Why was Amtrak CEO Forced to Take Car to the Joe Biden Station Ribbon Cutting?

[andymays]

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/03/19/joe-biden-train-station/

Excerpt:

Amtrak CEO got there… by car. The train on which he was going to arrive at the ceremony for the Conductor of America’s Train to the Future broke down.

[NJ Stinks]

So what?

That train and station is money well spent IMO.

[JustRalph]

So what?

That train and station is money well spent IMO.

It's a government run railroad, that has eaten up about 50billion in subsidies over the last 40 years or so. It is a third rate operation running on first rate tax dollars.

Why would you think any different? It's owned by the Government. It's paid for by the Taxpayer and runs like shit. Right up your alley...........

[Ocala Mike]

Some history/perspective about Amtrak:

Article by George O’Keefe, Jr. posted at another website.


Forty years ago this May privately operated intercity passenger rail service came to an end in America. Although historians might note some continuing operations in the Mid-West and South, on May 1, 1971 practically every single intercity passenger train left at that time in the United States was either cancelled or converted to service operated by the National Passenger Railroad Corporation (NPRC) known publicly as "Amtrak".

Due to a combination of factors famously described in a Trains magazine article from April 1959 titled "Who Shot the Passenger Train?" by Mr. David P. Morgan, passenger rail service had become a burden which the railroads were eager to shed. Today, Amtrak continues to function as the lone national operator of intercity passenger rail service. As before there are a few anomalous operators who might be considered intercity either by quirks of law or regulation but none of them are serious contenders for imminent national expansion of passenger operations.

This leaves Amtrak, our national passenger railroad, as the sole viable operation which can run intercity passenger trains anywhere in the continental United States. The first forty years of Amtrak’s history have been marked by the initial consolidation of operations followed by several periods of expansion and contraction that have resulted in the net outcome of a smaller national passenger railroad network by mileage but ultimately record ridership over the past decade.

~~read the rest at the link below~~

http://www.railroad.net/articles/columns/guest/Amtrak_New_Century.php

[prospector]

no profit...no business..no more taxpayer money

[HUSKER55]

there is a reason the railroads ditched the service.

[NJ Stinks]

It's a government run railroad, that has eaten up about 50billion in subsidies over the last 40 years or so. It is a third rate operation running on first rate tax dollars.

Why would you think any different? It's owned by the Government. It's paid for by the Taxpayer and runs like shit. Right up your alley...........

Nice, Ralph. :sleeping:

Get on a train once in a while. It's nice and it beats being stuck sitting on 95 by a mile.

[JustRalph]

NJ, I have spent time on a train. It's just not worth the money. It's a subsidized Boondoggle of epic propportions

[wisconsin]

Nice, Ralph. :sleeping:

Get on a train once in a while. It's nice and it beats being stuck sitting on 95 by a mile.

It's ok to take a train around metro areas, or from say, Philly to NYC, or in my case to Chicago. It's entirely another thing to take one across the country.