# High Speed Trains a Waste of Money



## Hanno

According to this article building a network of HSR is a waste of effort and money. Not the kind of article I want to see but perhaps it has some validity especially relative to the cost. Any thoughts?


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## MattW

Interesting points, but I call BS. The NEC itself handles "14 percent of all intercity trips (including those by automobile) between Washington, D.C., and New York City and about 47 percent of trips between those cities by rail or air carrier.9" (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/45xx/doc4571/09-26-PassengerRail.pdf page 19)

Yes the NEC is kind of unique, but the numbers are WAAAY more significant than the number in the article. Plus, it says it won't reduce greenhouse emissions. Even if you believe in the global warming myth, reducing pollution is good and is exactly what these trains will do. The trains will be electric, and a good chunk of our electricity is generated by clean sources. Currently, other than electrified railways, there is no truly clean transportation system in this country. Electric cars aren't here yet, and planes will likely always burn hydrocarbons until either hydrogen, or electric-only portable power sources are [further] developed. Every person not using one of the polluting-modes is reducing pollution by a small amount.

It also says "not commuter trains". If the rail is fast enough, there's no reason why they couldn't be used as commuter trains. I think in the commuter rail distance argument in the commuter rail forum, someone mentioned people commuting Lille to Paris. The cities are 140 miles by road from each other (via Google) which is about an hour's travel time by TGV. That's how much time I spend going my 45 miles each day...


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## Ryan

No. It makes no sense whatsoever.


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## George Harris

I have gotten to where I do not even read this stuff. Generally, they either cook their statistics or assume their conclusion as a necessary part of getting to it.

It is actually amazing that the Northeast Corridor carries as many people as it does since connecitivity to other locations both near and distant is so poor.


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## henryj

Hanno said:


> According to this article building a network of HSR is a waste of effort and money. Not the kind of article I want to see but perhaps it has some validity especially relative to the cost. Any thoughts?


High speed rail works in Europe because of the population density and the general closeness of major metropolitan areas, and fuel there is $6-8 a gallon and automobiles have a 19% vat tax added to their initial costs, and there is no place to park and traffic congestion is terrific. Here in the US we span 3,000 miles coast to coast. HSR would only work in certain highly congested corridors. We would be better served if they would just concentrate on 'higher' speed rail, that is up to 110mph outside of the nec. LA to SF and Chi to Nyk are just too far apart. It's a huge waste of money. People are not going to get out of their cars. Cars will just evolve into more fuel efficient vehicles(as they already are) and life will go on as usual. The best bet for rail is commuter rail where people don't really need to drive to work and back every day.

Our transportation system needs to fundamentally change the way it works and is funded anyway for the various modes to settle into their most economic niche. Right now it's all subsidized in one way or another by the governments both state and Federal. So where the government puts it's money heavily influences which mode is used the most, not necessarily the most efficient. Interstate highways need to be toll roads. Airlines should pay their own way, including the cost of air traffic controllers and airports. The rest of the highway system should be funded from gasoline taxes or some other form that directly impacts automobile users. The DOT's, both Fed and State should be profit centers, not government agencies. People should be able to see directly the cost of driving vs rail vs air vs bus by seeing a bill every time the use one mode or the other. Right now costs are hidden in various forms of taxes and fees so no one really sees the actual direct costs. driving seems to be free because we already have the car sitting in the garage and all it needs is fuel to go. Put a meter on it so you get billed everytime you use it. If all the systems are privatized and have to reflect their true costs then the market place will be the true arbitrator as to which mode fits where and which works best in which markets. Government funded HSR is not going to work except in special markets because the country is dead broke. It can't even meet it's basic obligations and entitlements much less HSR and other pie in the sky ideas.


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## Ryan

henryj said:


> The DOT's, both Fed and State should be profit centers, not government agencies. People should be able to see directly the cost of driving vs rail vs air vs bus by seeing a bill every time the use one mode or the other.
> 
> --snip--
> 
> If all the systems are privatized


Isn't going to happen. Moving goods and people from point A to point B will not and can not be profitable. If there was a profit to be had, business would get into the market. If people were to have to pay the full costs of getting to work, massive social upheaval would result, as there are many that literally couldn't afford to get to work and back and many more that wouldn't be able to pay increased prices for food and other staples.


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## highballing

I think it really comes down to mindset. High speed rail in other country's, people have come to more of a appreciation and acceptance of that mode of travel. Where in the states, outside of Plane travel. Cars and buses have become the norm for the traveling public and some forms of light rail. Retraining people to think, that you don't have to leave the ground to travel long distances, is the key on this for sure. Our transportation system outside of planes is very outdated. From Arbitrary low speed limits on open interstates. An aging train system, that really needs updating in the velocity department, in the form of high speed rail. I'm not saying that high speed rail will solve all are transportation problems. But if people can come to a appreciation for high speed rail and it becomes a viable form of transportation to get around the country then it could certainly reduce the amount of vehicles on the road. Another thing to consider is that you can't really blame the U.S. traveling public because outside of plane travel what other form of quick transportation is there that goes 100+ besides the Acela.

A great example of high speed rail use would be lets say you want to me some relative at Point B for dinner and chat. Well being that your at point A. The distance is lets say 230 miles. Without high speed rail. Your only option would be to take a plane. We all know the hassle that would be or take a car. Which combine with traffic and the stress of driving the car you wont feel refresh at your destination or when you return back. This would be one of many situations where high speed rail would fit in.

