# $50B Needed



## MrFSS (May 1, 2009)

More than one-third of the trains, equipment and facilities of the nation's seven largest rail transit agencies are near the end of their useful life or past that point, the government said Thursday. Many have components that are defective or may be critically damaged.A report by the Federal Transit Administration estimates it will cost $50 billion to bring the rail systems in Chicago, Boston, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., into good repair and $5.9 billion a year to maintain them.

Full Story HERE.


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## George Harris (May 1, 2009)

MrFSS said:


> More than one-third of the trains, equipment and facilities of the nation's seven largest rail transit agencies are near the end of their useful life or past that point, the government said Thursday. Many have components that are defective or may be critically damaged.A report by the Federal Transit Administration estimates it will cost $50 billion to bring the rail systems in Chicago, Boston, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., into good repair and $5.9 billion a year to maintain them.
> Full Story HERE.


Woe is me again. Oh please, Uncle Sugar, come bail us out of problems mostly of our own making.

Sorry, if most of these people make an honest effort to maintain what they had rather than neglect basic maintenance and care while they run it into the ground they would not need to go whimpering and begging to Washington for replacements like they do. This I say from first hand knowledge of being part of a couple of inspections of facilities where the systems were begging for money. Instead of the head of these agencies getting money for replacements they should be jailed for destruction of public property.


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## Spokker (May 1, 2009)

If there's no money for new equipment why did you expect there to be money for maintenance? Did they defer maintenance just for the hell of it? Did they defer maintenance just to make a quick buck? These agencies make no money.


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## ALC Rail Writer (May 2, 2009)

Spokker said:


> If there's no money for new equipment why did you expect there to be money for maintenance? Did they defer maintenance just for the hell of it? Did they defer maintenance just to make a quick buck? These agencies make no money.


Its not just rolling stock-- its stations and track work, platforms and signals too-- Everything is bodged together and held by duck tape.


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## George Harris (May 2, 2009)

Spokker said:


> If there's no money for new equipment why did you expect there to be money for maintenance? Did they defer maintenance just for the hell of it? Did they defer maintenance just to make a quick buck? These agencies make no money.


Maintenance is far far cheaper than new equipment, whether it is new trains, new stations, a new house or a new car.

It is not simple deferred maintenance I have seen and am talking about. It is outright neglect in the failure, whether deliberately or from sheer laziness to do the cheap and even no cost things that make things last longer and work better. When steel structures rust away, just to give an example because the ones that are supposed to be keeping them up simply fail to keep the drains unclogged, which is as near a no cost piece of maintenance that you can do, that failure should at the least result in some changes in faces in management if not jail time for those faces.


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## birdy (May 4, 2009)

George Harris said:


> Spokker said:
> 
> 
> > If there's no money for new equipment why did you expect there to be money for maintenance? Did they defer maintenance just for the hell of it? Did they defer maintenance just to make a quick buck? These agencies make no money.
> ...



I'm with you George. But I have a question: Is it pennywise-pound foolishness, local governmental agencies saving a few bucks here and there, til the system breaks completely, or simply sloth on the part of the managers?


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## George Harris (May 4, 2009)

birdy said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > Maintenance is far far cheaper than new equipment, whether it is new trains, new stations, a new house or a new car.It is not simple deferred maintenance I have seen and am talking about. It is outright neglect in the failure, whether deliberately or from sheer laziness to do the cheap and even no cost things that make things last longer and work better. When steel structures rust away, just to give an example because the ones that are supposed to be keeping them up simply fail to keep the drains unclogged, which is as near a no cost piece of maintenance that you can do, that failure should at the least result in some changes in faces in management if not jail time for those faces.
> ...


I think both, plus, no politician ever got his face in the paper or some other publication because he did a good job of maintenance. He gets the face in public time for bringing in money for something new or at the opening for some new facility. The best way to get new things in the governmental world is to let what you have fall apart.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 5, 2009)

George Harris said:


> birdy said:
> 
> 
> > George Harris said:
> ...


Agreed. They let the Comets Is fall apart and then took them out of service, saying there were, in essence, at the end of their useful life. A well maintained rail car can comfortably last 50 years. Not 25. They are chronically underfunded, though, and some of what should go to maintenance goes to maintaining service. Its one of the problems of dividing capital and operating expenses so thoroughly.


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