Little item over at City Journal the publication of the Manhattan Institute:

The Bus Market Booms

QuoteA quick survey of newspapers shows that over the last 60 years, a one-way Greyhound ticket from New York to Washington generally cost $40 to $70 (in 2010 dollars). Nowadays, you can buy the same ticket for $17 on Megabus, for $21 on Washington Deluxe—or for as little as $14 on Greyhound.

And then there's Amtrak which it now turns out, due to the generous subsidies of the federal government, is no longer affordable by poorer folk:

QuoteAmtrak, the government-owned passenger-train company, currently charges anywhere from $106 to $225 for a daytime one-way ticket from New York to Washington.

Amtrak should be very high on the list of defunded government entities when Congress convenes next year. Please explain to me why taxpayers in Alaska are helping to finance some schmuck's commute from Connecticut to NYC.

Quote from: tbone0106 on December 15, 2010, 10:31:06 PM
Amtrak should be very high on the list of defunded government entities when Congress convenes next year. Please explain to me why taxpayers in Alaska are helping to finance some schmuck's commute from Connecticut to NYC.

How is Biden supposed to get to work then????

Quote from: taxed on December 15, 2010, 10:59:39 PM
How is Biden supposed to get to work then????

He's got two feet, same as me. He proves it fairly regularly by inserting them into his big mouth.

Maybe he can just walk.

Crazy idea, yeah, but I'm just FULL of crazy ideas.

The article illustrates the difference between people who believe unions are a societal good and those who don't. The union-supporter will worry about the one bus driver. I worry about the seventy or so passengers.

Quote from: arpad on December 17, 2010, 07:19:45 AM
The article illustrates the difference between people who believe unions are a societal good and those who don't. The union-supporter will worry about the one bus driver. I worry about the seventy or so passengers.

To me, the article illustrates in excellent comparisons what a monumentally stupid idea Amtrak is. I don't see that it's about unions at all. In all likelihood, even if Amtrak employees were non-union and worked for minimum wage, the fares would STILL be outrageous. And even at the stupendous fares they charge now, Amtrak loses money hand over fist!

It's one thing to believe, "There ought to be passenger rail service." It's quite another to jam that belief down everybody's throats and force us all to pay for it.

I think we ought to bring back canals. I think we never should have gotten rid of that good ol' Miami-Erie Canal system. It used none of the evil fossil fuels and one could travel in comfort from New York to, say, Ohio in mere weeks. Oh, and I think all you folks in Arizona and Alaska and Hawaii and North Dakota should help pay for it.

Passenger rail worked in the US -- as a profit-making enterprise WITHOUT taxpayer subsidies -- when there were no practical alternatives, but those days are long gone. (The exact same statement applies to my beloved canals.  :( ) The great railroads of that era were powerful and influential -- it was the railroads, not the government, that established the system of time zones we use to this day. And it was the railroads that caused the demise of my beloved canal system! But just as soon as practical alternatives, such as automobiles, buses and airplanes, arrived on the scene, passenger rail began to decline, and deservedly so. In all likelihood, without government intervention, passenger rail in the US would have disappeared completely decades ago.

Passenger rail works in places like England, but for very specific reasons and, of course, with heavy government subsidies. One obvious reason is population density, 717 persons/square mile there, compared to 83 here. There are over 60 million Britons living on an island that is smaller than the state of Michigan.

Looking back over the history of travel I'm coming to the conclusion that hauling two-legged cattle, i.e. hauling people as bulk cargo the way ships, railroads and airlines have/do is ultimately a losing proposition.

There's really are no passenger ships any more and were it not for government subsidies I'd say there wouldn't be any railroad passenger service either.

From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to have a train dedicated solely to hauling passengers, they should figure out a way to incorporate a way to haul freight as well as passenger cars.
If they can't, then they need to mothball the cars, and call it good.

Ohio was granted nearly half a billion dollars in stimulus funds as seed money for high-speed rail in a corridor Cleveland - Columbus - Dayton - Cincinnati. Our outgoing governor, Ted Strickland, who never saw a tax dollar he didn't adore, is all for it. Our newly-elected governor, John Kasich, has this to say: "There will be no high-speed rail in Ohio." Other states with different attitudes are now clamoring for that money.

