Word: railroads
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...your book review of The Way to Go [Jan. 21], which makes a compelling case for a return to the railroads as the primary U.S. transportation system, you might have noted that in countries where train passengers are treated like welcome guests, railroads make money instead of costing governments and stockholders billions. The Canadian National Railroad, one of the world's best, has shown operating profits for all but three of the past 25 years...
...Railroad enthusiasts in recent years have ranked somewhere between walrus watchers and Zeppelin buffs. Now, they have emerged as the Cassandras of the energy crunch...
...distinctly chilled. In the face of fuel cutbacks and a growing resistance to new jetports, air travel is more parlous than ever. As the clickety-clackers have insisted for decades, there is no realistic alternative to mass transportation in the U.S. but the nation's once-magnificent railroad system. Even given the highly unlikely return of abundant fuel, the U.S. could not indefinitely tolerate or afford the poisonous pollution, cost, congestion, racket and uglification of a transportation system based on carbon monoxide and concrete. Even if automobiles could be made to run on recycled bath water, such problems...
...Railroads, unlike the billions of dollars worth of projected expressways and airports, are already in place; tracks, roadbeds and rights of way already exist. As the authors also point out, there is no more efficient form of transportation: a six-lane highway can move 9,000 people per hour (with an average car occupancy of 1.2 per trip); a single railroad track can transport 60,000 people per hour. Travel by electric-powered train is 23 times safer than by car, 2½ times safer than by plane-and largely without sins of emission. The equipment for a revitalized rail...
...Track Ventures. To be sure, American trains today are among the world's worst. From the Toonerville trolleys of commuterdom to the fusty relics that creak round the continent, they presently offer only slightly more attractive transportation than a Caterpillar tractor. Railroad managements generally, and frequently their employees, make no secret of their disdain for the passenger; the big money has always been in freight, real estate, mining and other off-track ventures. In the classic words of James Hill, a 19th century president of the old Great Northern, "A passenger train is like the male teat-neither useful...