The Price We Pay For Conservative Scorn Of Amtrak

So just who are the real Americans? The ones who come to mind when we
speak of those who care for the well being of their neighbors. The
ones who sacrifice to give of their resources to help those less
fortunate. the ones who shell out their fair share of tax dollars.
Those who give their lives to keep our nation safe. Would it be the
1%? Probably not. But if it is you and me, how come we keep getting
the shaft? But even more tragic is the fact that we are supporting
the 1%. And how are they showing their gratitude? By paying their
Lackeys to undercut our social services and our public services. Even
as the cries of anguish still rose from the twisted Amtrak passenger
cars, Congress busied itself chopping a huge hunk out of the already
dismal Amtrak budget. How do we continue including these 1%ers as
Americans? They are sucking the marrow from our bones. Our infra
structure will soon reach the point of no return. Our inner cities
will become garbage piles. And our children and grand children will
die younger and poorer than did our parents. If an infestation of
mice chewed your houses insulation and tore up the insulation in your
walls, would you consider them fellow occupants? You would do all in
your power to rid your home of these little pests. But here we are,
allowing little pests to strip our resources, steal our factories and
jobs, send our youth out to be gunned down, and we don't lift a hand
to rid ourselves of these varmints.
How is it that I would be thrown in prison for life if I walked up to
you and shot you in the heart, but if I merely polluted your home and
neighborhood with toxic fumes, I would be hailed as a world leader?