One would also say. If the high speed rail was already done in U.S. and the fares where competitive. Would you find yourself on the high speed rail. If you did then you didn't thing it was such a waste of money after all.


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## George Harris

I think a look at what has happened to the California supported trains puts the lie to "People won't get out of their cars." These trains have grown significantly in passenger volume without much in the way of increase in speed. There has however, been much effort put into reliability, a consistent program of station and platform improvements, and having clean equipment with reasonably good and priced food service on all trains.

Now, if a significant increase in speed could be achieved, ridership would take off. Right now there are a lot of people riding that willingingly take a four hour train ride to avoid the hassles of a, if conditions are right, three to 3.5 hour train ride. If the driving time advantage dissapears, ridership should skyrocket. This is the reality that makes the California High Speed Rail project the right thing to do.

It does not take European conditions to make it work. Much of the belief that the way they do things in Europe concerning rail (and many other things as well) is simply a "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence" perspective. Given the travel time and population conditions rail service will work here. When we look at the ridership in Europe, it is also worth remembering that the very high tax regime in most western European countries leaves many people with far less discretionary than we are used to having. Also, travel distances average much shorter. Lay a map of Europe over a map of the US with both at the same scale.


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## Pastor Dave

I suppose that whether it is "essential infrastructure" or "old-fashioned pork-barrel" is in the eye of the beholder.

The "economic geography" argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Suburbanization has put just as many folks further away from airports as train stations. I can get to 30th St Station in Philadelphia as quickly as I can Philadelphia Airport. Yes, there are more parking options at the airport, so that might be an issue.

Perhaps I'm biased living in the Northeast. For example, for me to go to Boston, I can easily take a bus to New York and grab the Acela or NEC service. I can, and do, see lots of folks doing such a thing. Now perhaps trying to fit the same model into a trip from Fort Worth - Houston or St. Louis - Kansas City might not work as well.

Finally, HSR should not be presented as a short-term fix to our transportation/energy/environmental concerns. It, IMHO, needs to be considered over the long-term to really appreciate its value.


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## Guest

While I support HSR, what I see happening with each proposal is really not what I had hoped for.

For example, in Florida, the HS link between Orlando and Tampa has already been dowsed with politics and compromise such that there is already 5 intermediary stations included. With those, there is no hope that any train would have enough time to achieve and sustain any sort of "high speed". Plus, factor in dwell time at each station, you might as well take a bus or drive your own car since they will take about the same time to travel between Orlando and Tampa.

Of course, then the operation of this HS rail fails, the blame would be placed squarely on the concept of HS rails, and not any on the rather poor implementation.


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## henryj

Interesting arguments on all points. However, we should never underestimate the attraction of a pmv(personal mobility vehicle). Even if oil hits $200 a barrel and fuel is $10 a gallon the pmv will morf into something we can use economically whether it's a 'golf cart' or fuel cell or whatever. The niche for passenger rail then will be commuter oriented as in to work and back and short distance inter-city. Of course, one of our favorites, long distance rail can continue as is as it's more like a land cruise and becomes just part of the vacation. True HSR however needs a separate row and must be built from scratch, hence it's extraordinarly expensive to implement and only cost effective in very dense markets. Short distance inter-city rail can function on existing tracks and row if we emphasize point to point speed, not blinding top speed. Eliminate the bottle necks. Bring track speed up to 90-110 mph. It's not that hard to do. Many existing routes once supported multiple passenger trains at such speeds. How to fund this is the issue. Europeans fund it with high gasoline taxes and the vat tax. We need something similar since as was pointed out above high fees and tolls could strangle our transportation system. Germany perhaps sets a good example with their autobahns with high allowable speeds or no limits and their approach to HSR which is to build short sections of HSR that connect to basic grid but increase point to point timings. Germany, as in most of Europe, has a high population density, high fuel costs, little parking and traffic congestion. For anything like this to suceed here we need DOT's that look at overall mobility, not just highways and airports. However they fund it, it all comes out of the same pot. It's just how they approach mobility, not which mode has the best lobby.


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## George Harris

Guest said:


> there is already 5 intermediary stations included. With those, there is no hope that any train would have enough time to achieve and sustain any sort of "high speed".


Just because there are 5 intermediate stations does not mean that all trains will stop at all stations. Most HSR systems runa combination of "local" and "express" services. Local is still fast. Example: The Taiwan HSR: The express trains make two stops, one a suburban Taipei stop, the other at Taichung, about the halfway point. 1 hour 35 minutes for 210 miles. The locals make 7 intermediate stops and take 2 hours flat. So, 25 minutes for 5 additional stops makes for 5 minutes per stop, and this from 186 mph. In actuality, the schedule even has some slack in it. Not a lot, but some.


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## Guest

George Harris said:


> Just because there are 5 intermediate stations does not mean that all trains will stop at all stations. Most HSR systems runa combination of "local" and "express" services. Local is still fast. Example: The Taiwan HSR: The express trains make two stops, one a suburban Taipei stop, the other at Taichung, about the halfway point. 1 hour 35 minutes for 210 miles. The locals make 7 intermediate stops and take 2 hours flat. So, 25 minutes for 5 additional stops makes for 5 minutes per stop, and this from 186 mph. In actuality, the schedule even has some slack in it. Not a lot, but some.


