Massive Amtrak Crash....but who cares about our highways and trains?

[Spare_change]

$825 million .... where do you propose we get it? What program are you willing to cut?

Raise taxes to what they were before St Redink Ronnie started running up the national debt.

If we raised taxes to 100%, we still can't pay our debts - you obviously didn't think that thru.

Prove it!

Are you really that disconnected? You aren't aware of that? You need to go back to school, my friend.

I didn't realize you were so unversed in the subject being discussed.

If you really do need a tutorial, I'll be more than happy to provide it.

In other words you are just blowing extremist rightwing smoke out of your nether regions again.

High-speed rail is also very expensive to build. Most new routes cost at least $10 million per mile to construct. The cheapest European rail line costs more than $50,000 per seat to operate annually. A U.S. high-speed rail line would need ridership of 6 million to 9 million people per year to break even. The high-speed Acela service, despite operating in the busy Northeast Corridor, averages only 3.4 million passengers per year.

Reason Foundation - High-Speed Rail is Too Costly

 

[Papageorgio]

In 2010 Amtrak took $563 million for operating costs and then an additional billion for capital costs. In 2009 Amtrak took another 1.3 billion in stimulus money.

Amtrak carries less than .1 of all passenger traffic.

The only section of rail that is profitable is the Boston to Washington trips.

the California Zephyr losses $65 million a year.

The options today are air, bus and car. Why are we throwing money at a 45 year old loser?

 

[HenryBHough]

Britain is NOT famed for "high speed" trains - though there are promises of such service in a few years. The country does, however, have "Intercity Express" whose trains travel faster than most and which make very few stops between major cities.

Fares on them are somewhat higher than on ordinary trains but not extortionately higher. Still, the ordinary trains are generally full but the more expensive ones usually run with empty seats.

Not hearsay- I use British trains regularly and, like most people I meet on them, use the higher priced ones ONLY when pressed to meet a schedule.

My estimate is that the only high-speed rail could even come close to success would be for all alternative, lower-cost service, to be abandoned. That would mean leaving a vast number of smaller cities with NO service.

Higher speed, accompanied by higher prices, will not attract new riders. Of course those who love being taxed to subsidize services they'll never use will jump on board! On board the taxes but not the trains.

 

[Spare_change]

Britain is NOT famed for "high speed" trains - though there are promises of such service in a few years. The country does, however, have "Intercity Express" whose trains travel faster than most and which make very few stops between major cities.

Fares on them are somewhat higher than on ordinary trains but not extortionately higher. Still, the ordinary trains are generally full but the more expensive ones usually run with empty seats.

Not hearsay- I use British trains regularly and, like most people I meet on them, use the higher priced ones ONLY when pressed to meet a schedule.

My estimate is that the only high-speed rail could even come close to success would be for all alternative, lower-cost service, to be abandoned. That would mean leaving a vast number of smaller cities with NO service.

Higher speed, accompanied by higher prices, will not attract new riders. Of course those who love being taxed to subsidize services they'll never use will jump on board! On board the taxes but not the trains.

What is the average distance between stops in the UK? What would be our average distance?

You're right --- while it's great technology, it simply isn't economically feasible.

 

[Yurt]

Actually Yurt, I was watching the news and they showed where in the NE corridor that PTC is being used, and PTC only covers about 1/3 of the corridor between Boston and DC, most of the PTC coverage being in CT and RI, and it being almost non existent crossing over NY.

If Congress wants Amtrak to install those sensors over the whole track, then they need to provide funding to buy and install them. How much is a human life worth anyway?

And yes..............some on this thread keep bringing up operator error, and I agree with that, but it was also an error in the infrastructure. Why do I say that? Ever been in a car going 107 mph? I have, and I can tell you that if you take your eyes off of the road for even an instant, you can miss a lot. What if the engineer was distracted (maybe someone gave him some coffee and he looked at the person to grab the mug), and in so doing missed the sign telling him to slow down and it was too late when he finally saw the curve.

If those sensors had been on that part of the track, even if he missed the slow down sign, the sensors would have warned him he was coming in too hot and he could have slowed down before the train derailed. News stories have already said that the emergency brakes were applied just before the crash, so he knew he was going too fast just as he saw the curve.

Hey...............we've got cars with GPS and auto stop capability that can park themselves and know exactly where you're at, at any given time.

Why can't we do the same with these new trains we're building? It's not like they can't do it via triangulation with cell phone towers.

the news i read and have quoted said most...guess there is a conflict

fyi: the train that crashed is brand new, delivered just last year

 

[Kondor3]

Do we have any money to spare on Infrastructure? Yes? Spend it. No? It will have to wait.

So you don't care if ignoring infrastructure problems kills Americans?

Oh course I do.

And if we had it to spend, I'd say: Go for it.

Trouble is, we don't.

So, in the interests of safety, maybe we start closing-down non-critical stuff like passenger train-lines, we pay for bridge-repairs by filling-in potholes for a few extra years before we resort to re-paving, and stuff like that.

 

[Kondor3]

Do we have any money to spare on Infrastructure? Yes? Spend it. No? It will have to wait.

I kinda like the alternative --- no money? Move money from non-essential government boondoggles and apply it to infrastructure.

If we cut oil subsidies (the oil companies are the most profitable in the world and don't really need them), how much infrastructure do you think we could fix/update with that money?

If we overhauled our military to make it twice as efficient for half the size, that would free-up enormous amounts of money, as well.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Poor Ike, just spinning away in his grave. It was his idea to build the interstate highway system, having witnessed for himself what the Autoban did for the German Military Machine. Now, only a tank would survive a coast to coast rip on it. As for the railroads..., well, The Chattanooga Cho-Cho has joined Glenn Miller in the history books.

That's weird. I just drove from Reno to Indianapolis on I-80 and the road was good. I came back down I-70 through Denver to Grand Junction, and Salina Utah before picking up the 50 and zipping across Nevada and wouldn't you know it the whole damned road was fine!

My friend just took I-40 from Nashville out to Vegas, with a little jaunt up I-15 and wouldn't ya know it, the darned road down south was good too! In fact he set a new record for himself!

Try I-20, across Mississippi. Four weeks ago, I had a blowout on a pothole near Tupelo.

 

[Gracie]

Engineer looks loaded in the pics I've seen of him. And who wants to bet he did that on purpose? 106 mph on a curve??? Oh yeah. He did it on purpose since he speeded UP a minute before he reached the curve.

 

[TooTall]

This line, the Northeast Corridor, is a nightmare to ride. The rail system between D.C. and Boston hasn't been updated in over 60 years.

But bomb, bomb, bomb ....bomb, bomb Iran. Yeah baby! Defense spending trumps our own citizens' ability to get to work every day.

Death Toll Rises to 6 in Philadelphia Amtrak Train Wreck
(140 injured)
Death Toll Rises to 6 in Philadelphia Amtrak Train Wreck - WSJ

The Chinese, French, Italians, Japanese, et al. are laughing at us.

Mr. Nutter said a “black box” data recorder aboard the train had been recovered and is being analyzed at an Amtrak facility in Delaware. He said it was too soon to speculate on the cause of the accident.


In other words; You Are A Lying PIle of Shit that is using the deaths of innocent people to push your agenda.

vile fucking leftist filth

you seem angry.

I think Two Thumbs has one firmly up her @ss.

Note that absolutely no rightie will address the Chinese high-speed train image I posted. None of them. Cluck-cluck...

The BILLIONS of 'shovel ready' dollars Obama pissed away on green energy companies that went bankrupt could have been spent on upgrading our infrastructure.

 

[HenryBHough]

How much "infrastructure spending" might have been sufficient to save all those folks killed when the German pilot decided they needed to die along with him?

 

[Gracie]

Everyone in public transportation that is at the wheel should be re evaluated immediately. The dude that crashed the plane, this guy in the train. What's next?

 

[HenryBHough]

Everyone in public transportation that is at the wheel should be re evaluated immediately. The dude that crashed the plane, this guy in the train. What's next?

Next?

Bloggers.

Net neutrality was not for nothing!

 

[TooTall]

Last time I mentioned our crumbling infrastructure I was derided for sounding like a broken record. So six people dead and 140 injured. So six people dead and 140 injured. So six people dead and.....

And you have no evidence that this has anything to do with the accident, so until you do, shut your hole.

There was a train derailment back in 1990 in Winslow, NJ...due to deteriorated wooden railroad ties, let's hope this is not the case, but we can't be too sure.

The railroad tracks are inspected on a regular basis. I heard a railroad man on 'Morning Joe' give the correct fix for the problem of a single Engineer going 106 mph on a 50 mph curve. He proposed putting a second Asst Engineer in the cab to help with the workload and to double check each other. Just as US Airlines required at least two people in the cockpit of an airplane in case one of them becomes incapacitated. It made way to much sense, so it probably won't happen.

 

[TooTall]

speculation goes both ways . I'm hearing that it MAY have been a dope smoking union member , train operator that was traveling too fast for the curve . Just some speculation NTP !!

The Acela corridor is rated for speeds up to at least 125 mph. Trains regularly travel that route at those speeds.


Your speculation is based upon ignorance.

The speed limit for the curve in question was 50 mph. Now who is ignorant? I will get a link if you don't believe it.

 

[Yurt]

In yet another curious turn in the investigation, Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that the train sped up in the last minute or so before the wreck, accelerating from 70 mph to over 100 mph.

He said it is not clear yet whether the speed was increased manually. So far, investigators have found no problems with the track, the signals or the locomotive, and the train was running on time, Sumwalt said.

Amtrak engineer was obsessed with trains as a teen - Yahoo News

more bad news for NTPP and derideo and their twisted political agenda....

 

[DigitalDrifter]

You can have the latest greatest infrastructure in the world, but if a train operator is going to be running the train along at 106 mph in a section of track that supports half that speed, you're going to crash. Period !!

Another epic fail thread by this OP !

 

[ninja007]

Last time I mentioned our crumbling infrastructure I was derided for sounding like a broken record. So six people dead and 140 injured. So six people dead and 140 injured. So six people dead and....

Not to mention that all train traffic between Phila and NYC has been stopped since last night at 9:30. You shut down NYC and the country will come to a halt, too.

the 2 huge stimulus' were supposed to fix the infastructure.

shovel ready jobs...

 

[ninja007]

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[ninja007]

I heard the driver left 16 min. late, so the pressure was on to catch up....

possible

I heard it on Medved's radio show or Levin's on Wed. night.