They probably only restored it to freight train standards, not passenger train standards.huh? I'm confused, I though CSX repaired the tracks/bridges right after Katrina and it has been open since then but Amtrak used a excuses to say no money to restore it?
Yes, after they lower the corporate tax rate and wealth taxes to next to nothing.
Which is a very good reason for Amtrak to immediately enter into contracts, which cannot be broken by future Congresses.
There is no such thing as an unbreakable contract and many American politicians would strongly prefer to throw taxpayer money at contract lawsuits and settlements than to spend another cent on more passenger rail.
I agree with you in this point again.
What do you mean by "freight train standards?" Was superelevation reduced? As far as I know CSX restored it to the condition it was in before (Class 4: 60 MPH freight/79 MPH passenger).
It was just a guess on my part.
I completely agree with you.
Would it be OK to point out that all this has very little to do with why Sunset Limited was not restored? It was not restored because Amtrak did not want to run it anymore and was looking for a convenient out and they found it in Katrina, and that is about the long and short of it. There was not a sufficiently vocal and numerous group willing to make the effort to challenge it, and here we are.... Looking for technical reasons for it is a fool's errand.
The relocation of Saskatoon's CN station to a remote area was one of several station projects financed as "modernizations" by the federal government in the 1960's. As I recall, the Ottawa and Hull and Quebec City moves were in the same program. (For newcomers, there have been projects to ameliorate the issues in Ottawa and Quebec City. For Saskatoon, most of their service is gone.)
Saskatoon sort of made sense because it was part of moving the freight yards out of the middle of town, and that was a very good thing. At the time the CNR was still running the passenger trains so they didn't have access to the only remaining tracks and station which could have served downtown. But since it's now VIA Rail running the one remaining passenger train to serve Saskatoon, it should be possible to use the CP tracks and station which still exist to connect two CNR lines and bring service back to downtown. It would take some work, no doubt. But what it really takes is imagination and will. I suspect Edmonton was similar, but I've never lived there so I'll leave that judgment for others.
Edmonton failed to recognize that it is a potential commuter rail city. Like Denver it had a well-situated station for regional rail service and integration with walking, LRT and bus services (better than Seattle, Portland or San Francisco, for examples). Space had been retained for it in back of the existing station tracks. When the CN Tower Station was built the pedestrian tunnel went all the way under the tracks for future expansion.
Yeah Hillsborough County (which is Tampa) couldn't even get a 1% tax increase for improved public transit to stick. Cars cars cars is all people down here care or even think about.
Neither. It was simply no urban planning at all.
That’s exactly what happened in Wisconsin where Scott Walker preferred to spend $50 million to terminate contracts and get zip, and turn down $800 million for enhanced 110 mph Hiawatha, an extension to Madison, and a budding rail passenger manufacturing industry in Milwaukee. Make no mistake; it wasn’t just Talgo in Milwaukee, but all the little job shops and suppliers as well. Walker stabbed Wisconsin for the Koch Bros. Then he FoxxConned the state with a hugely expensive giveaway that will never bear any fruit. He’s the epitome of corruption, and what we can expect with his party.
There is so much non-transportation fluff and pork in this "infrastructure" bill that it could probably be at least cut in half without reducing any real transit-related funding.
It is afterall an Infrastructure and Jobs Bill, not just a Transportation Bill.
This is an example of the silliness of TV news and it was really popularized by CNN when it first started broadcasting years ago and had to fill 24 hours with one half hour of real news. TV news's biggest advantage of "live news" is that we actually see the events themselves as they happen - so important for critical events. But staged events where there is no expectation whatsoever of an unanticipated change ("Biden changes his mind! He refuses to sign his bill! See it live!") where it has been planned for a while and is just a formality, is just drivel, not news. The news occurred back in August when the Senate agreed to it without a filibuster and somewhat later when a number of Republicans in the House voted against party pressure to support it. The whole "event" could have been done an hour after the House vote since Biden's signature was a foregone conclusion.
