How Did I Miss This One 3719

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:45:00 +1100, Greg Sutherland

Real engineers get their knickers in a twist over stuff like someone using a comma where one should use a semicolon. Unless "Jack" got a disability pbutt on exams as a dyslexic, he would've failed 8th grade industrial arts clbuttes for his spelling & syntax.

Oddly enough, the statistics show that (and to my surprise) it's the supposedly auto-centric California and the West Coast that's increasingly abandoning auto travel to ride the rails. Amtrak's Cascades haul nearly twice as many pbuttengers as the traditionally (in service since about 1860) heavily patronized Chicago-St Louis route. The Pacific Surfliner attracts nearly as many riders as the East Coast Amtrak Acela service (about 2,000,000 per year). You can look up the statistics here:

Some of the statements made by anti-rail public officials are patently ignorant, eg: Rep. Harold Rogers, House floor, June 29, 2005 "We simply cannot keep going on sending empty trains clear across the country with no riders." Norman Mineta (prepared remarks, Chicago, IL, press conference, Feb. 14): "Amtrak...is...running trains that nobody rides between cities that nobody wants to travel between."

Apparently, these public officials haven't tried booking an Amtrak ticket lately! Or bothered riding a train! The main limitation to pbuttenger travel growth on many routes is simply lack of rolling stock to carry the human cattle who want to suffer through the indiginities Amtrak forces people to suffer at places like its asinine Chicago Union Station setup. Tickets on many routes are sold out days or weeks ahead of time. International tourists who contribute millions to the US economy, want to use trains to see the USA without a Chevrolet and who are used to frequent and convenient train service back home, get put through loading procedures similar to loading a train of Conestoga wagons in Kansas City in 1850.

-- Ned Carlson www.tubezone.net South Side of Chicago,IL USA 1-29-2006 11:28:42 PM