Subject:
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Re: Amtrak Told to Plan Liquidation
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:21:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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409 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Kevin Salm writes:
> Associated Press Top Story November 9, 2001
>
> Amtrak Told to Plan Liquidation
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> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011109/us/amtrak_future.html
As a train fan, that's really too bad.
As someone that doesn't think rail has gotten a fair shake at the feeding
trough (rail owns its own right of way, which it pays tax on, trucks pay
pretty small fuel taxes (5000 a year per truck does not buy you a lot of
highway) and nothing else, airlines get landing slots for far less than
their true cost (as expressed as a share of the airport capital cost) and pay
nothing for ATC), it's not fair, per se.
As someone that doesn't like to see government in businesses, that's great.
So I'm mixed.
An argument advanced in defense of Amtrak is that rail is safer than air or
less vulnerable to terrorist strikes.
Maybe.
If what you are interested in defending is the passengers, this is patently
false. Air offers you a much smaller area to secure and defend... the
airports and the airplanes themselves. Trains can be sabotaged ANYWHERE
along their route with not a lot of effort, just a bit of damage to the
track and whamo.
HOWVEVER, if what you are most interested in is preventing use of the
vehicle as a weapon, they have a point. No rail passenger train was a threat
to WTC since none comes anywhere near it, and getting one near it would be a
lot harder than sabotaging the track, it requires subversion of the CTC.
Planes, as we have seen, can be flown anywhere.
How do you carry such a morbid calculus (which is more important, the
passengers of the vehicle or the population at large? What a question! They
all are!). Ick.
However, not to worry about this. See Potomac Pundit (which you can read at
the www.trains.com site)... this is just maneuvering. Never fear. Congress
will not kill Amtrak, it's pork.
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Message has 2 Replies:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Amtrak Told to Plan Liquidation
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| Associated Press Top Story November 9, 2001 Amtrak Told to Plan Liquidation (URL) November 9 6:12 PM ET Amtrak Told to Plan Liquidation By LAURENCE ARNOLD, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal panel ordered Amtrak to come up with a (...) (23 years ago, 10-Nov-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.trains)
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