I think its a lot to assume that there will be enough passengers to support duplicate trains, both a "local" and an "express", between Orlando and Tampa. Plus, I am not as sure as you that a "local" would have enough time to accelerate up to speeds like 186mph, sustain it for any reasonable length of time, and then slow to a stop again. The distance between Orlando and Tampa, divided up into 6 chunks, is only 15 miles each.


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## leemell

henryj said:


> Hanno said:
> 
> 
> 
> According to this article building a network of HSR is a waste of effort and money. Not the kind of article I want to see but perhaps it has some validity especially relative to the cost. Any thoughts?
> 
> 
> 
> High speed rail works in Europe because of the population density and the general closeness of major metropolitan areas, and fuel there is $6-8 a gallon and automobiles have a 19% vat tax added to their initial costs, and there is no place to park and traffic congestion is terrific. Here in the US we span 3,000 miles coast to coast. HSR would only work in certain highly congested corridors. We would be better served if they would just concentrate on 'higher' speed rail, that is up to 110mph outside of the nec. LA to SF and Chi to Nyk are just too far apart. It's a huge waste of money. People are not going to get out of their cars. Cars will just evolve into more fuel efficient vehicles(as they already are) and life will go on as usual. The best bet for rail is commuter rail where people don't really need to drive to work and back every day.
> 
> [snip]
Click to expand...


I can't speak for NY to Chi, but LA to SF is a very good candidate for HSR. It is about 325 miles to drive and 6 to 7 hours. The CAHSR will take about 2 hours and 20 minutes. In addition the air route is very nearly saturated, if not completely, it is easily one of the busiest in the world.


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## Ryan

Guest said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just because there are 5 intermediate stations does not mean that all trains will stop at all stations. Most HSR systems runa combination of "local" and "express" services. Local is still fast. Example: The Taiwan HSR: The express trains make two stops, one a suburban Taipei stop, the other at Taichung, about the halfway point. 1 hour 35 minutes for 210 miles. The locals make 7 intermediate stops and take 2 hours flat. So, 25 minutes for 5 additional stops makes for 5 minutes per stop, and this from 186 mph. In actuality, the schedule even has some slack in it. Not a lot, but some.
> 
> 
> 
> I think its a lot to assume that there will be enough passengers to support duplicate trains, both a "local" and an "express", between Orlando and Tampa. Plus, I am not as sure as you that a "local" would have enough time to accelerate up to speeds like 186mph, sustain it for any reasonable length of time, and then slow to a stop again. The distance between Orlando and Tampa, divided up into 6 chunks, is only 15 miles each.
Click to expand...

I think that it's a lot for you to assume that every train is going to make every stop. The only thing George was doing was point out that it wasn't necessarily the case that every case was going to make every stop.


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## Eric S

Guest said:


> While I support HSR, what I see happening with each proposal is really not what I had hoped for.
> 
> For example, in Florida, the HS link between Orlando and Tampa has already been dowsed with politics and compromise such that there is already 5 intermediary stations included. With those, there is no hope that any train would have enough time to achieve and sustain any sort of "high speed". Plus, factor in dwell time at each station, you might as well take a bus or drive your own car since they will take about the same time to travel between Orlando and Tampa.
> 
> Of course, then the operation of this HS rail fails, the blame would be placed squarely on the concept of HS rails, and not any on the rather poor implementation.


There are not five intermediate stops planned, but rather five total stops: Tampa, Lakeland, Disney World, International Drive, and Orlando.


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## AlanB

Guest said:


> I think its a lot to assume that there will be enough passengers to support duplicate trains, both a "local" and an "express", between Orlando and Tampa. Plus, I am not as sure as you that a "local" would have enough time to accelerate up to speeds like 186mph, sustain it for any reasonable length of time, and then slow to a stop again. The distance between Orlando and Tampa, divided up into 6 chunks, is only 15 miles each.


Acela hits 135 between Back Bay & Route 128 IIRC, and that's about 15 miles. Acela hits 150 between 128 & Providence, a distance of 20 miles. And the limiting factor isn't the distance between the two stations, its the infrastructure, curves & bridges.


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## MattW

How fast can a trainset accelerate anyways? When I've been building my hypothetical Atlanta Commuter Rail, I used 1 mile per hour per second as the average acceleration up to 79mph. What about up to 150? Or 220? Anyone know a nice number to use?


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## PRR 60

MattW said:


> How fast can a trainset accelerate anyways? When I've been building my hypothetical Atlanta Commuter Rail, I used 1 mile per hour per second as the average acceleration up to 79mph. What about up to 150? Or 220? Anyone know a nice number to use?


1 mph/sec is a reasonable number.


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## jis

PRR 60 said:


> MattW said:
> 
> 
> 
> How fast can a trainset accelerate anyways? When I've been building my hypothetical Atlanta Commuter Rail, I used 1 mile per hour per second as the average acceleration up to 79mph. What about up to 150? Or 220? Anyone know a nice number to use?
> 
> 
> 
> 1 mph/sec is a reasonable number.
Click to expand...

As long as you keep the geniuses at NJT planning far far away from any decision making on that matter  You should the idiocy that they have with a single poor ALP46 trying to shove around 10 heavy heavy multi-level cars, specially with a little moisture or leaf on the tracks.


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## Devil's Advocate

leemell said:


> I can't speak for NY to Chi, but LA to SF is a very good candidate for HSR. It is about 325 miles to drive and 6 to 7 hours. The CAHSR will take about 2 hours and 20 minutes. In addition the air route is very nearly saturated, if not completely, it is easily one of the busiest in the world.


