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Re: Why Can't the United States Build a High-Speed Rail System?
Author: Anonymoose
Date: 08-23-2014 - 14:26
When I was a kid in the 50's, we would ride a B&M RR (on the Conn River Line) local 20 miles to visit an aunt (a couple under steam, a couple under B&M E-units). That was what we could afford, and when that service died, we drove the 20 miles (don't think my mom was happy about that, my aunt had a hard top Ford convertible).
50 years and a few millions of $'s later, the Feds and the state of Mass have funded a bus/train station in my old home town (the location of which is too far from the tracks to even make a physical connection, the site of the original station is now called the Energy Park) and track rehab along the Conn River so that Amtrak can service the stations left behind 50 years ago.
Well cool. local bus service is a ghost of what it used to be, interstate bus service is non-existent and Amtrak service will be one train a day in either direction.
In the end, the new Amtrak service will be used by skiers from NYC who can afford to take the train to ski slopes in Vermont, maybe the students attending a few of the up-town colleges in the area shooting down to NYC for the weekend, and maybe a few locals who can afford the $'s to catch a weekend Broadway show in NYC.
Even the locals, who are supposed to be the recipients of this train service windfall are recognizing that this service has no hope of making it financially, that it will require future Federal subsidies.
Substitute HSR for local Amtrak service, and you have the same situation.
50 years and a few millions of $'s later, the Feds and the state of Mass have funded a bus/train station in my old home town (the location of which is too far from the tracks to even make a physical connection, the site of the original station is now called the Energy Park) and track rehab along the Conn River so that Amtrak can service the stations left behind 50 years ago.
Well cool. local bus service is a ghost of what it used to be, interstate bus service is non-existent and Amtrak service will be one train a day in either direction.
In the end, the new Amtrak service will be used by skiers from NYC who can afford to take the train to ski slopes in Vermont, maybe the students attending a few of the up-town colleges in the area shooting down to NYC for the weekend, and maybe a few locals who can afford the $'s to catch a weekend Broadway show in NYC.
Even the locals, who are supposed to be the recipients of this train service windfall are recognizing that this service has no hope of making it financially, that it will require future Federal subsidies.
Substitute HSR for local Amtrak service, and you have the same situation.