Carl Jarvis


On 5/14/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> The Price We Pay For Conservative Scorn Of Amtrak
> Published on
> Thursday, May 14, 2015
> by
> Campaign for America's Future Blog
> The Price We Pay For Conservative Scorn Of Amtrak
> by
> Isaiah Poole
>
> The Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia on Tuesday night claimed the
> lives of at least seven people, with a dozen still unaccounted for as of
> Thursday morning. (Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
> On Tuesday night, an Amtrak train spectacularly derailed on its way through
> Philadelphia, killing at least seven people. On Wednesday morning, a House
> appropriations subcommittee voted to cut federal funding for Amtrak by
> about
> 20 percent. Those are two dots Republicans don't want you to connect.
> "Don't use this tragedy in that way," Rep. Mike Simpson is quoted in a
> Politico article as saying, after Democrats on the appropriations
> subcommittee for transportation and housing criticized Republicans for
> proposing and eventually approving the cuts.
> The vote took place before news reports that the train may have been going
> around a curve at speeds of about 100 miles per hour when the derailment
> occurred. If those reports had surfaced earlier, the Republican objections
> to linking budget cuts to the derailment would likely have been much
> louder.
> The objections would also have been equally out of line. Here are a couple
> of issues to consider.
> First, there's the site of the crash itself, which the New York Times
> reported is at roughly the same location as another spectacular train
> derailment in which 79 people died - in 1943.
> The curve ultimately proved not to be the key factor in that disaster, but
> it does raise this question: Why is that curve there in the first place,
> some 72 years later? Why has there not been an effort to rebuild that curve
> so that trains could move through that area safely at higher speeds?
> The answer to that question is easy: conservative scorn for Amtrak, which
> has been under sustained attack almost from the time it was created, and
> which has never received the levels of investment in tracks and rail cars
> that would be appropriate for a national passenger rail system.
> Second, if reports prove true that the derailment was caused by the train
> operating at twice the speed it should have in that section of the track,
> why were there not automatic controls that would have slowed the train down
> and perhaps prevented the derailment? The Philadelphia Inquirer reports
> that
> "an automatic train control system designed to prevent speeding was not in
> place where Amtrak Train 188 crashed."
> In fact, there is a requirement that Amtrak, commuter lines and freight
> railroads have positive train controls in place by the end of 2015.
> Unfortunately, the task (and the bulk of the funding) was left to the
> privately run freight railroads, on whose lines Amtrak runs. Trying to
> implement the train control system on the cheap appears to have
> dramatically
> failed. (This article on the Eno Transportation Center website has some
> background.) In January, notes Gregg Levine writing for Al Jazeera, Amtrak
> published a newsletter in which it said it was "hopeful" that positive
> train
> control would be implemented throughout the entire Northeast Corridor by
> the
> end of the year. But in March, the acting administrator of the Federal
> Railroad Administration, Sarah Feinberg, told Congress that the railroad
> industry would miss the 2015 deadline.
> Meanwhile, a $17 million increase request from the Obama administration for
> the safety and operations budget of the Federal Railroad Administration,
> which includes funding for positive train control, was denied by the
> appropriations subcommittee. The budget was held level at $186 million.
> Interestingly, the Republican committee report on the appropriation for the
> Department of Transportation had far more to say about the pay of workers
> serving food on the trains than it did about needed investments to ensure
> trains could operate safely.
> "Yesterday's tragedy in Philadelphia should be a wake-up call to this
> Committee - we must provide sufficient funding for Amtrak's critical
> infrastructure projects to ensure a safer transportation system," Rep.
> David
> Price (D-N.C.), ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said in a statement
> after the vote. "The majority's shortsighted, draconian budget cuts stand
> in
> the way of the investments that a great country must make."
> Price is not out of line. Advocates for increasing investments in
> transportation infrastructure - ranging from labor unions to members of the
> U.S. Chamber of Commerce - had planned for Wednesday to be a lobbying day
> on
> Capitol Hill to call attention to the need for more federal investment in
> our transportation network. Now the entire nation's attention is focused on
> what happens when we choose not to invest in safety and other improvements
> to our rail network. It's time to ignore the people on the right who don't
> want us to make the connection between a disaster and the obstruction of
> investments that could have prevented it.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License.
> Isaiah Poole
>
> Isaiah J. Poole has been the editor of OurFuture.org since 2007 and also
> directs the Campaign for America's Future's online communications.
> The Price We Pay For Conservative Scorn Of Amtrak
> Published on
> Thursday, May 14, 2015
> by
> Campaign for America's Future Blog
> The Price We Pay For Conservative Scorn Of Amtrak
> by
> Isaiah Poole
> . 20 Comments
> .
> . The Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia on Tuesday night claimed
> the lives of at least seven people, with a dozen still unaccounted for as
> of
> Thursday morning. (Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
> . On Tuesday night, an Amtrak train spectacularly derailed on its way
> through Philadelphia, killing at least seven people. On Wednesday morning,
> a
> House appropriations subcommittee voted to cut federal funding for Amtrak
> by
> about 20 percent. Those are two dots Republicans don't want you to connect.
> . "Don't use this tragedy in that way," Rep. Mike Simpson is quoted in
> a Politico article as saying, after Democrats on the appropriations
> subcommittee for transportation and housing criticized Republicans for
> proposing and eventually approving the cuts.
> . The vote took place before news reports that the train may have been
> going around a curve at speeds of about 100 miles per hour when the
> derailment occurred. If those reports had surfaced earlier, the Republican
> objections to linking budget cuts to the derailment would likely have been
> much louder.
> . The objections would also have been equally out of line. Here are a
> couple of issues to consider.
> First, there's the site of the crash itself, which the New York Times
> reported is at roughly the same location as another spectacular train
> derailment in which 79 people died - in 1943.
> The curve ultimately proved not to be the key factor in that disaster, but
> it does raise this question: Why is that curve there in the first place,
> some 72 years later? Why has there not been an effort to rebuild that curve
> so that trains could move through that area safely at higher speeds?
> The answer to that question is easy: conservative scorn for Amtrak, which
> has been under sustained attack almost from the time it was created, and
> which has never received the levels of investment in tracks and rail cars
> that would be appropriate for a national passenger rail system.
> Second, if reports prove true that the derailment was caused by the train
> operating at twice the speed it should have in that section of the track,
> why were there not automatic controls that would have slowed the train down
> and perhaps prevented the derailment? The Philadelphia Inquirer reports
> that
> "an automatic train control system designed to prevent speeding was not in
> place where Amtrak Train 188 crashed."
> In fact, there is a requirement that Amtrak, commuter lines and freight
> railroads have positive train controls in place by the end of 2015.
> Unfortunately, the task (and the bulk of the funding) was left to the
> privately run freight railroads, on whose lines Amtrak runs. Trying to
> implement the train control system on the cheap appears to have
> dramatically
> failed. (This article on the Eno Transportation Center website has some
> background.) In January, notes Gregg Levine writing for Al Jazeera, Amtrak
> published a newsletter in which it said it was "hopeful" that positive
> train
> control would be implemented throughout the entire Northeast Corridor by
> the
> end of the year. But in March, the acting administrator of the Federal
> Railroad Administration, Sarah Feinberg, told Congress that the railroad
> industry would miss the 2015 deadline.
> Meanwhile, a $17 million increase request from the Obama administration for
> the safety and operations budget of the Federal Railroad Administration,
> which includes funding for positive train control, was denied by the
> appropriations subcommittee. The budget was held level at $186 million.
> Interestingly, the Republican committee report on the appropriation for the
> Department of Transportation had far more to say about the pay of workers
> serving food on the trains than it did about needed investments to ensure
> trains could operate safely.
> "Yesterday's tragedy in Philadelphia should be a wake-up call to this
> Committee - we must provide sufficient funding for Amtrak's critical
> infrastructure projects to ensure a safer transportation system," Rep.
> David
> Price (D-N.C.), ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said in a statement
> after the vote. "The majority's shortsighted, draconian budget cuts stand
> in
> the way of the investments that a great country must make."
> Price is not out of line. Advocates for increasing investments in
> transportation infrastructure - ranging from labor unions to members of the
> U.S. Chamber of Commerce - had planned for Wednesday to be a lobbying day
> on
> Capitol Hill to call attention to the need for more federal investment in
> our transportation network. Now the entire nation's attention is focused on
> what happens when we choose not to invest in safety and other improvements
> to our rail network. It's time to ignore the people on the right who don't
> want us to make the connection between a disaster and the obstruction of
> investments that could have prevented it.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License.
> /author/isaiah-poole
> /author/isaiah-poole /author/isaiah-poole
> Isaiah J. Poole has been the editor of OurFuture.org since 2007 and also
> directs the Campaign for America's Future's online communications.
>
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