What's up with railfans who hate trains?

Gilbert B Norman wrote:First, we should note that passenger revenues comprise not more than 2% of Total Railway Operating Revenues

That's not true worldwide. I'm not even sure if it's true in the US if you include urban rail agencies.

RussNelson wrote:

neroden wrote:No transportation route has ever been built without either (1) government interference to help acquire land, or (2) plain old "adverse possession", a.k.a. private actors just taking the land without permission.

(Of course, if you're a real radical and don't believe that land ownership is justified, I have to give you a different argument, but you sound like someone who's been hoodwinked by debunked "Austrian economics".)

Sorry, never seen Austrian economics debunked. Hard to debunk when there's no bunk. And I doubt very much your first statement. It's too unlikely to be true in every instance. Take, for example, mine railways. Oh, now you have to start qualifying your statement, don't you? So much for your concern about other people being full of bunk!

I could give the rather thorough set of qualifications, but yes, mine railways are not "transportation routes" in the meaning I was using, and neither is the hallway in your house. And yes, Austrian economics is garbage. Here's a nice quote from Hayek:
http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2010/07 ... me-to.html

Of course, there was no such mathematical "proof", and buying an overcoat does not increase unemployment (empirically proven).

RussNelson wrote:

neroden wrote:until you rediscover the reasons why money is government-sponsored. Transportation is government-sponsored for similarly sound *network effect* reasons, and so is the Internet.

Depressingly ignorant you are, sir.

Depressingly ignorant you are, sir. I guess I do have to explain it all since you didn't bother to look any of it up. Here's the short version. The amount of money in circulation is a function of the creation of short-term IOUs by all manner of institutions, but the supply of tradable short-term loans which act as money equivalents has been kept under tight government control, getting tighter for most of history since the start of the industrial revolution, because if you don't, you get financial crises. Like the one we had two years ago. Banks are government-licensed operations regulated within an inch of their lives for a very good reason -- they're subject to bank runs, and are capable of destabilizing the entire industrial system both by overextending credit and by underextending credit. (This is a form of network effect.) In a society with a high percentage of subsistence agriculture, the deleterious effects of banks which are not essentially government-backed are tolerable. In a modern society, they're not, which is why all our banks are government-licensed, government-guaranteed (FDIC), and have the details of their business operations specified by the government (capital requirements, reserve requirements, etc. etc.) Removal of some of these regulations in the mid-90s was disastrous ten years later, and the result was an admission that even nominally not-government-backed banks were government-backed.

Most of the rest of your nonsense was debunked by other posters.

Transportation is just one example of linear infrastructure (think wires and pipes also).

Only thing you have right. These are all quintessential public goods, *with* rights thickets *and* network effects, and therefore quite easy to supply in a unified government-controlled situation, and completely impossible to supply in a laissez-faire situation. There's a reason the Roman government built roads and then there were very few good roads built in Europe during the entire fragmented feudal period.

And it's specifically the roads or tracks which have this characteristic, not the vehicles, which is why the English "privatization" worked tolerably once the rails went back into public hands. Transportation networks extending beyond the domain of a single overlord are practically impossible to build due to a "rights thicket", the problem of needing to get permission from every single person along the route. In this country, the single overlord is government. Usually. It's better when it's a democratically elected government. When it isn't, the network effects often lead to a private monopoly which is responsive to no-one. Think pre-breakup AT&T (which is frankly reforming).

And it's specifically the roads or tracks which have this characteristic, not the vehicles, which is why the English "privatization" worked tolerably once the rails went back into public hands.

Exactly the opposite of how METRA works in the Chicago metro area. Privately owned right of way (owned by freight railroads), and passenger service run by a public agency.

It works rather well despite current budget problems.

I'd say that privately owned rails failed in the UK because the owners acted like rural landlords, rather than having an interest (and legal requirement) to perform road maintenance.

neroden wrote:...since you didn't bother to look any of it up.

Oh, I'm quite familiar with orthodox economics, but I lack your blind faith in it ("All Hail Keynes!"). If you knew anything, then you would know that nobody actually believes Keynes anymore ... which is why "New Keynsianism" is needed. His magnum opus of unreadable because it makes no sense ("animal spirits" isn't an explanation, it's a shrug). Ludwig von Mises' _Human Action_ is unreadable because every sentence causes you to stop and think about everything it implies.

neroden wrote:In a modern society (...) all our banks are government-licensed, government-guaranteed ...

I hate to bring facts to your fantasy, but you can't explain away Canada. Much less government regulation, much less financial crises. I mean, if your "government regulation is better for customers than customer regulation" idea was true, then there would have been fewer financial crises following the creation of the Fed than before. Yet the Great Depression of 1929, and the Great Recession (ongoing, and getting worse in spite of the Keynsian "stimulus"), happened not under regulation by customers, but under regulation by government.

