it was when trains were king, and airplanes were novelties.

I have ridden on those high-speed trains in China, the Bullet Trains in Japan and I someday hope to ride in the high-speed “Chunnel” train that goes under the English Channel from London to Paris. 

 

However, I suspect that in my life time I will never see or ride in a real high-speed US passenger train.

But, I guess, there’s always hope.

Copyright G.Ater  2015