I'm looking forward to CA's HSR proposals as well, but we have to look at what happens with proposition 23 to see if HSR has any chance of success in the US. If prop 23 succeeds then the next CA general election will likely include a proposal to strangle HSR with red tape next.


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## Green Maned Lion

Logical conclusions are derived from deduction based on premises. Thus, most things thought of are actually logical. To whit:

Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Thus, Socrates is mortal.

Logical. Accurate. Reasonable.

Socrates is a man. All men are elephants. Thus, Socrates is an elephant.

Equally logical. Inaccurate. Ridiculous.

Why? All men are NOT elephants. But if you assumed they were, it would be perfectly logical to believe that man such as Socrates was indeed an elephant.

Rail costs money. Spending money with out a monetary ROI is wasteful. Rail has no obvious monetary ROI. Thus, rail is wasteful.

Equally logical. However, the premises are up for question.

Rail costs money? No bleep, Sherlock.

Spending money without a monetary ROI is wasteful. Questionable. Spending money without any ROI is indeed wasteful, but your ROI does not need to be monetary.

Rail has no obvious ROI. True, it does not generally have an obvious monetary ROI. We call that "profit". But whether it has a monetary ROI that can be found with careful calculation, that's different.

Since the premises are questionable (not ridiculous, mind you), the conclusions drawn from them must also be called into question. The logic, however, is flawless.

High speed rail would have many benefits, primarily reducing the amount of time people spend standing around in airports. They'd be standing around train stations, which are usually nicer to look at. But seriously, I have never seen an unbiased study on the overall economic impact rail provides under various circumstances.

They are usually done by Cato like groups who want it to go away, or governmental agencies looking to either build themselves a monument or "curtail wasteful spending". Rail advocates are generally not well funded enough to produce such a study, and the only "organized" organization on rail serves primarily as a conduit to funnel railfan money into Ross Capon's pocket. No, I'm not joking. A solid percentage of the money NARP takes in pays his salary.

My opinion of NARP notwithstanding, its study of the benefits of rail would, understandably, also not be unbiased.

Would building HSR be wasteful? I have no idea, quite honestly, but I am sure it would depend on where it was built. I seek to remind, however, that the Interstate system was considered by many to be a waste- they were convinced that while Germans liked to travel long distances by car, Americans prefer to stay close to their communities, and would never use them.

Much like an HP executive once told a man named Steve: "What would ordinary people want with computers?"


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## leemell

daxomni said:


> leemell said:
> 
> 
> 
> I can't speak for NY to Chi, but LA to SF is a very good candidate for HSR. It is about 325 miles to drive and 6 to 7 hours. The CAHSR will take about 2 hours and 20 minutes. In addition the air route is very nearly saturated, if not completely, it is easily one of the busiest in the world.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm looking forward to CA's HSR proposals as well, but we have to look at what happens with proposition 23 to see if HSR has any chance of success in the US. If prop 23 succeeds then the next CA general election will likely include a proposal to strangle HSR with red tape next.
Click to expand...


Prop. 23 failed by a wide margin.


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## George Harris

Don't know how it is done now, since it has been years since I was involed in this sort of stuff, but:

In deciding whether or not it is beneficial to build a highway project, there is a cost-benefit analysis. While the costs are generally real and paid by the involed govenment agencies, the benefits are not income or reduced costs to the state (unless there is some reduction in maintenance costs involved), but usually in the form of public benefits in the form of accident reductions, time saved, or energy / wear and tear on vehicles saved. Since part of the benfit is reduced costs and time for ttrucks, it could logically be argued that part of the justification in road improvements is of direct monetary benfit to certain specific private businesses.  Similar analyses are done for airport expenditures. Do you really think that airports at smaller cities have any hope of ever covering their construction and operating costs through landing fees?

Therefore, why should public expenditures on rail projects be held to a different standard? Some of these same benefits for highway projects also accrue to road projects, such as transfer of traffic from highway to road or from air to road that reduces both the maintenance expenditures on these facilities and the need to expand them are as real, if not more real, monetary benfit to the public as the calculated benefits of a road project.


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## leemell

Green Maned Lion said:


> [snip]
> 
> Much like an HP executive once told a man named Steve: "What would ordinary people want with computers?"


That quote comes from a movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", not from real life. As far as anybody knows, that did not happen. There was a quote by Ken Olsen the founder of Digital Equipment Corp. that is very similar.  Snopes has Olsen's quote and the very important context.


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## Devil's Advocate

leemell said:


> Prop. 23 failed by a wide margin.


Indeed. One of a handful of bright spots in an otherwise _very_ dark night.

Today the GOP's ranking Transportation Committee member *John Mica* appears to be signaling his desire to funnel all remaining and returned passenger rail funding exclusively into the NEC. The only other passenger rail project he has any support for would be some sort of Disney World train from the Orlando airport. Every other current or future passenger rail project is apparently a waste of time and money in Mica's view.


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## amtrakwolverine

America will never have highspeed rail if we keep electing people who kill it.


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## Green Maned Lion

leemell said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Much like an HP executive once told a man named Steve: "What would ordinary people want with computers?"
> 
> 
> 
> That quote comes from a movie "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", not from real life. As far as anybody knows, that did not happen. There was a quote by Ken Olsen the founder of Digital Equipment Corp. that is very similar.  Snopes has Olsen's quote and the very important context.
Click to expand...