Transportation is just one example of linear infrastructure (think wires and pipes also).

These are all quintessential public goods,

Wow. That's pathetic. You have absolutely no idea of what constitutes a public good. Non-excludable and non-rivalrous simply do not apply to railroads. Railroads CAN exclude other railroads from using their tracks or their power or their cars. And when a train is on a set of tracks, no other train can use those tracks.

I'm done arguing with you since it's pretty clear that you have but a shallow understanding of economics (feel free to assert the same about me, but remember who just had to explain Public Goods to whom). You didn't arrive at your position through logic and facts; therefore logic and facts aren't going to change your mind.

I thought I might get some response in what seems like a contentious thread. Hello? I'm a sometimes anarchist, and I sometimes hate some trains!
I guess I'm just feeling frustrated that this country can't seem to get anything built while every other country in the world seems to be spiking down track. Out of greed, ignorance and spite we destroyed the greatest network of passenger rail in the universe and now we can't even cobble together enough to get us back to a level of 1910 service.
My latest rail geek and modelbuilding obsession has been the 3rd Avenue Railway. Despite the name, they had streetcar lines covering Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester. By the 1930s they were broke, facing a hostile political environment and all the pressures from cars and bus lines. While other lines went under, they began to buy up and refurbish second hand cars from these lines, some less than ten years old. Then they began splicing their old single truck cars into bigger cars and finally, they began building hundreds of state of the art cars in their own shops. How inspiring! In the middle of the Depression, they're employing workers, making do with what they have, recycling....but then, along comes Mayor Laguardia. He hated streetcars and tried to force the 3rd Ave. to convert to buses. WWII slowed down the process but by 1947 the streetcars were gone.
So here's some politican contradictions...a Republican, good government, man of the people type guy, sucker punching
a corpration thatwas doing the right thing in a green before its time way. Was LaGuardia part of the Great Streetcar Conspiracy? He also kept Brooklyn from buying another 500 PCC cars after the first 100 were a huge hit!! I think he was just going along with conventional wisdom...he's mayor of the Capital of the Future and all these clunky olde trolleys and elevateds are just slowing things down.
So where's that 3rd Avenue Railway spirit in America today? By the way, we're still waiting for that subway to replace the elevateds that the Little Flower knocked down. (Wait, 3rd Ave. El hung on til '55) Someone show me something on rails that's really working or getting built. High speed rail? The closest thing we'll get is thatmedium speed shuttle to Disneyworld, if it ever gets running. I know things are easier to get done under authoritarian regimes but isn't it embarassing that China has 42 high speed lines under construction and we have a lot of studies and pipe dreams?
Any real upgrades to long distance rail in this country seem improbable, so maybe commuter/light rail is the only realistic short term hope. Let's face it, we're not the only foamers here. The same yuppies who wouldn'd be caught dead on a bus seem to get all mushy at the idea of riding on an electric choo choo. If that's what it takes to get people out of their cars, and if it doesn't bankrupt the government and actually gets built, lets lay some track.

neroden wrote:

Gilbert B Norman wrote:First, we should note that passenger revenues comprise not more than 2% of Total Railway Operating Revenues

That's not true worldwide. I'm not even sure if it's true in the US if you include urban rail agencies.

OK; while Ithought my position was presented with adequate clarity, such does not appear to be the case:

Gilbert B Norman wrote:First, we should note that passenger revenues comprise not more than 2% of Total Railway Operating Revenues; also we should note that the total of Amtrak contract payments made to the Union Pacific comprise less than one percent (< 1%) of its ROR;

First allow me to clarify that I was addressing railroad revenues within the US and not worldwide.

The 2% passenger amount includes all passenger trains operated by agencies that are recognized as railroads. 1% of such represents Amtrak and the remainder the various regional (commuter) agencies throughout the country. It does not include "rapid transit' operation of any agency that operates trains over railroads and rapid transit lines.

I'll readilly acknowledge that the passenger percentage worldwide is considerably higher than here in the US.

A simple answer to the question without going through the intricacies of the Austrian School vs. Keynes and what not- just look at the demographics (at least in the U.S.) of the railfan community- and you'll see what drives their outlook. I'll leave it at that.

In today's world, almost all of the transit services that were provided by private companies are now provided by some form of government, usually in the form of transit authorities.

