Just by chance, we came across an article recently that if you read it carefully, including the reader comments that follow it, tells you a great deal about the state of rail service in this country.
Especially considerations that effect the competition between freight and passenger rail. It’s clear, of course, that passenger rail has been overwhelmed by other modes of human transport, namely the personal auto and commercial aviation. Freight rail, on the other hand, has not been similarly transformed.
Here are the opening paragraphs:
Last year’s freight congestion that was snarling Amtrak service in the upper Midwest has shifted east, and it’s gotten so bad that Amtrak has resorted to putting passengers on buses. (Buses? What’s up with that??)
Congestion on Norfolk Southern in recent weeks has delayed Amtrak trains from Chicago to Detroit, Boston, New York and Washington.
And one near the end:
But it’s not even winter yet, and if Amtrak’s experience east of Chicago is any indication, things have already started to unravel.
You’ll find the article here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/09/242875_amtrak-woes-may-point-to-bigger.html?rh=1
No matter, there are still those who believe 2 + 2 = 5, and who will do anything to see that unaffordable and unsustainable passenger trains visit our community, so that we can all brag about it.
Don’t forget that NNEPRA has a bit of deferred maintenance to oversee before winter sets in: 22,000 ties need to be replaced, equivalent to about 7 total miles worth.
Given it’s a holiday today, we’ll leave things at that, other than to leave you with a few visuals that are worth a thousand words, or if you’re into games of chance, more than 22,000 ties.
Or for those a little slow on the uptake, like Side sometimes is, this one, which you might have seen arriving and departing at the Brunswick Departure Center.
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