It is in that movie, slightly modified. It is also located in a biography written about Wozniak ten or fifteen years before that movie. It is further located in a contemporary biography of Steve Jobs. It is possible that the phrasing itself is made up, but I am also fairly positive the context is true and happened. HP needed to have a reason for dismissing Wozniak's project. It might have been more along the lines, "HP sees no profit or market in a computer designed for personal use at this time." But I am certain that it was said.

By the way, I find it irritating that the only comments people make on my posts nowadays involve picking nits irrelevant to my point. I really don't have time to be posting on here, but I find it anyway. People like you make me wonder why I bother.


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## jis

Just for the heck of it see what Wozniack is upto these days, working with HP again!

I have no idea whether Wozniak had that exact exchange with some HP executive or not. But it is certain that he had to get IPR release from HP to go and work on the personal computer stuff with Jobs. It is possible that the boring process of getting the IPR release has been given a more romantic color and has become an urban legend in that form. In any event Wozniack's departure from HP was very cordial, and at the end of the day the details of the conversation seem quite irrelevant to me, for people to be throwing hissy-fits about it 

Incidentally Wozniack's primary focus at HP back then was on handheld calculators. HP then was primarily an instrumentation company. So it is not hard to understand why HP even allowed Wozniack to moonlight with Atari and collaborate with Jobs on the side. If HP considered computers of any sort to be part of their core business back then, such would typically not have been permitted. So in a way it was fortunate for all that HP was not into personal computers back then and was enlightened enough to not stifle its employees creativity to work on the side on what interested them and let them go out and develop it on their own.

This has been a long tradition at HP, and even today (in spite of the Carly and Mark circus), occasionally individuals or groups spin off from HP with ideas and things that are not considered to be of immediate interest, and develop them into businesses, and there are then many cases where later such companies are bought back by HP. It is just the way it has been and to some extent still is.

As a matter of full disclosure I should point out that I work for HP in the Software and Solutions group.


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## leemell

jis said:


> Just for the heck of it see what Wozniack is upto these days, working with HP again!
> 
> Incidentally Wozniack's primary focus at HP back then was on handheld calculators. HP then was primarily an instrumentation company. So it is not hard to understand why HP even allowed Wozniack to moonlight with Atari and collaborate with Jobs on the side. If HP considered computers of any sort to be part of their core business back then, such would typically not have been permitted. So in a way it was fortunate for all that HP was not into personal computers back then and was enlightened enough to not stifle its employees creativity to work on the side on what interested them and let them go out and develop it on their own.
> 
> This has been a long tradition at HP, and even now occasionally individuals or groups spin off from HP with ideas and things that are not considered to be of immediate interest, and develop them into businesses, and there are then many cases where later such companies are bought back by HP. It is just the way it has been and to some extent still is.
> 
> As a matter of full disclosure I should point out that I work for HP in the Software and Solutions group.


Having worked at JPL for 30 years and having a lot of contact with HP, I agree with your comments. The Olsen quote was from the 70's, a good 10-15 years before the PC concept was kicked around. Before I that I worked for CDC, and NCR designing building and testing mainframes, and minicomputers. Part of that entailed reverse engineering Data General, DEC, SDC, XDS, CA, and other machines. Oh, and I also helped build and program the first IMSAI 8080 and Altair 8800 at JPL with Eugene Miya, remember CP/M?


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## DET63

Hanno said:


> According to this article building a network of HSR is a waste of effort and money. Not the kind of article I want to see but perhaps it has some validity especially relative to the cost. Any thoughts?


From the Samuelson article:



> High-speed intercity trains (not commuter lines) travel at up to 250 miles per hour and are most competitive with planes and cars over distances of less than 500 miles. In a report on high-speed rail, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or less with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them switched to trains, the number of airline passengers, about 2 million a day, would drop only 2.5 percent. Any fuel savings would be less than that; even trains need fuel.
> 
> Indeed, intercity trains—at whatever speed—target such a small part of total travel that the effects on reduced oil use, traffic congestion, and greenhouse gases must be microscopic. Every day, about 140 million Americans go to work, with 85 percent driving an average of 25 minutes (three quarters drive alone, 10 percent carpool). Even with 250,000 high-speed rail passengers, there would be no visible effect on routine commuting, let alone personal driving. In the Northeast Corridor, with about 45 million people, Amtrak’s daily ridership is 28,500. If its trains shut down tomorrow, no one except the affected passengers would notice.


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## George Harris

As some others have said, most of these anti-rail people are wind-up dolls. Once you hear the name of the person or institute, you can be 90% sure of what they are going to say. They use the same reaasoning regardless of the nature of the project, wthere it is light rail, heavy rail, minor improvements, upgrades such as Illinois, or full blown high speed rail systems suchas in California. They have almost always been proven wrong once the system is up and running.

Whoever it is pays their fees and pulls their sting and the words they want said come out. Many of these groups give themselves wonderful sounding names, and masquerade as being political conservatives. Emphasis here on masquerade. When it comes to government assistance to those funding their anti rail spiels, the silence against government spending is thundering.

