by Tadman
David Benton wrote:Voters (generally older) tend to like trains. They may never ride them, but they don't like to hear they are losing their train service. Many voters, in a place like Houston , may not know or care that Amtrak service is available. But you can safely say most people in a small town will know if there is Amtrak service. And rural people will tend to fight for the loss of any service.I tend to agree with your thoughts here. Amtrak is relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things but the voter doesn't know that. It looks good for a congressman to save the train for what is a tiny cost in the grand scheme of things.
That said, imagine the possibilities of this scenario: Completely wipe the Sunset. Run 2x/day to Dallas and 2x/day to San Antonio. How much more useful is that than a 3x/week train to nowhere? Although I tend to favor this second scenario, I enjoy the long distance trains as well during my touristy times. My point is that I don't think anybody ever sits down and looks at the big picture. It's just a dogmatic "lets save what we had in 1971 which was simply a pruned 1951 route system" attitude. What other business runs their 1951 model?
The new Acela: It's not Aveliable.