(This from a poster a while back) Anyway, perhaps in the U.S. But in Japan (which last time I checked, was part of "today's world"), there are plenty of private enterprise railways that provide urban transport profitably- one of the pioneers, Hankyu Rlwy of Osaka, was inspired by the business model of Henry Huntington and his Pacific Electric Railway- another example of an idea born in the USA that was put into better use in a foreign country today (see also W. Deming).

jaystreetcrr wrote:I thought I might get some response in what seems like a contentious thread. Hello? I'm a sometimes anarchist, and I sometimes hate some trains!
I guess I'm just feeling frustrated that this country can't seem to get anything built while every other country in the world seems to be spiking down track. Out of greed, ignorance and spite we destroyed the greatest network of passenger rail in the universe and now we can't even cobble together enough to get us back to a level of 1910 service.
My latest rail geek and modelbuilding obsession has been the 3rd Avenue Railway. Despite the name, they had streetcar lines covering Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester. By the 1930s they were broke, facing a hostile political environment and all the pressures from cars and bus lines. While other lines went under, they began to buy up and refurbish second hand cars from these lines, some less than ten years old. Then they began splicing their old single truck cars into bigger cars and finally, they began building hundreds of state of the art cars in their own shops. How inspiring! In the middle of the Depression, they're employing workers, making do with what they have, recycling....but then, along comes Mayor Laguardia. He hated streetcars and tried to force the 3rd Ave. to convert to buses. WWII slowed down the process but by 1947 the streetcars were gone.
So here's some politican contradictions...a Republican, good government, man of the people type guy, sucker punching
a corpration thatwas doing the right thing in a green before its time way. Was LaGuardia part of the Great Streetcar Conspiracy? He also kept Brooklyn from buying another 500 PCC cars after the first 100 were a huge hit!! I think he was just going along with conventional wisdom...he's mayor of the Capital of the Future and all these clunky olde trolleys and elevateds are just slowing things down.

LaGuardia was merely responding to popular opinion. By the 1940s, the Electric traction industry had been in a state of commercial decline for two decades. As previously stated, street cars were almost universally despised, but Manhattan residents had a particular dislike for elevated railways due to the noise. By removing the 2nd and 3rd Avenue Els, property values were increased while simultaneously increasing the quality of life. As we all know, New Yorkers are still waiting for the 2nd Avenue Subway, but that's not the fault of long dead LaGuardia.

jaystreetcrr wrote:So where's that 3rd Avenue Railway spirit in America today? By the way, we're still waiting for that subway to replace the elevateds that the Little Flower knocked down. (Wait, 3rd Ave. El hung on til '55) Someone show me something on rails that's really working or getting built. High speed rail? The closest thing we'll get is thatmedium speed shuttle to Disneyworld, if it ever gets running. I know things are easier to get done under authoritarian regimes but isn't it embarassing that China has 42 high speed lines under construction and we have a lot of studies and pipe dreams?
Any real upgrades to long distance rail in this country seem improbable, so maybe commuter/light rail is the only realistic short term hope. Let's face it, we're not the only foamers here. The same yuppies who wouldn'd be caught dead on a bus seem to get all mushy at the idea of riding on an electric choo choo. If that's what it takes to get people out of their cars, and if it doesn't bankrupt the government and actually gets built, lets lay some track.

Why bother with attempting to recreate a network of electric traction systems that started to disappear even before 1920? These systems were built very cheaply, paid substandard wages, frequently defrauded investors, and still weren't sustainable, even in an era when roads were poor and automobiles still required a hand crank to start. Today, engineering costs alone for light rail are exorbitant, so for even a limited system, you're look at huge public outlays. Similarly, highly unionized transit workers might have annual wage and benefit expenses in the low 6-figure range, much higher than prevailing wages, and a far cry from the days before WWI when a streetcar conductor made only a fraction of prevailing industrial wages. When all is said and done, the modern equivalent of an early 20th century streetcar/interurban line is less competitive today than when the systems were scrapped 55 to 90 years ago.

I don't solely blame LaGuardia or any other villain for killing off streetcars in New York. If anything, the subways did in a lot of lines, especially uptown/downtown in Manhattan. However, many crosstown Manhattan lines and routes in the outer boroughs could be feasible for traction but are now served with polluting buses. If certain lines had been kept rail and upgraded we'd be a lot better off.
I'm not on some big nostalgia trip for traction and as I've made clear in earlier posts it's too late and too expensive to go back now. And yes, traction companies were not ideal corporate citizens and few mourned when these predators were eaten by newer and bigger predators (oil and auto companies).
What's so bad about decent union wages for transit workers? Why should big government spending only go to sports arenas and infrastructure for real estate pyrimid scheme Potemkin villages?
My admiration for 3rd Ave Ry. and its president Slaughter Huff (what a name!) is not out of a desire to recreate some bygone system but that his spirit of doing things and making do has utterly vanished from this country. Choose your villians (unions, big gummint, corporations) but it's clear that the will to build sustainable infrastructure that serves all Americans is lacking.
This thread should really be called Railfans with conservative beliefs who don't want government spending on trains. I respect where some of yall are coming from and I don't think throwing a bunch of money at choo-choos is a panacea but what then? The "freedom" of the private automobile, subsidized until our economy and environment are in ruins?

Absolutely not. This thread should really be called Railfans who hate trains and the women who love them anyway.

Moderator's Note: This thread is now called "Moderators who hate political discussion and lock threads."