One that used to appear regularly to play this part was Wendell Cox. Come to think of it, maybe the guy has finally destroyed his credibility as I have not noticed anything out of him lately. If you want to see someone wrap himself in the Flag, Motherhood and Apple Pie, this was your guy:

He used to appear regularly as part of one of several organizations. The most honest name used was Wendell Cox Consultancy, but he is either the main man of or part of (and I don't care which) of the following named organizations: Public Purpose, Heartland Institute, Demographia, and maybe some others. He appeared to have been always ready to make speeches or prepare reports in opposition to any people carrying rail proposal.


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## PRR 60

George Harris said:


> As some others have said, most of these anti-rail people are wind-up dolls. Once you hear the name of the person or institute, you can be 90% sure of what they are going to say. They use the same reaasoning regardless of the nature of the project, wthere it is light rail, heavy rail, minor improvements, upgrades such as Illinois, or full blown high speed rail systems suchas in California. They have almost always been proven wrong once the system is up and running.
> 
> Whoever it is pays their fees and pulls their sting and the words they want said come out. Many of these groups give themselves wonderful sounding names, and masquerade as being political conservatives. Emphasis here on masquerade. When it comes to government assistance to those funding their anti rail spiels, the silence against government spending is thundering.
> 
> One that used to appear regularly to play this part was Wendell Cox. Come to think of it, maybe the guy has finally destroyed his credibility as I have not noticed anything out of him lately. If you want to see someone wrap himself in the Flag, Motherhood and Apple Pie, this was your guy:
> 
> He used to appear regularly as part of one of several organizations. The most honest name used was Wendell Cox Consultancy, but he is either the main man of or part of (and I don't care which) of the following named organizations: Public Purpose, Heartland Institute, Demographia, and maybe some others. He appeared to have been always ready to make speeches or prepare reports in opposition to any people carrying rail proposal.


Robert Samuelson is a columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post who specializes in economic issues. He is not an "anti-rail" activist by any measure. You can not put him into the same category as a Wendell Cox and then simply dismiss his arguments as rants.

Newsweek Samuelson


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## jis

leemell said:


> Having worked at JPL for 30 years and having a lot of contact with HP, I agree with your comments. The Olsen quote was from the 70's, a good 10-15 years before the PC concept was kicked around. Before I that I worked for CDC, and NCR designing building and testing mainframes, and minicomputers. Part of that entailed reverse engineering Data General, DEC, SDC, XDS, CA, and other machines. Oh, and I also helped build and program the first IMSAI 8080 and Altair 8800 at JPL with Eugene Miya, remember CP/M?


Thank you.

Yes I remember CP/M though I never used it myself extensively.

Of the quaint systems that I used the one that stands out in my mind is using a simulation language called GASP IV based on FORTRAN IV on an IBM 1130 to simulate traffic flow through a railroad yard. That was kind of fun. The entire simulation of a medium size yard fit in 15 standard boxes of IBM punch cards  , including seeding data for the simulation from real measured traffic flow. It was amazing how quickly a 2501 card reader could chew through those cards. We had to have two people in tandem feeding the hopper to keep it going full speed. Visions of a firemen feeding coal to a steamer come to mind 

But then again I did other bizarre things like write a Pascal compiler in FORTRAN with a little help from 1130 Assembler (to do stack management for the recursive descent parser  ) to implement the first ever Pascal system for 1130! There was so little primary memory that it used 12 passes to fit the thing within the constraints of technology available. All this was in about the mid-70s.


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## George Harris

PRR 60 said:


> Robert Samuelson is a columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post who specializes in economic issues. He is not an "anti-rail" activist by any measure. You can not put him into the same category as a Wendell Cox and then simply dismiss his arguments as rants.


Not saying that Samuelson was equivalent to Cox and those of similar mindset, however this sort of stuff:



> High-speed intercity trains (not commuter lines) travel at up to 250 miles per hour and are most competitive with planes and cars over distances of less than 500 miles. In a report on high-speed rail, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or less with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them switched to trains, the number of airline passengers, about 2 million a day, would drop only 2.5 percent. Any fuel savings would be less than that; even trains need fuel.
> Indeed, intercity trains—at whatever speed—target such a small part of total travel that the effects on reduced oil use, traffic congestion, and greenhouse gases must be microscopic. Every day, about 140 million Americans go to work, with 85 percent driving an average of 25 minutes (three quarters drive alone, 10 percent carpool). Even with 250,000 high-speed rail passengers, there would be no visible effect on routine commuting, let alone personal driving. In the Northeast Corridor, with about 45 million people, Amtrak’s daily ridership is 28,500. If its trains shut down tomorrow, no one except the affected passengers would notice.


sounds really similar.
13,800 is still something on the order of 100 flights, and I am not sure that he is counting flights between all the airports involved, as I think there are three or four on each end, not to mention to/from or between the several airports at intermediate points.

There are of course a lot of air corridors that due to either length or light density of traffic do not lend themselves to rail alternatives, but that should not be used to discredit the concept in the corridors where it will work, and work well.

I have been in this rail transit stuff too long to believe any of this sort of stuff, anyway. I have heard too many times this mantra, "it costs too much, it takes too long to build, nobody is going to ride it, etc." and seen it disproven. The anti-transit characters then quietly fade away into the woodwork without ever admitting they missed it completely and were conclusively proven to be wrong only to resurface the next time a rail system is proposed somewhere else.

Can anyone picture the DC Metro area functioning without WAMATA? Yet there was a lot of opposition, and, at one point after construction was under way, a scaling back of the system size. Yet now the system is *beyond* the extent of the "full system" plan of the early 1970's, with more currently under construction.


