The NeoCons and Amtrak

The biggest concept the NeoCons are pushing with Amtrak is to privatize it. To them, everything should be in the hands of the private sector where it can make the most money for some entrepaneur.

Out of curiosity, does anyone remember Reagan's approach with Amtrak? Or was it not a issue then. The biggest irony is that Amtrak was created by Nixon, although this was pre-NeoCon time. I'm sure we wouldn't be having this discussion if the elected President was in office....

Most reasonable conservatives recognize that Amtrak can't be expected to prosper any more than can the Postal Service. We/they just want it to advance toward an atmosphere of entrepreneurship, and see its management guided by market opportunities rather than the whims of the politically influential.

Remember, "Atlas Shrugged" was written about a railroad, and Ayn Rand is reputed to have been suprised at how many of the obstacles she envisioned were already in place.

I would have to disagree with that thought somewhat, because I do not see wide spread evidence of a "privatize Amtrak" movement. There may be some who think that way - I haven't seen them - I doubt that privatization would be a good move at this time. The Conservative ideal tagged as "privatization" is really called self-reliance.

Take a look at the Heritage Foundation's position on Transportation and Smart Growth:

http://www.heritage.org/research/smartG ... es2004.cfm

Take a look at the Cato Institute's position papers on Transportation:

http://www.cato.org/research/regulatory ... ation.html

David Telesha wrote:STOP THE PAINT SCHEME CHANGES! I don’t even think the New Haven APPLIED this many paint schemes on all of its equipment in this short time. How much money could be saved once everything is brought up to the Lava Lamp scheme and left in it for a decade!?!?

Well, actually, Amtrak has stopped the paint scheme changes. David Gunn dumped the "lava lamp" scheme (which was only applied to certain Amfleet I's anyway) and instead gone with the much simpler to apply, much easier to maintain Phase IV scheme, modified to include the new Amtrak logo.

Amtrak's problem in this regard has been that the previous management totally screwed up the implementation of Acela. "Acela Regional" was a bad idea anyway, but it was made worse by the fact that it didn't mean anything, as there was nothing to distinguish that from the Northeast Direct during the 2-3 years in which they ran concurrently.

When in the mid-to-late 1990s, Amtrak started a "Capstone" rebuild program for the Amfleet cars. Then for "Acela Regional," they started another rebuild program, without having finished the first one. In some cases, cars that had been Capstoned were "Acelaed," while other cars remained untouched since the 1980s.

But that's all on a tangent. Needless to say, there are very few phase III Amfleets left, and the lava lamps are disappearing just as fast.

It seems the Neo Con's ultimate objective is to "starve government" until we only pay taxes for the military. They believe that the "free market" will take care of everything else, hence their obsession with privatization. It appears however that the beginings of their utopian notions have hit some snags...witness the charter schools in California going belly up and the bankrupt privately owned airlines (begging for more gov handouts than Amtrak would ever dream of) and well the Neo Con dream could be fading already.