Arkansas Blog

Reads like they were trying to go across Little Rock on a bus.

A big reason for the delays is the fact that the Amtrak train uses the same rail as the freight trains. Whenever a freight train is using the track, the Amtrak train has to pull off on a siding and wait for it to pass. It isn't just the limited routes, guys.

Contrast this with the excellent high speed train service in Europe.

It's ironic -- they've always had high oil prices, so they're better prepared for the future.

The U.S. is like a kid who inherits wealth. We've always had lots and lots of oil, so now that we're having to struggle, it's going to be hard on us.

The loss of the railway passenger business is a major reflection of the cost of lobbying by the automobile and petroleum industry. Next to river barge, rail is the most cost effective way to move materials but years ago, the decision was made to put the emphasis on building these real long car parking lots to connect cities, use planes for faster travel, and let the passenger train business survive on its own. We, of course, subsidize the airline industry with the air traffic control system and we subsidize the car with all sorts of government programs but the passenger train must be totally passenger-supported.

They bought the government and we are left with the effects of massive numbers of cars on the highway. The extent of how much the petroleum lobby influences government is the total lack of incentatives or rules to increase vehicle milage in the Energy Bill which was based on drill-drill-drill. A 3-4 mpg increase in the CAFE standards would done more to keep oil prices down then everything wlse in the bill. We will get the effect but it will probably take $4/gallon gas to make it happen. The leaking pipes in Alaska may start this impact with a projected $10/barrel increase in costs (thats 0.25 a gallon at the wellhead and then they get to add the refining profits on top of that. There has seemed to be a focus here in Faulkner County to try and keep the regular gas price below $3/gallon but this may tip it with the 0.08 increase in the past few days. You might want to fill your car today

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Call me Richard Allen. I wish we had kept up the rail infrastructure for both freight and passengers. (Is it too late?)

A couple years ago I took a train from Maine to NYC and really enjoyed everything about it.

Side note: on that ride I read Garrison Keillor's "Homegrown Democrat", which I recommend.

It is a shame that decent long-distance rail travel does not exist in this country. If our great government invested in the rail service, and actually made better connections between cities, then more people would ride it.

Imagine riding the trail to Dallas at a time more convenient than 4 am? Or taking the train to Memphis for the day. Or to Hot Springs, or Fayetteville for a game. Maybe with the cost of gas it will force the guv't to look at alternative modes of transportation.

The trip to Memphis on Amtrak was probably safer than riding in a car on I-40.

It strikes me that the reason we don't have better train service is that so many people hate the idea of government doing something to improve society. Communism, taxes, yadda yadda yadda.

So, we wait for the magic of private industry and the free market to do it. Like Cinderella waiting on Price Charming, except this isn't a fairy tale and the Price ain't showing up.

I am surprised there is not a conservative call to eliminate public fire and police departments and replace them with private services.

Roland, How much tax did you pay, State & Fed,in 2005 to fund all these government projects you speak of. Come on...tell us how much. If you paid taxes you would want to cut the waste to.

To be quite honest, I wouldn't trust the state or federal governments these days to build a safe, reliable train system on time and on budget. The best way to get a decent, national mass transit system is for companies in the private sector to recognize the huge potential profits and build it themselves.

Becks, that is a good point - the government isn't competent to do it, as we saw in New Orleans.

Anon, I paid 100% too much taxes to fund the war in Iraq. Just reallocate that wasted money towards health care, solving the big oil crisis and global warming and all will be good. In other words, if you actually paid taxes you'd be concerned about the incredible amount of government waste at the moment.

There is no such thing as a fiscally responsible Republican. Your actions prove it, putting the lie to your words.

I love the trains in Europe and Japan, having ridden them many times. But the reason their system cannot work in the US is size. Compare the area of Europe and Japan with that of the US. We have too large of an area to cover by rail in a timely manner. Trains are not popular in Russia for the same reason. I spent a month for 2 days on the Trans-Siberian railway; Russians consider their railways like we do our inter city bus lines--a method of last resort. It will take a major catastrophe to kick the auto-addicition in the US.

When I went to college in Missouri many years ago, the train was THE way to travel. I would leave Union Station in LR about midnight, get a good night's sleep, and wake up in time for a good breakfast in the diner (oh, that French toast!) before the train pulled into Union Station in St. Louis. Then I would transfer to Union Pacific to Centralia, then to the Wabash for the 17-mile final leg to Columbia. ( I was, in fact, on that little two-car Wabash train on November 25, 1963 when it and every other passenger train in the nation stopped on the tracks for one minute at the moment John F. Kennedy's funeral began.)

When I was 19, I went from Little Rock to California by train. I saw the Rockies appear through a large window in the diner. I spent hours upstairs in the domed cars counting deer in the mountains and jackrabbits in the desert. Somewhere in Nevada, I got off the train long enough to drop fifty cents in a slot machine in the station and picked up enough spending money to buy a good many books at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

Of course the trip took three days, so I made the acquaintance of a physicist from San Francisco, an amateur theatrical group going to hunt for that big break, and some folksingers who held a sing-along in the club car each night.

Coming back, I rode the famed California Zephyr through the Feather River canyon. You don't see scenery like that from an interstate or from the air.

Rail used to be such a civilized way to travel. What a shame that future generations will never get to experience it at the rate we're going.

I grew up riding trains north and south along the east coast and took it for granted that train travel would always be available and of the same high quality. What a mighty loss that has been. Is it too late to rebuild the rail system in our country? It seemed to provide a connection among people that crossed all the barriers we have erected to separate us from each other. Just another organ failure in the slow death of democracy, I suppose.

