Re: I Heart Trains!
Phoenix
3/29/2012 1:13:02 AM
@Street smart after reading your posts about train rides I feel I should try to take some long distance train rides again. My last adventure was riding in trains in Europe to visit a few countries there during my student days. And it was really great! Of course I didn't really worry much about food I just needed some candy bars. I do take the subway but that hardly counts. I should make some time to enjoy a good train ride again. It is good if we can try to improve this more cleaner mode of transport. I don't like flying much either.
Let's hope the passenger trains here eventually have the style of the dining cars on the Eurostar. That's my idea of a train ride.
Reminiscences of Trains Past
Fred Goodman
3/28/2012 2:24:54 PM
My wife doesn't like flying. Her feelings about it have only grown in the years since 9/11, so we decided to take the train to New York from Los Angeles a few years ago.
Since I produce an online daily stock market report we made sure to leave LA on Saturday morning so I would only have to generate one report during the 3-1/2 day journey. I prepared myself with cellphone modem connection and off we went. The hook up worked reasonably well and thanks to a 4-hour layover in Chicago where I completed Monday's report, all went well.
A couple of things went less well. The food was truly awful microwaved stuff, compared to a similar journey I had taken in the 1950s, and the new two-story rail cars provided evidence that physics works.
Since you are now elevated to twice the distance from the track, what was a gentle vibration 55 years ago was now a violent thrusting back and forth as you walked through 5 or 6 cars to get to the dining car and back. Maybe there'll soon be conventions in Victorville that I can attend instead of in New York. I know I can easily get to Victorville by flying to Las Vegas where I can catch Harry Reid's bullet train.
There are trains and then their are boondoggles
Fred Goodman
3/28/2012 2:03:54 PM
No question about the desirability of having a high-speed railway between New York and other major cities in the East. The sheer volume of traffic between New York and Washington justifies it and would very likely make it financially self-sustaining within a few years.
I'm certain that is why Harry Reid is attempting to get a low interest, $4.9 billion loan from the Obama administration for his friends and contributors to build a 182 mile bullet train from Victorville, in the middle of the Mojave desert to Las Vegas.
All that visitors from Los Angeles would have to do is climb into their cars and drive the heavily populated and heavily trafficked 85 mile stretch to Victorville where they would park their cars and wait for a train to whisk them alongside the usually empty road for the balance of the journey.
Think of the gains that would accrue to Victorville at the expense of nearby Barstow, where officials estimate a loss of 2300 jobs. And don't forget the benefit to the casinos in Las Vegas, where Harry Reid is said to have investments and to the expansion of his campaign war chest.
Re: Raise Those Kids Right!
Street Smart
3/28/2012 12:48:33 PM
Adding the Newport dinner train to my to-do list, @TelecomFreq. When my sons were sailing and we had a house on Cape Cod I used to get up there quite often. Not so much these days, but this could be just the incentive I need to correct that!
This is a chicken and an egg thing. Do people avoid trains because there there is insufficient rail service, or is there insufficient rail service because people do not like trains?
I think the argument 20 years ago may have been different. But post 9/11, it is cumbersome to take a plane for a short haul. It can be much easier to take a train, if and when the availability is there.
It's easy to get from, say NYC to Washington DC. But the schedules are much more erratic if you're trying to go to some other locations. So more trains, and more high-speed trains, would be a nice option.
Jack C. Hellmann, President and CEO of Genesee & Wyoming, Inc., in Greenwich, CT, was one of the speakers at the Baron's Investment Conference last fall in NYC. Genesee & Wyoming owns and operates regional freight railroads in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the Netherlands and transports commodities such as coal, paper, metals and minerals.
This is not a Class 1 railroad--it's a short line, that handles the last mile from the main lines to the destinations.
The company represents about 5% of the assets of the Baron Focused Growth Fund, and is the only Railroad in the fund. Baron's is bullish on rail, which they define as a fuel efficient, safe, and cost effective way to move goods. In addition, they note that there are huge barriers to entry. As it was noted at the conference, "you don't see many entrepreneurs trying to start a railroad in their garage."
You can watch Hellmann here.
@tokyogai,
Agreed. And if you're talking to me, it's Scott, or Rayno, but not Ray.
Also one reason freight railroads are growing in addition to energy efficiciencies you cited is growth of domestic oil and energy production via coal and shale oil.
Re: Plenty of Railroads
tokyogai
3/28/2012 10:03:40 AM
Ray- All of these large rail companies move freight. The efficiency of trains is far better than trucks and it really shows in the numbers and profits. As for moving people, the numbers are just not big enough in this country to be profitable. Thus passenger service almost always requires subsidies. It is just not a profitable business in this land of cars where most people do not use public transportation.
Re: Raise Those Kids Right!
TelecomFreq
3/28/2012 9:16:41 AM
If any of you ever find yourself in Newport, Rhode Island. or any part of the state since its so small. You can take the Newport dinner train for a night out. The train itself is great and you get to see a beautiful historic city. I keep trying to schedual my trips to the Ocean State so I can take the dinner trip again, but it hasnt worked out yet.... yet
http://www.newportdinnertrain.com/
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