Joe Biden : Big Fan and Customer of Rail Transport, Amtrak

Conventional trains such as Amtrak are great in the northeast and I took Amtrak several times from Boston to New York. In other parts of the country it's not so great. I made the mistake of taking the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland and it took nearly 12 hours! That's hardly a realistic transportation option for most people.

High speed trains such as the TGV would be great for the WA/OR/CA corridor with additional routes to Phoenix and Vega but I don't see it happening. Beyond the astronomical costs of the trains and laying the rails there's also the costs of buying land and securing right of way.

yes, but he drinks Diet Coke!! chan chan chaaaaan

We need high speed rail. Amtrak as it stands is useless. It's not an alternative to air, or even car transport unless it can go fast.

I agree on the train issue, only the northeast is good for train travel, the rest of the country lacks bigtime, especially compared to Europe. I was in eastern Czech where my wife is from and the mass transit there blows away what I am use to in Florida.

I now feel bad about this guy losing his wife and daughter, even though it was over 30 years ago. He must have worked with the Clinton's back then.

why do commentors point out the obvious? of course rail sucks in the US compared to other countries. that's what he said. how about we just give ole joe some props for being a train fan and strong person on top of it?

I echo the other sentiments. This country NEEDS better mass transportation. I know our country isn't in the best financial shape, but I feel a network of alternative transportation would really give it a kick in the butt. Be it for jobs in construction / operation as well as travel and tourism.

I'm a southern boy, but after a few stints up north, I was amazed at the ease and affordability of the trains up there. I wish I could zoom down to Miami/Orlando or up to Atlanta w/o having to worry about driving.

How do other countries handle acquiring land for such use? Do you think we're truly beyond getting an infrastructure in place?

I wish we could just have a new tax added for gasoline that would go towards a nationwide network of high speed trains and start building on it...oh...yesterday.
We're not prepared for $5 or $6 gasoline. It's just depressing. The price of oil may be coming down but it certainly won't stay down.
Mass transportation is the way to go.

"How do other countries handle acquiring land for such use?"

Some combination of the following:

1. Small land mass with short distances between cities
2. Totalitarian government

The railroad companies were given PLENTY of land for rail. The problem is that when rail use started subsiding, some of the land was sold off. As much as I like cycling, some of the Rails to Trails stuff needs to go back to rails.

As for speed, the problem is that priority used to be given to passenger traffic over freight and now it's the opposite way around. So Amtrak trains have to pull over to a siding every time a freight train wants the track.

I'm for high speed trains if they can use the rights-of-way we've already got or keep from eminent domaining too many poor people without proper compensation. However, I think getting Amtrak back to the kind of rail standard this country had in the '30s and '40s would be an improvement just by itself. And to put my money where my mouth is, I joined the National Association of Rail Passengers.

(Love that '70s picture! Good on Biden for train commuting.)

I'm all for the expansion of rail, especially high speed rail. I can only hope, though, that they do a better job with new construction than they did with the Acela i the northeast. They put the high-speed track too close to the regular rail, and as a result the train can't actually go significantly faster than the regular rail. The trip from Boston to NY is 3 1/2 to 4 hours versus 4 to 4 1/2, at twice the price.

Every member of Congress should be required to spend a month in Tokyo, and be forbidden from using a car. We would have oodles of funding for public transportation the day after they got back.

Our current suburb, expressway and automobile model is aburdly inefficient, ineffective, and expensive relative to good public transportation systems, and I have never met anyone who has lived in Japan or Europe who disagrees.

I don't drive all that much (under 10,000 per year), but I just figured last night that I will spend about $5500 this year for my small truck and all related expenses...and it's already paid off. I was spending about $150/month on transportation when I lived in Japan two years ago.

Any reason why the gigantic medians inside many of our interstate highways couldn't be used for rail lines? They already go where most people want to go.

Superbad:

"1. Small land mass with short distances between cities"

I live in Central Europe and if I want I can travel to Siberia by train, what's your point?

"2. Totalitarian government"

I don't understand, you mean that it takes a totalitarian government to get land for a railway but you're expecting that there's no such issue when building roads.

Also, do you realize that a railway is way smaller than a freeway, much cheaper, much cleaner, much safer and capable of more dense traffic?

The only totalitarianism that I see is from the hegemony of cars and people who roam comment sections of blogs deliberately making mediocre arguments.

The little I know about US history tells me that it's a country whose strenght was initially built on a strong railway maybe it can be so once again...

I lived in Japan for six years. Trains are everywhere, and fees are reasonable. It's so relaxing to get on a train, pay $8 and read a book for an hour until you arrive. The stations are vibrant, bustling areas of activities, full of people meeting friends, restaurants, and shopping. Vast swaths of the population go their entire lives without driving and paper drivers are rampant.