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## Eric S

George Harris said:


> PRR 60 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Robert Samuelson is a columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post who specializes in economic issues. He is not an "anti-rail" activist by any measure. You can not put him into the same category as a Wendell Cox and then simply dismiss his arguments as rants.
> 
> 
> 
> Not saying that Samuelson was equivalent to Cox and those of similar mindset, however this sort of stuff:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> High-speed intercity trains (not commuter lines) travel at up to 250 miles per hour and are most competitive with planes and cars over distances of less than 500 miles. In a report on high-speed rail, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or less with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them switched to trains, the number of airline passengers, about 2 million a day, would drop only 2.5 percent. Any fuel savings would be less than that; even trains need fuel.
> Indeed, intercity trains—at whatever speed—target such a small part of total travel that the effects on reduced oil use, traffic congestion, and greenhouse gases must be microscopic. Every day, about 140 million Americans go to work, with 85 percent driving an average of 25 minutes (three quarters drive alone, 10 percent carpool). Even with 250,000 high-speed rail passengers, there would be no visible effect on routine commuting, let alone personal driving. In the Northeast Corridor, with about 45 million people, Amtrak's daily ridership is 28,500. If its trains shut down tomorrow, no one except the affected passengers would notice.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> sounds really similar.
> 13,800 is still something on the order of 100 flights, and I am not sure that he is counting flights between all the airports involved, as I think there are three or four on each end, not to mention to/from or between the several airports at intermediate points.
> 
> There are of course a lot of air corridors that due to either length or light density of traffic do not lend themselves to rail alternatives, but that should not be used to discredit the concept in the corridors where it will work, and work well.
> 
> I have been in this rail transit stuff too long to believe any of this sort of stuff, anyway. I have heard too many times this mantra, "it costs too much, it takes too long to build, nobody is going to ride it, etc." and seen it disproven. The anti-transit characters then quietly fade away into the woodwork without ever admitting they missed it completely and were conclusively proven to be wrong only to resurface the next time a rail system is proposed somewhere else.
> 
> Can anyone picture the DC Metro area functioning without WAMATA? Yet there was a lot of opposition, and, at one point after construction was under way, a scaling back of the system size. Yet now the system is *beyond* the extent of the "full system" plan of the early 1970's, with more currently under construction.
Click to expand...

On another site, someone pointed out that the LA-SF flight totals only counted LAX & SFO, ignoring all of the other airports that serve those metro areas.


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## Ryan

George Harris said:


> Can anyone picture the DC Metro area functioning without WAMATA? Yet there was a lot of opposition, and, at one point after construction was under way, a scaling back of the system size. Yet now the system is *beyond* the extent of the "full system" plan of the early 1970's, with more currently under construction.


It doesn't/can't - after the double blizzards of last winter, the Federal Government closed until WMATA was able to get some semblance of rail service running again.


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## jis

Samuelson's argument can equally be used to shut down all under 300 mile commercial flights and let people just drive thus reducing air space congestion and huge amounts of money that is required to build infrastructure to support these flights. Afterall a minuscule proportion of travelers of the total on each such corridor use those flights. I was surprised to find that of the 35 people from New York area that attended the meeting, 30 of them drove!

This logic of this was starkly illustrated to me when for various reasons I had to drive from NJ to Niagara Falls and back for a single day meeting. Doing one night in hotel it was easy to do, it overall actually cost me less by a significant factor compared to any available flights, and Amtrak just does not have the schedule that can be meaningfully used to start after work one day and get to Niagara Falls that night get some sleep and be ready for a meeting the following day.

Now if there were HSR like In Japan or Europe in that route for reasonable fares that compared well with the $0.50/mile nominal cost of driving, I'd have taken the train, heck or even the plane if they had such fares on short notice.


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## Green Maned Lion

George Harris said:


> He used to appear regularly as part of one of several organizations. The most honest name used was Wendell Cox Consultancy, but he is either the main man of or part of (and I don't care which) of the following named organizations: Public Purpose, Heartland Institute, Demographia, and maybe some others. He appeared to have been always ready to make speeches or prepare reports in opposition to any people carrying rail proposal.


I have heard reliable (but unsubstantiated, as always with second hand information) reports the Cox's organizations are funded by several companies, notably ExxonMobile and Royal Dutch Shell.


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## George Harris

jis said:


> This logic of this was starkly illustrated to me when for various reasons I had to drive from NJ to Niagara Falls and back for a single day meeting. Doing one night in hotel it was easy to do, it overall actually cost me less by a significant factor compared to any available flights, and Amtrak just does not have the schedule that can be meaningfully used to start after work one day and get to Niagara Falls that night get some sleep and be ready for a meeting the following day.
> Now if there were HSR like In Japan or Europe in that route for reasonable fares that compared well with the $0.50/mile nominal cost of driving, I'd have taken the train, heck or even the plane if they had such fares on short notice.


What would also work would be a properly scheduled overnight train. The New York - Chicago corridor has always seemed to me to beg for three train each way: From New York overnight with an early morning arrival in Buffalo, continuing on to Chicago in the day. A train leaving New York sometime in the morning that leaves Cleveland in late evening for an early morning arrival in Chicago. Something that more or less splits the difference, similar to the Lake Shore Limited's schedule. Mirror these schedules in the other diraction. An early morning arrival Buffalo westbound and Cleveland eastbound would still get to the other of these two cities about mid-morning, with the reverse direction leaving after the close of the normal business day. Once the speed potential of the line gets to the point that it is practical, a "daylight" traim similar to the pre-Amtrak City of New Orleans should be added. Can not understand why the New York Central never tried such a schedule. It was a true money maker for the Illinois Central for many years in a territory that was both lighter in population and poorer economically.