To cite the size of the country as a reason for the decline of rail service isn't factual--we've got plenty of people driving all over the place, and trains can go faster than cars.

Trains do work well in relatively densely populated areas--Amtrak's Northeast corridor routes (Boston-Washington) are profitable, and to take Amtrak from NYC to DC is from door to door typically faster than even the plane (no checking in an hour before departure, no long lengthy cabride to La Guardia or Newark) assuming you're going from Manhattan to the center of DC.

The other issue, of course, is the importance of "downtown". A train that drops you off in downtown Dallas may not be close to where you want to go, which is why cars are preferred for short hauls. And of course, there's the problem of scheduling.

There are plenty of routes where a train would be a very efficient way to travel, if trains ran on efficient routes, especially since direct flights are rare or non-existant. If we think in terms of the region, we could see all the major cities of Texas, Little Rock, Memphis, Jackson, MS, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and points in between in a rail network network that could provide reasonably efficient traval.

I love my car, and I love to drive across country. But I would take the train if a train was available for long distances. I remember taking the Rock Island Rocket to Memphis, and then the two-car doodlebug, which ran until the early 60's. I've thought that Detroit, or more likely a European manufacturer, could have designed a car the size of a Greyhound bus to ride the rails and we could have had a relatively inexpensive rail system. We had plenty of trackage until we allowed the railroads, once they were amalgamated, to sell them off. The old Rock Island tracks, for example, were quickly sold off by Union Pacific -- just to make sure an inexpensive railroad entrepreneur didn't come up with an idea like mine.

Wel'll eventually come back to it.

A few years ago we had visitors from Europe and they were amazed that we don't have regular train service like they do "over there".

They asked me to book us a train trip from Walnut Ridge to St. Louis to see a baseball game. It didn't take long for me to convince them that going by car was way better.

Round trip going by train:
$320 ($80 per person x 4 people).
One-way trip time: 6 hours

Round trip going by car:
$42 for gas
One-way trip time: 4 hours

...plus, if you go by car, you have a way to get around town while you're there, and freedom to depart at any time you wish. If you go by train you must get taxis or just stay downtown and walk everywhere.

The car turned out to be the obvious best choice.

By the way, they found baseball to be painfully boring.

"To cite the size of the country as a reason for the decline of rail service isn't factual--we've got plenty of people driving all over the place, and trains can go faster than cars. "

Sure it is. You can easily make it from one side of any country in Europe to the other on a train in a few hours. In the U.S. going from New York to LA even assuming a direct route is prohibitively long. Even within the same region trips like El Paso to Dallas, Memphis to Atlanta, Seattle to San Francisco, etc can take an entire day or more. On Eurostar I remember it took me just 4 hours to get from London to Amsterdam and I crossed 3 international borders.

Anon 10:29, why don't you explain why you like killing puppies so much? Or why you beat your wife? C'mon, we all know you do it.

Anon 10:29, why don't you explain why you like killing puppies so much? Or why you beat your wife? C'mon, we all know you do it.

I think we're comparing apples and oranges.

Europe dedicates resources to rail travel and have made it viable. We really don't. We don't yet see the value of such a system.

A European-style rail system here (200 mph trains with dedicated roadbeds, marginal fares, and stopping only when/where necessary) would be a huge success provided we change our sensibility about it (and come up with the money-- the BIGGEST issue).

Wouldn't you take a train from Memphis to Atlanta with a 4 hour travel time if it only cost you $100-$125 or so, roundtrip? Yes, you could get there quicker on a plane, but such a train would be a viable and cheaper alternative, especially if you were flexible with an hour or two of time.

As far as Intra-European travel goes, it's the same principal, only on a smaller scale-- you can fly from London to Paris (or Berlin). It's quicker than Eurostar, but more expensive. See example above.

As far as the geographic issue goes, who cares? The Eurostar covers ground, so does Amtrak's Empire Builder. But, one is much more efficient at it. Cut down on stops, slim down operations, and (unfortuantely) throw money into it, and I think it's very doable.

We aren't ready for it. Yet. But when comparable gas prices to Europe arrive...

"We aren't ready for it. Yet. But when comparable gas prices to Europe arrive..."

Then it will be too darned late to do anything constructive.

"Wouldn't you take a train from Memphis to Atlanta with a 4 hour travel time if it only cost you $100-$125 or so, roundtrip? Yes, you could get there quicker on a plane, but such a train would be a viable and cheaper alternative, especially if you were flexible with an hour or two of time."

Why would I when I could get there in 2 1/2 hours by car and then with my vehicle I could drive to the shrine on Mt Moriah or to Tunica? The passenger trains were here 60 years ago, they largely disappeared for the same reason they wouldn't be used now. Also, it's not really cheaper to ride than fly so if you're not going to drive so you have your own car, why on Earth would anyone ride the train?

"Wouldn't you take a train from Memphis to Atlanta with a 4 hour travel time if it only cost you $100-$125 or so, roundtrip?"
------
Why would I when I could get there in 2 1/2 hours by car...

What??? How fast do you drive? Memphis to Atlanta by car is approx. 6.5 hours.

I'd fly.

We all know that using less gas is patriotic.

Unless it is inconvenient. Or takes an hour longer.

You all do not get that we live on a burning platform. Either we get more efficient, or we die.

Then saving 30 minutes by taking your car to Memphis isn't going to be that important.

Finally, an intelligent thread. Thank you, everyone. I love you ALL.

If I flew to Atlanta, my arms would probably get really tired. Probably would be better to take the train.