As Ramadi falls yesterday our President enjoys Twitter

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Originally posted by: pjstroh

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Originally posted by: Boilerman
My buddy Pete and his son took Amtrac from Houston to Chicago last year. It cost about 50% more than flying, arrived after 30 hours, and was 3 hours late. The flight time for the same trip is less than three hours. They enjoyed the experience and agreed that it was fun......once. They flew home. Train travel is not cost or time effective vs other methods of travel. Proof is the required government subsidies to survive.

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Originally posted by: hoops2

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Originally posted by: bbking
"The Republican spending platform for 2016: rebuild Iraq and let America fall apart".

Well put.

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Where have the republicans said that?

The Amtrak train accident was due to excessive speed, not lack of infrastructure. Other than the northeast, Amtrak rail loses money, due to lack of ridership. There are cheaper more efficient ways to travel.

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I'm not surprised that your train travel on our 1930's infrastucture was not ideal. You can take a train from London to Paris and be there in a few hours for way less than the cost of a flight. Thats the result of countries valuing their infrastructure more than Iraq's.

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Originally posted by: alanleroy
Why yes, our infrastructure is crumbling. And as some seems to prefer, we ARE building a brand spanking new High Speed Rail system. It's in California if you didn't know. And at a cost of 68 Billion Dollars it is "the most expensive public works project in United States history"...and that's just phase 1.

68 Billion is over twice the original estimate of 33 Billion that voters approved. The train will have to share tracks with conventional trains in the Bay Area and LA. The original plan (The 33 Billion Dollar one that voters approved) called for a fully high speed rail...not a hybrid system. So we are spending twice as much and getting far less than the voters approved. I'm certain that in the final analysis it will be even more expensive and deliver even less.

The real questions on our high speed rail revolve around ridership and ticket prices. It's clear the original cost estimates were based on flawed analysis. In all likelihood ridership numbers were equally flawed and this will be a big money loser until the end of time (or the end of money...whichever comes first) It will be a boondoggle of epic proportions.

And for the record, I am not against infrastructure spending where it makes sense. For the money we're spending on the train to nowhere, we could have fixed our Water Infrastructure and lessened the impact of drought on future generations of Californians AND we could have built a high speed train from LA to San Diego that would have solved a real problem rather than an imaginary one....And we could have fixed every bridge in California AND still had billions of dollars left over.

I don't know who to blame for this mess. The stupid voters or the con men who hoodwinked them.

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Originally posted by: forkushV

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Originally posted by: chefantwon

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Originally posted by: pjstroh
The Iraqi army is running out of cities in its own land. That's the result of 10 years of training their troops and a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars from US taxpayers.


Another in a long line of train derailments occurred in America last week...and the Republican Senate responded by cutting funding for that infrastructure. Many of those same people want another surge in Iraq.
While our infrastructure falls apart the Rumsfeld disciples are most concerned about achieving Bush's land of Oz in the Middle East.

The Republican spending platform for 2016: rebuild Iraq and let America fall apart.

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PJ, you are forgetting the structure of the Iraq army. For many years under Saddam, it was a one man dictatorship with orders given and the troops either obeyed or died. It takes time and a spine to get rid of the idiots and replace them with officers who would stay around in a firefight. The Iraq government has a great deal to do with the troops doing the high tail it and run like hell.

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Colin Powell disagrees:

"The plan the president had approved was not implemented. Instead, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, our man in charge in Iraq, disbanded the Army and fired Baath Party members down to teachers. We eliminated the very officials and institutions we should have been building on, and left thousands of the most highly skilled people in the country jobless and angry—prime recruits for insurgency."

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Originally posted by: pjstroh

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Originally posted by: Boilerman
My buddy Pete and his son took Amtrac from Houston to Chicago last year. It cost about 50% more than flying, arrived after 30 hours, and was 3 hours late. The flight time for the same trip is less than three hours. They enjoyed the experience and agreed that it was fun......once. They flew home. Train travel is not cost or time effective vs other methods of travel. Proof is the required government subsidies to survive.

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Originally posted by: hoops2

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Originally posted by: bbking
"The Republican spending platform for 2016: rebuild Iraq and let America fall apart".

Well put.

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Where have the republicans said that?

The Amtrak train accident was due to excessive speed, not lack of infrastructure. Other than the northeast, Amtrak rail loses money, due to lack of ridership. There are cheaper more efficient ways to travel.

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I'm not surprised that your train travel on our 1930's infrastucture was not ideal. You can take a train from London to Paris and be there in a few hours for way less than the cost of a flight. Thats the result of countries valuing their infrastructure more than Iraq's.

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Originally posted by: Roulette Man

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Originally posted by: alanleroy
Why yes, our infrastructure is crumbling. And as some seems to prefer, we ARE building a brand spanking new High Speed Rail system. It's in California if you didn't know. And at a cost of 68 Billion Dollars it is "the most expensive public works project in United States history"...and that's just phase 1.

68 Billion is over twice the original estimate of 33 Billion that voters approved. The train will have to share tracks with conventional trains in the Bay Area and LA. The original plan (The 33 Billion Dollar one that voters approved) called for a fully high speed rail...not a hybrid system. So we are spending twice as much and getting far less than the voters approved. I'm certain that in the final analysis it will be even more expensive and deliver even less.

The real questions on our high speed rail revolve around ridership and ticket prices. It's clear the original cost estimates were based on flawed analysis. In all likelihood ridership numbers were equally flawed and this will be a big money loser until the end of time (or the end of money...whichever comes first) It will be a boondoggle of epic proportions.

And for the record, I am not against infrastructure spending where it makes sense. For the money we're spending on the train to nowhere, we could have fixed our Water Infrastructure and lessened the impact of drought on future generations of Californians AND we could have built a high speed train from LA to San Diego that would have solved a real problem rather than an imaginary one....And we could have fixed every bridge in California AND still had billions of dollars left over.

I don't know who to blame for this mess. The stupid voters or the con men who hoodwinked them.

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Blame the stupid voters and blame the Browndoggle (named after Jerry Brown). Many voters don't know what bonds are and don't know where the money comes to finance ballot initiatives. Jerry Brown is in the pockets of the union. It is my understanding that people may have to change trains for this route. For the project to break even, I heard there will need to be four times the ridership of the train that travels between Boston and New York. It would be cheaper to build two new dedicated airports and purchase a fleet of jets.

California really needs infrastructure to catch and store water. Brown has been the culprit in eliminating possible projects due to environmentalists. I really wish the train money could be diverted to water projects.

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Originally posted by: malibber2
I don't understand how China and Japan are so good at high speed rail and we suck at it so bad. I suspect some of it has to do with contractors bilking the government.

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Originally posted by: hoops2
The Amtrak accident had nothing to do with infrastructure. The train was speeding. Amtrak was supposed to make money, but like most commuter rail it loses money. It's best route is the northeast corridor

Which of you rail fans have ever ridden Amtrak?

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