# Can someone offer an expert opinion on this site?



## SCrails (Jan 7, 2011)

I just read an opinion piece on bnet.com entitled Train Envy: Will We Ever Get High-Speed Rail in the U.S.?. The sole commenter to the article focuses on Amtrak's unprofitability and on the need for trains to offer cross-country trips at speeds similar to airlines in order to be useful. It doesn't come across as train-hating like some, but still misinformed.

Would one of our more expert 'opinionators' post a short offsetting message on the site? I think it would be useful to the wider audience.


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## dlagrua (Jan 7, 2011)

The simple answer is no. The USA is on a slippery slope towards bankruptcy. There is no money for high speed rail. Be happy that congress continues to fund Amtrak low speed rail.


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## had8ley (Jan 7, 2011)

I've been watching all the bickering about HSR for quite some time. If we turn the history pages back a few decades we'll see where President Eisenhower signed the Act authorizing the Interstate Highway System. The states sucked up all the federal funds and gave us a great method of transportation. Now we have morons passing the bucks back to Washington and want no part of HSR without giving legitimate reasons as to why they are hurting their own constituents as well as the rest of the country. Until we get a unified "GO" from all concerned; and not everyone squabbling about pax counts, revenues and right of ways, then we'll be able to function as a world class leader in HSR. Just look at your Interstate system today; where would American growth have come without it? I'm sure they'll be as many opinions on this as there are cross ties under the NEC.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jan 7, 2011)

SCrails said:


> I just read an opinion piece on bnet.com entitled Train Envy: Will We Ever Get High-Speed Rail in the U.S.?. The sole commenter to the article focuses on Amtrak's unprofitability and on the need for trains to offer cross-country trips at speeds similar to airlines in order to be useful. It doesn't come across as train-hating like some, but still misinformed.
> 
> Would one of our more expert 'opinionators' post a short offsetting message on the site? I think it would be useful to the wider audience.


My opinion: Opinions are like arseholes. Everybody has one. You get more opinions, you get more arseholes.

From what I can tell, I know more about rail issues than a good many people on this forum, almost everyone that writes articles about it, up to and including Don Philips of Trains magazine, who spends so much time speaking out of his butt, I wonder what his food tastes like.

And, with that comment, I also state that I am in no way an expert on the subject. I'm just involved with rail and I don't make the mistake of forming my opinions using other people's opinions as building blocks.

As many of you know, I will happily sit on here and espouse, as a non-expert, several tomes worth of opinion on everything from rail to politics to raising kids. I have long determined that I am one of the few people still extant who form my opinions based upon facts, and ardently avoid other peoples opinions in the formation of my own.

It takes somebody no time at all to put forth an impressive sounding article on their opinion on a subject they know little or nothing about. I would love to convince some of you that my fact-based opinions are better formulated than what you think. But the fact remains that my opinion, as well informed as it usually is, is non-expert and completely worthless.

Based on what I am reading in this article, this person's perspective is uninformed blathering based on other peoples opinionated blathering, primarily also uninformed, highly biased, or both. My opinions are worthless, but they are freakin' platinum ingots compared to this nonsense.

In summation, just another opinion formulated by someone with a keyboard, a computer, and a desire not to confuse themselves with the facts. Why anyone sits around reading other peoples opinions, mine included, I will never know.


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## George Harris (Jan 9, 2011)

Once again, I find myself in agreement with the GML.


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## saxman (Jan 9, 2011)

George Harris said:


> Once again, I find myself in agreement with the GML.


The sky is truly falling.


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