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Resident conservative here - we need to nationalize the rails. Not the railroads, but the rails themselves. The freight companies take federal money to expand
by local_issues 3y ago
Resident conservative here - we need to nationalize the rails. Not the railroads, but the rails themselves.
The freight companies take federal money to expand the network, and the second they don't meet profit projections they tear the tracks up. They treat Amtrak like shit despite taking their money hand over fist, they have been terrible stewards of the system, and they would rather engage in the fuckery from this article than think holistically. It's a misalignment of incentives, and it's really starting to fuck us.
Nationalize the rails. It's what other sane Western countries do. The Erie and Lackawanna sold off the rails in the Lackawanna cutoff - considered at the time an engineering marvel, and capable of HSR - for scrap. That's insane, and should never have happened.
- GenerWork 3y ago>Resident conservative here - we need to nationalize the rails. Imagine calling yourself a conservative and supporting the idea of nationalizing the rails. Nationalization is quite possibly one of the most unconservative ideas out there.
- stetrain 3y agoDepends on your perspective. It creates a market of competition for services upon those rails.
- local_issues 3y agoDing ding ding. Treat them like highways, they basically are anyway. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
- unregistereddev 3y agoNuanced thought is to be commended. As a moderate conservative, I am not opposed to nationalizing the rails. Certain shared infrastructure is impractical when privately owned, primarily when (as parent points out) private ownership creates misaligned incentives. As a fiscal conservative, my views are that we should reduce government waste. As long as Amtrak continues to be worthless, the money we spend on it is wasted. When unprofitable rail lines are torn out, the money we spent building those rail lines may have been wasted. If we genuinely want eco-friendly transportation, one option to explore is to centralize our rail infrastructure with the goal of it becoming useful to all. I don't know if it is the best option, but I think we should explore it and see what the benefits would be.
- frgtpsswrdlame 3y agoMaybe for two different definitions of conservative. But it seems easy enough to want to conserve something that the market will destroy, and to realize that one feasible way to do that is nationalization.
- local_issues 3y agoFree market capitalism only works when you have free markets. Look at the cost of airline tickets post ICC. We could see something similar with freight, and will see major Amtrak gains - ideally even Brightline gains.