Forget Gas; We Need A Plan to Keep Passenger Trains Rolling

Is a commentary piece from the Seattle Times. From the article:

Here we go again — blaming everything on the oil companies for the spiraling cost of gasoline. How about we try something positive for a change, say, restoring our passenger trains? For decades, Europe has paid double what the U.S. pays for gas, and just look at the trains they have. Every day, thousands of passenger trains — conventional and high-speed — whisk tourists and business people across the continent.

Of course, Europe has a plan for trains. Addiction prevents that here. So addicted have Americans become to the automobile we have forgotten all that railroads were — and could be again.

Indeed, our plan would begin with some national soul-searching about why we lost our passenger trains in the first place. On May 1, 1971, the railroads deeded to Amtrak just 180 trains. As late as 1960, the railroads had operated at least 5,000.

Simply, a new generation of railroad executives wished to downsize, dropping passengers for more profitable freight. Freight trains, or so the railroads also argued, did not need faster, double track.

The inescapable irony is that America abandoned the passenger train just when the environment needed it most. Need any American be convinced of that, watching the march of asphalt and urban sprawl?

Again, our plan to restore railroads would include why to restore them — the preservation of America the Beautiful. Like Europe, when American passenger trains were in their glory, we knew to appreciate the entire landscape. Westbound from Chicago to Seattle, the Northern Pacific Railway invited passengers to "Count the Mountains!" From the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, railroads invited the same.

Note that the trains in continental Europe run much better and are much cheaper to use than trains in the UK, the result of the the privatization effort that the Bush Administration is working hard to foist onto the U.S. I wrote about this in January, in the entry, "US Federal Rail Policy: Learning from Worse Practices."

These letters to the editor ran in yesterday's New York Times, "Let's Get America on the Right Track":

From Betty Mazur, Amagansett, N.Y.:

Just returning from a visit to Italy and the Netherlands, where I marveled at the speed, convenience and efficiency of their trains, I was reminded again, by the report of the electrical failure of the Amtrak system, of the pitiful state of our railroads.

No, I do not blame Amtrak. The fault lies in the stubborn, shortsighted refusal of the United States government to acknowledge that a "clean, efficient national railroad," as your editorial put it, is vital to the health of this country.

This administration's deliberate starvation of our railroads is a foolish policy choice that stands in sharp contrast to its high-calorie feeding — and financing — of highways, bridges and, to a lesser degree, airports. Your editorial should be required reading for those in high places who spout pieties about the need to be independent for our fuel supply yet are wholly blind to the most obvious transportation alternative, our railroads.

From Daniel J. Abrams, Bronx:

Isn't it about time for a national defense railroad law to allocate enough funds to maintain our railroads and particularly their passenger capability? The need for this was highlighted by the shutdown of the air traffic system after 9/11 and by the problems evacuating New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina bore down.

At the very least, railroads should receive the same level of subsidy that the Interstate highways and air travel systems receive.

Electrified lines like the Northeast Corridor can run on virtually any fuel from sunlight to coal to nuclear. In the current world climate, this is not simply a matter of nostalgia for train travel; it is a matter of national security.


Index Keywords: railroads