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## AlanB

Green Maned Lion said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> 
> He used to appear regularly as part of one of several organizations. The most honest name used was Wendell Cox Consultancy, but he is either the main man of or part of (and I don't care which) of the following named organizations: Public Purpose, Heartland Institute, Demographia, and maybe some others. He appeared to have been always ready to make speeches or prepare reports in opposition to any people carrying rail proposal.
> 
> 
> 
> I have heard reliable (but unsubstantiated, as always with second hand information) reports the Cox's organizations are funded by several companies, notably ExxonMobile and Royal Dutch Shell.
Click to expand...

One enterprising reporter uncovered some links to oil a few years ago.

But otherwise much of his funding remains a mystery. He continues to hide it telling people that it's not important for them to know that, which of course just further adds to the idea that all of his funding comes from people who pay him to be anti-rail.


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## George Harris

AlanB said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> 
> He used to appear regularly as part of one of several organizations. The most honest name used was Wendell Cox Consultancy, but he is either the main man of or part of (and I don't care which) of the following named organizations: Public Purpose, Heartland Institute, Demographia, and maybe some others. He appeared to have been always ready to make speeches or prepare reports in opposition to any people carrying rail proposal.
> 
> 
> 
> I have heard reliable (but unsubstantiated, as always with second hand information) reports the Cox's organizations are funded by several companies, notably ExxonMobile and Royal Dutch Shell.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> One enterprising reporter uncovered some links to oil a few years ago.
> 
> But otherwise much of his funding remains a mystery. He continues to hide it telling people that it's not important for them to know that, which of course just further adds to the idea that all of his funding comes from people who pay him to be anti-rail.
Click to expand...

At one time a few years back one of the rail profession oriented on-line publicatons put up a an article titled "Who funds Wendell Cox?" It dissapeared in a couple of days. I had intended to copy it the first time I saw it. When I went back to do so, it was gone. Best I remember, it was mostly major oil companies and some others whose bread and butter depended upon lots of driving.


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## DET63

Here is a post quoting an edited version of the article "Who funds Wendell Cox" that appeared at Free Republic in 2004:



> WHO FUNDS WENDELL COXby Phil Craig
> 
> _New New Electric Railray Journal_, 2/28/2004 (edited)
> 
> It's been apparent to me for some time that there has been a determined "Stop Light Rail" campaign going on that had to be funded by more than Wendell Cox's personal generosity. "Yes, those who gave us National City Lines and won (other than receiving a $3,000 slap on the pinkie from the Federal Courts) are worried that what they thought was dead once and for all has risen from the grave, namely the trolley in its modern form: LRT."
> 
> Want to know who is funding Wendell Cox? Go to Yahoo, query "The Heartland Institute", under Press Room, click on FAQ "What is the Heartland Institute", click on "How is The Heartland Institute Funded?", click on "Q. Who funds The Heartland Institute?" and the click on "accompanying list." There you will find the attached pdf listing of recent donors. Amongst the names you will find those convicted in the NCL anti-trust case or their descendants.
> 
> (Editor’s note: Wendell Cox receives funding from more than just the Heartland Institute. His Wendell Cox Consultancy has received funds from many highway, asphalt, concrete, automobile manufacturing and other “highway” interests. Cox is a “Senior Fellow” of the Heartland Institute and if you wish to schedule him to speak at one of your events, you contact him through that foundation. Interestingly, on the list you can access from the information above, a few names stand out: General Motors, BP Amoco Foundation, Inc., Exxon Mobile Foundation, among others.)
> 
> The most mind boggling contributor of all: "The Railroad Crosstie Association of America." They must really have a marketing genius on their staff, someone who knows that helping Wendell Cox kill LRT projects really helps their business.
> 
> (Editor’s note: If you read Wendell Cox’s biographical information on the Heartland Institute web-site, you will notice that it seems to be written in Orwellian 1984 language: Wendell Cox is portrayed as “pro light rail,” despite his many campaigns against such transit in such places as Houston. When researching Cox and his supporters, it is very important to be aware that their “spin” on information is not always as others would describe it.)
> 
> The Heartland Institute, as the sponsor of Wendell Cox, is an organization that I hope our dear conservative friends at The Free Congress Foundation and its web site, "The New New Electric Railway Journal", will expose (or in today's vernacular "Out." They deserve recognition of just whose interests they are advancing - namely those of the motor, highway and petroleum industries.
> 
> Ed Tennyson adds:
> 
> The Heartland Institute is not the only one. We are now being attacked by Breakthough Technologies, Inc. a non- profit corporation sponsored by the fuel cell lobby backed by some of the same people as The Heartland Institute. Their lobbyist is Bill Vincent, an ex FTA lawyer, who calls on state officials and local chambers of commerce with Bus Rapid Transit propaganda put out by FTA. He adds that rail transit is dirty and polluting because it uses coal to make electricity. Buses are clean as they run on fuel cells. Yeah, for a pretty stiff price. Where do we get the hydrogen for the fuel cells? Coal.


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