Bring trains back
Margaret Cowan Martin
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
I WOULD LIKE to add a big “Hoorah” to Matt Zimmerman’s message about rail passenger service possibly coming back to Emporia.
I’ve always loved trains and want to travel through the countryside by rail in a clean, comfortable, non-carsick-inducing way. When one sees old movies of train travel, one is filled with nostalgia and the desire to return to the comfort of a train ride. I hope this comes to fruition in the new green age of travel, soon.
Best wishes!
Margaret Cowan Martin
Emporia
seriouslyfolks (anonymous) says...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oGneW...
May 27, 2009 at 9:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
allintogether (anonymous) says...
I took the train from KC to St. Louis one weekend thinking it would be a push time wise. Takes me 3 hours 15 minutes to drive it and the train wouldn't take much longer. I left KC at 9am and 7 hours and 50 minutes later I was in St. Louis. I was so astonished by delays due to the priority given to freight on railways that I rented a car and drove back on Sunday.
I have a feeling that if there is not a dedicated passenger rail line that can run with at least some predictability from wherever to wherever then we will see a lot of one way rail passengers and numerous spikes in rental car profits on weekends. If we can get a dedicated passenger line then I say All Aboard! I'll even wear one of those goofy engineer hats from the 60s and 70s.
May 27, 2009 at 12:22 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
bloomsbury (SC DIXON) says...
For some bizarre reason, since the 1960’s, Americans had the strange thinking that rail travel was a quaint remnant of the past. Meanwhile Japan, France, and many other countries saw rail travel for what it truly is: a template for travel of the future.
Vast amounts of cargo and people can go enormous distances for a fraction of the cost of other travel modes.
But America did all it could to go around merrily pulling up rail beds and destroying the work that a century ago built the nation.
A friend of mine lives pretty much in the hinterlands of England, about as far away from the capital as is possible. Recently in a discussion he and his friends were lamenting the fact that whereas their community once had 3 train stations they now have only one.
And yet they still have five trains daily to and from London!
A serious passenger rail system can and must be restored. Train travel is commonplace and vital on the east coast, the one area where it was allowed to remain intact.
Yet my English friends are amazed when I tell them that our nearest train option is about 110 miles away (round trip, by car, of course), that there is but one train a day with extremely limited destinations, and that it pulls out around 4 in the morning.
Hard to believe if you think about it.
The bottom line one must own and maintain a car here in the Midwest. We have no other choice. Buses no longer run to many small towns and most of us couldn’t afford to fly even if every town had an airport. Yet once nearly every burg had a depot.
It really is too sad that short-sighted thinking of the recent past has left us in the current situation. I'm for doing all that can be done to rectify it.
May 27, 2009 at 4:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )