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Meanwhile, we're stuck with a ruling party that is absolutely against anything involving steel tracks, so we have to spend similar amounts just to maintain our

Meanwhile, we're stuck with a ruling party that is absolutely against anything involving steel tracks, so we have to spend similar amounts just to maintain our roads.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
Can you clarify the context of this comment? Which country are you talking about?
- fma 10y ago
  Probably the United States of America. http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/263782-obama-high-speed-rail-stuck-in-station http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/263782-obama-high-s... "His stimulus offer was rebuffed by Republican governors in states including Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, who rejected the money."
caminante 10y ago
Does the US need more railway lines? The US already has ~2 times the railway lines of China with virtually identical area (~3.7M square miles). FTA: "At the end of 2015, China had 121,000 kilometers of railway lines, including 19,000 kilometers of high-speed tracks, according to a transportation white paper issued Thursday. The U.S. had 228,218 kilometers of rail lines as of 2014, according to latest available data from the World Bank."
- qaq 10y ago
  You are magically ignoring the "19,000 kilometers of high-speed tracks" and will have 30,000 kilometers while we have 0.
  - caminante 10y ago
    I'm confused. How am I "magically ignoring" that? I was addressing "against anything involving steel tracks."
- stuaxo 10y ago
  Your lines are setup for freight, you need separate lines for HSR.
- melling 10y ago
  You're throwing all the rail into one number? Freight and passenger? Amtrak has 21,300 miles of track. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak I think the US officially has 26 miles of HSR. China transports 1.1 billion people a year on HSR. Amtrak carries about 30 million people a year. Why don't more people take Amtrak? It's faster to drive.
fennecfoxen 10y ago
> absolutely against anything involving steel tracks Steel tracks are doing just fine in the US, thank you very much, with minimal governmental involvement. Our rail system is the envy of the world, and has been getting new investment to the tune of $25 billion a year of late. This is why Berkshire Hathaway bought BNSF, so they could have a place to reinvest billions of dollars of profit and earn a return. All freight rail, of course. Mind you, regulatory creep threatens this. The FRA has been pushing for "safety" rules which are basically handouts to labor unions (requiring extra headcount per train), and Positive Train Control's top-down bureaucracy-driven technology-solutioning has been a comedy of errors, but the real threat they're facing is the potential of a mandate to make all freight trains make way for passenger trains. which no one will use. If anything, the Trump administration will be much better for steel rails than the past eight years. Still freight rails, of course. But unlike theoretical passenger rail proposals, these ones are already popular and profitable and reducing carbon emissions.
- CalChris 10y ago
  72% of the miles traveled by Amtrak trains are on tracks owned by other railroads. For example, Amtrak uses BNSF rail (your example) and pays for BNSF rail. That amounts to about 6.8 million train miles for BNSF rail alone. https://www.amtrak.com/national-facts https://www.amtrak.com/national-facts Amtrak then overpays for this use which amounts to a government subsidy. http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060015115 http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060015115 We subsidize rail (freight+passenger) just as we subsidize airlines. Let's just be honest about it. BTW, your notion of the FRA over-regulating for unions is similarly malarkey. And envy of the world? Dunno if you've been to Europe (which is heavily regulated).
  - fennecfoxen 10y ago
    > Dunno if you've been to Europe I live in Europe right now, thank you. European (freight) rail falls apart the moment you cross any internal border: differences in train control systems, electrification standards, signalling systems, loading gauges, and the like. France, Spain, and Germany alone have four different electrification systems among them. > We subsidize rail (freight+passenger) just as we subsidize airlines. Let's just be honest about it. Sure. Is this actually a point of contention? It'd be great if we could stop, anyway, and let various forms of transportation compete on true merit rather than on which one the politicians prefer. Especially for freight. There are various barriers to this happening, naturally. It'd be great if they could be reduced and any externalities mitigated. And the subsidies don't nearly approach the ~$25B/yr new investment. > BTW, your notion of the FRA over-regulating for unions is similarly malarkey. I refer you to 81 FR 13917, in which the agency itself admits in the filing, "FRA has no empirical evidence to suggest" that two-person crews are safer, admitting that "in fact, it is possible that one-person crews have contributed to the improving safety record". That's just a tiny piece of what they get to deal with, anyway.

Meanwhile, we're stuck with a ruling party that is absolutely against anything involving steel tracks, so we have to spend similar amounts just to maintain our roads.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago

Can you clarify the context of this comment? Which country are you talking about?

fma 10y ago
Probably the United States of America. http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/263782-obama-high-speed-rail-stuck-in-station http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/263782-obama-high-s... "His stimulus offer was rebuffed by Republican governors in states including Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, who rejected the money."

caminante 10y ago

Does the US need more railway lines? The US already has ~2 times the railway lines of China with virtually identical area (~3.7M square miles). FTA: "At the end of 2015, China had 121,000 kilometers of railway lines, including 19,000 kilometers of high-speed tracks, according to a transportation white paper issued Thursday. The U.S. had 228,218 kilometers of rail lines as of 2014, according to latest available data from the World Bank."

qaq 10y ago
You are magically ignoring the "19,000 kilometers of high-speed tracks" and will have 30,000 kilometers while we have 0.
- caminante 10y ago
  I'm confused. How am I "magically ignoring" that? I was addressing "against anything involving steel tracks."
stuaxo 10y ago
Your lines are setup for freight, you need separate lines for HSR.
melling 10y ago
You're throwing all the rail into one number? Freight and passenger? Amtrak has 21,300 miles of track. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak I think the US officially has 26 miles of HSR. China transports 1.1 billion people a year on HSR. Amtrak carries about 30 million people a year. Why don't more people take Amtrak? It's faster to drive.

fennecfoxen 10y ago

> absolutely against anything involving steel tracks Steel tracks are doing just fine in the US, thank you very much, with minimal governmental involvement. Our rail system is the envy of the world, and has been getting new investment to the tune of $25 billion a year of late. This is why Berkshire Hathaway bought BNSF, so they could have a place to reinvest billions of dollars of profit and earn a return. All freight rail, of course. Mind you, regulatory creep threatens this. The FRA has been pushing for "safety" rules which are basically handouts to labor unions (requiring extra headcount per train), and Positive Train Control's top-down bureaucracy-driven technology-solutioning has been a comedy of errors, but the real threat they're facing is the potential of a mandate to make all freight trains make way for passenger trains. which no one will use. If anything, the Trump administration will be much better for steel rails than the past eight years. Still freight rails, of course. But unlike theoretical passenger rail proposals, these ones are already popular and profitable and reducing carbon emissions.

CalChris 10y ago
72% of the miles traveled by Amtrak trains are on tracks owned by other railroads. For example, Amtrak uses BNSF rail (your example) and pays for BNSF rail. That amounts to about 6.8 million train miles for BNSF rail alone. https://www.amtrak.com/national-facts https://www.amtrak.com/national-facts Amtrak then overpays for this use which amounts to a government subsidy. http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060015115 http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060015115 We subsidize rail (freight+passenger) just as we subsidize airlines. Let's just be honest about it. BTW, your notion of the FRA over-regulating for unions is similarly malarkey. And envy of the world? Dunno if you've been to Europe (which is heavily regulated).
- fennecfoxen 10y ago
  > Dunno if you've been to Europe I live in Europe right now, thank you. European (freight) rail falls apart the moment you cross any internal border: differences in train control systems, electrification standards, signalling systems, loading gauges, and the like. France, Spain, and Germany alone have four different electrification systems among them. > We subsidize rail (freight+passenger) just as we subsidize airlines. Let's just be honest about it. Sure. Is this actually a point of contention? It'd be great if we could stop, anyway, and let various forms of transportation compete on true merit rather than on which one the politicians prefer. Especially for freight. There are various barriers to this happening, naturally. It'd be great if they could be reduced and any externalities mitigated. And the subsidies don't nearly approach the ~$25B/yr new investment. > BTW, your notion of the FRA over-regulating for unions is similarly malarkey. I refer you to 81 FR 13917, in which the agency itself admits in the filing, "FRA has no empirical evidence to suggest" that two-person crews are safer, admitting that "in fact, it is possible that one-person crews have contributed to the improving safety record". That's just a tiny piece of what they get to deal with, anyway.