I really must disagree with this. Lord knows that we have enough ways to
segregate without inventing more. Amtrack was formed in the early seventies,
when passengar rail service was deemed unporfitable by the railroads, and
allowed to decline to even poorer service than today.l Congress thought, oh
foolish them, that they could fix things by a sort of nationalization of
passenger rail. All railroads "sold" their passenger operating units to
Amtrak and often some equipment, and in 1972, Amtrak served it's first
passengers on the same routes as before.
The railroads were alll required to either give over all passenger
operations totally to Amtrak, or continue to operate heavily regulated
trains themselves. The lone holdout was Rio Grande, as the government would
not allow them to keep their Durango to Silverton, Colorado tourist train,
which was immensely profitable. In return for no longer having to "loose
money" the railroads were forced to sign agreements that made their trackage
available to Amtrak. As, in later years, some lines were either abandoned or
sold to short lines, less and less track was available to Amtrak. The
shortlines were not required to be a part of Amtrak. Thus, only on the class
one railroads is track available, except for the one line owned by Amtrak in
the heavily traveled NE corridor.
And, remember, no city wants railroads built in a nice part of town.
Bill Pearce
-----Original Message-----
From: Willie Wonka [mailto:alienspecimen@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 10:36 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OM] OT - American railways
No...Racial/residential segregation is the real reason...unfortunately.
Best
Boris
........................................................
For crying out loud, just look at Amtrack. They avoid the logical big cities
in the midwest and instead go through podunk towns.
That's because they have to use tracks that belong to the class one
railroads, so little choice to them.
Bill Pearce
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|