It's one of the reasons I voted for the guy.  ^-^

Quote from: Solar on December 17, 2010, 12:31:43 PM
From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to have a train dedicated solely to hauling passengers, they should figure out a way to incorporate a way to haul freight as well as passenger cars.
If they can't, then they need to mothball the cars, and call it good.

It's a +200 year old technology. There's only so much you can do with it before you have to start with a fresh set of assumptions.

Quote from: Solar on December 17, 2010, 12:31:43 PM
From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to have a train dedicated solely to hauling passengers, they should figure out a way to incorporate a way to haul freight as well as passenger cars.
If they can't, then they need to mothball the cars, and call it good.

In the heyday of rail transport, that is exactly what happened. Almost every train had freight AND passenger cars as parts of the "consist." Mixed in were other cars -- carrying mail, for instance, or military cargo, or chartered as reserved cars for big-shots or corporations. Mixing what got moved is what made it profitable. Passenger-only trains were rare and largely confined to the Eastern seaboard.

Passenger-only rail service never existed in the private sector because it CAN'T make money, not here. The only strictly-passenger rail service that I know of is Amtrak, which of course loses money by the billions every year.

Quote from: tbone0106 on December 17, 2010, 02:23:12 PM
Ohio was granted nearly half a billion dollars in stimulus funds as seed money for high-speed rail in a corridor Cleveland - Columbus - Dayton - Cincinnati. Our outgoing governor, Ted Strickland, who never saw a tax dollar he didn't adore, is all for it. Our newly-elected governor, John Kasich, has this to say: "There will be no high-speed rail in Ohio." Other states with different attitudes are now clamoring for that money.

It's one of the reasons I voted for the guy.  ^-^

What exactly is the purpose of a high-speed rail system in Ohio?  To transport the homeless and unemployed from one soup kitchen to the next, and from one food bank to the next? 

Quote from: arpad on December 17, 2010, 03:25:36 PM
It's a +200 year old technology. There's only so much you can do with it before you have to start with a fresh set of assumptions.

Yep, shit can it and start over.
Scratch that, just shit can the whole thing and leave the rail system to shipping.

Quote from: AmericanFlyer on December 17, 2010, 07:31:33 PM
What exactly is the purpose of a high-speed rail system in Ohio?  To transport the homeless and unemployed from one soup kitchen to the next, and from one food bank to the next?

:D Well, it ain't quite that bad here yet...

You lived here, Flyer, and you know what I'm talking about. We have superhighways, another federal tax outlay for transportation, and a HUGE part of the reason that people don't ride on trains any more! The I-71 corridor connects the Three C's and I-70 and I-75 will make whatever other connections you need. C to C in about an hour and a half by car. Columbus or Cincinnati to Dayton in less than an hour. Ohio's a big place, but it ain't THAT big!

And of course you have to consider that the half-billion or so the Kenyan sent won't even begin to get it built, much less operate it. I worked on an ODOT project back in 1998 -- ten miles of new four-lane highway in Butler County -- that cost over $150 million. People don't understand the scale and the cost of these things.

Quote from: tbone0106 on December 17, 2010, 08:25:04 PM
:D Well, it ain't quite that bad here yet...

You lived here, Flyer, and you know what I'm talking about. We have superhighways, another federal tax outlay for transportation, and a HUGE part of the reason that people don't ride on trains any more! The I-71 corridor connects the Three C's and I-70 and I-75 will make whatever other connections you need. C to C in about an hour and a half by car. Columbus or Cincinnati to Dayton in less than an hour. Ohio's a big place, but it ain't THAT big!

And of course you have to consider that the half-billion or so the Kenyan sent won't even begin to get it built, much less operate it. I worked on an ODOT project back in 1998 -- ten miles of new four-lane highway in Butler County -- that cost over $150 million. People don't understand the scale and the cost of these things.

And don't forget about the Ohio Turnpike, which connects all of the northern Ohio cities.  I was just funnin' with ya, tbone, about the soup kitchens and homeless shelters, but my underlying point is exactly what you stated............Ohio doesn't NEED a high speed rail system.  The interstate highway system in Ohio is just dandy.  But I do know that the economy is bad in Ohio.  My oldest son and his family live in the Cleveland area, and things are BAD in the Cleveland and Toledo areas.