@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:Your opinions are important ones, and you're certainly entitled to them, but they're the kind that frequently don't pass muster here. You're welcome and encouraged to take them to a political forum instead.
Why? Because there's no way, other than politically, that you can back up your claims. You have no facts, and even fewer details. Just opinions.
If you have a question about what is political and what isn't you should probably asked the OGR moderators -- and do so before they act.
Many, many of us are getting tired of Amtrak threads getting deleted because of comments just like yours. Please take them to where they might do some good instead.
Mike
Again, I do NOT see where you are getting politics out of this. Whether you are 100% in favor of Amtrak and passenger rail systems, 100% against or somewhere in the middle, it doesn’t change one single FACT about this proposal. Outside of a select few locations, Amtrak service is hanging by a thread due to budget, issues, equipment issues, lack of cooperation with the freight railroads and many others. Amtrak ALWAYS has a wish list of routes they MIGHT like to serve, but almost NONE of them ever come to fruition, basically due to economic realities. I’ll bet in short order we could name at LEAST 20 proposals that would rank higher up the ladder than connecting northern Michigan to lower Michigan, the highly unlikely Columbus to Chicago proposal being just ONE of them, if for no other reason than you will grow old and die waiting for the State of Indiana to kick in significant funding. Next, as was accurately stated by others, not just me, the rail line in question is not even REMOTELY close to being adequate for scheduled regular passenger service and it would cost ungodly amounts of money to make it so. A 2011 report put the cost of upgrading to even 79 MPH on an existing ROW at 1.23 million dollars per mile just get the track down, and in case you haven’t noticed EVERYTHING costs considerably more now. That 1.123 million number doesn’t even address signaling, PTC requirements, equipment, stations, infrastructure improvements, employees, operating costs or anything else. Now even if you make the assumption that this service serves some type of serious transportation need, and that ticket buyers cannot be expected to pay anywhere close to the true cost to provide this service, how much money do you think that a state like Michigan that is not exactly awash in cash can afford to provide, or even the US government, in what in the national scheme of things is pretty much a niche service? I can tell you that late in the Hoosier State era, the state ALONE was subsidizing every ticket purchased to the tune of more than $30.00. Do you seriously believe this service could be provided for anywhere CLOSE to that number?