@ cyclocross
Well, it'll be trains or nothing, so here's to hoping it gets done. Electric vehicles will probably never get the energy density to traverse such barren landscapes, and even fast recharging will take much longer than filling a tank of gas. Flying is out. Biofuels are pretty much impossible if we wish to maintain food supplies and soil integrity. Electric trains are pretty much how people will have to get around.

@ Nimic
Totally agree. IF the Japanese could find the room to lay tracks for the Shinkansen (bullet train) in their narrow, 85% mountainous country, we in the US can easily find the space with our vast tracks of relatively flat land. 200 mph trains that deliver people into the hearts of major cities in a few hours from their destination will revitalize urban centers and compensate for the decline of the airline industry.

@ Senay
Nice try, but use Google next time. The Clintons were still in school in 1972, and had yet to meet.

@ PJ
Would you be willing to make WWII type sacrifices to allow the country to put its resources into building a huge alternative energy infrastructure for power and a massive rail infrastructure for transportation over the next decade or so? That's what it's going to take. And there's not much time.

@ Superbad
Japan has one of the best rail systems in the world, and they have one of the most democratic governments in the world. And the country is well over a thousand miles long to boot. Japan is 85% mountainous and one of the most active earthquake and volcanic places on Earth. This results in a lot of extra construction like five mile tunnels and special bracing for tracks that other countries don't need to implement. Yet they've still accomplished it. We can too.

@ Chad
You know once they discovered Shinjuku they'd never leave.

I just want to re-iterate everything said by JSDreyer. Japan's system is incredible and there is no reason we can't do it here. Bullet trains are so much better than planes for medium length trips that it is hard to imagine anyone advocating flight after having ridden one of those trains. For $110, you can cover the 300+ miles from Osaka to the heart of Tokyo in 2:45, with no lines or wait for security and a train that stops on the dot at the exact minute your ticket says it will, every time. The seats are as big as plane's business class seats, and the ride smoother and more comfortable. Tickets are one fixed price...no hours of shopping around, ridiculous fees, etc. Cleanliness, service, and safety are superb. There is no comparison. The trains win on every metric.

The stations themselves are incredible as well, as JS mentioned. I have literally spent entire days exploring the biggest stations like Shinjuku in Tokyo or Umeda in Osaka.

We currently have millions of construction workers and contractors out of work due to the housing bubble collapse. This is the perfect opportunity to rebuild our failing infrastructure and to build for the first time the renewable energy and public transportation systems that we should have been building for the last 30 years.

Instead, we got SUVs, McMansions, and cheap Chinese crap. Boy, did we @#$@# up.

Amtrak is the reuslt of the railroads getting rid of a money losing part of their industry. Passenger rail traffic in the US has, with very few exceptions, always been run at a loss.

Something to remember however about the railroads in the US, they are on land owned by the railroad company, not the US government. They also pay taxes for all that land they own. So when people step up and sasy we need better rail in the US, remember that what they are really doing is requesting services from a private company for improved transportation on their private netwrok of tracks.

There are laws that state that a railroad must provide sevice (common carrier laws) but there is no regulation anymore, so the costs will be set by the railroad. If you are going to ask for service, especially priority service (on railroads today so busy that they are having capacity issues, moving more tonnage now then even in World War 2) be ready to pay for it, becuase you are competing for a seat on a train vs. UPS and FedEx shipping as well as intermodal/internations container traffic on land-bridge express routes.

-Lego

Lego, the railroads got that land as a gift. New acquisitions they may have paid for, but the initial land was gotten as a grant so it's not like they have no debt to society.

@Chad: "We currently have millions of construction workers and contractors out of work ..."

Hmm, maybe it's time to bring back the WPA, which built so many public works during the depression. Unfortunately, this time around, our government is already so far in debt that we can't afford it.

I worked for 15 years and had people help from all across the state concerning getting rail service from St. Louis to Springfield and Branson and on the Tulsa. Last year in Missouri the highway department tried to convince the State Legislature to help get funding for Amtrak from Stylus to Branson and on. They say it will help relieve traffic on interstate 44 and help drivers have other options. Rolla, Lebanon, Springfield, Branson and many other cities could benefit from the economic development it could bring

Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden has spent many years promoting the idea that additional routes will increase traffic in general on Amtrak. . What about those gas prices? If Biden becomes vice president he will bring more Rail Passenger Service to Missouri and the United States.

Sincerely,

Steven L. Reed
1441 South Estate Ave.
Springfield, MO 65804

stevenlloydreed@hotmail.com

417-425-4182