1945:
Earlier this week, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy tweeted:
@ChrisMurphyCT
You don’t have to look hard to figure out why China is gaining on us so rapidly.
Beijing to Shanghai – distance: 800 miles –
train time: 4.3 hours
Boston to DC – distance: 440 miles –
train time: 7 hours
Maybe he should look a little harder at the figures.
First:
“Boston to DC
– Airline time: 1.6 hours”
The reason high‐speed rail never caught on in the United States is because we had jet airliners before Japan even started building its first bullet train. Why should we worry that a train from Beijing to Shanghai is faster than a train from Washington to Boston when our planes are twice as fast as the fastest trains in the world?
Second: China recently halted construction on two new high‐speed rail lines due to mounting debt. As of a year ago, China State Railway had an $850 billion debt, and China transport experts say 80 percent of that debt is due to construction of high‐speed rail lines. Construction is also partly paid for by local provinces, which have also gone heavily into debt for high‐speed rail. As a result, the country is slowing its expansion of high‐speed rail.
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Don’t insurt Chinese burret lail, you loundeye dogs!!!
Murphy is a blithering idiot.
I live smallish city in Ohio with an Amtrak station for over 40 years. I have never taken Amtrak and have only once ever heard of anyone I know taking the train to get anywhere.
I deal with ChiCom shit daily. They’re fucking inept. They could screw up a wet dream. There’s not an original thought that’s ever rolled through a China-mans head. They’re so fucking stupid, they copied the F-35.
Good point!
Try and get an easement for a fucking Rail line.
In the Western world, you cannot just lay down track and ship people to work camps to build solar panels for The New Green Deal.
@Brad
F-35
Good, Bad or Ugly?
So much conflicting info, any thoughts?
Your choice:
Ride on a fast, Chinese choo-choo train where buying a ticket requires a government approval with aminimum social credit score, or,
Ride on a slower, American choo-choo train (yeah, Amtrak) where you’re a free man (or woman).
At least it’ll be a choice for a while longer, at least.
Kcir
That “Platform” loses dog fights to P51s. Neocon influence. Should have gone with the F-22.
People in the US keep talking about the need for high speed trains. They are oblivious to the fact that those trains have to slow down to 25 MPH whenever they go through a town – which most tracks do every few miles.
High Speed. Yada Yada. Us old couples prefer a slow ride.
Self Proclaimed tonight’s soothyness.
https://youtu.be/GcCNcgoyG_0
Senator Chris Murphy. Democrat. Figures, although no doubt there are RINOS that share his enthusiasm for all things Communist Chinese.
What about the Wuhan flu, Chris? You likey like?
Haven’t been on Amtrac (heavily taxpayer subsidized and heavily in debt) since they vacated 1000s of milesnation wide.
The Amtrac passenger rail service needed $1.4 billion in subsidies from Congress in 2012, 2020 $4.9 billion in government funding to avoid service and job cuts, and address mounting costs and debt. They asked for a further $1.475 billion bailout after getting $1 billion from Congress in April 2020. It typically receives $2 billion in annual government support. And they Lost $700 million in 2020…
Transit agencies are urging Congress to approve up to $36 billion on top of a $25 billion bailout it approved in March. Urban transit systems have been devastated by millions of workers staying home rather than commuting and a sharp decline in tourism.
Private U.S. bus companies are seeking $15 billion in government assistance.
U.S. airports want another $10 billion in government assistance on top of an earlier $10 billion bailout, while passenger airlines want a further $25 billion in payroll assistance.
Everybody wants a bigger peice of the new $25 Trillion Infrastructure funding Biden is pushing.
Good money after bad. None of them are profitable, they are leeches.
“they are leeches”
And best buddies with the Democrats and swamp members.
Brad, that’s good. The origins of Foghat go back to the old Savoy Brown. Kim Simmonds was still on the scene here. This is a good song from a good album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6TkCLDcC7o
For some reason they played the upper Midwest pretty regularly. I liked them.
Murphy likes “High Speed Rail” because of the opportunities to steal.
Rail is the most corrupt system in any country – from extorting the land it runs on to raping the taxpayers to support it.
Amtrac, BNSF, that “high speed” boondoggle in CA, &c.
izlamo delenda est …
“When barack put Me in charge of Amtrak, We had a train that ran from Tampa,
all the way down to Florida”
Joseph Robbinyou Biden….Mildly Retarded Pedo with Dementia
Upstate NY. Train station was down the street in the 50s. Torn down in the 60s. Mostly freight on the tracks now with an occasional passenger train going to Boston. You have to drive 20 miles to find a working station. Most of the trains travel from Albany to NYC and service money folks with two or more homes. Wrote, 15+ years ago, to the feds about a bridge with many rusted out cross beams that had fallen off and into the creek. They came and inspected it and told me it was still in working order. The never fixed it, and the trains still use it. Rail safety is a joke.
Rail has the greatest pension system on Earth.
I know a guy who got a pension because his wife worked for the railroad!
That, added to his gov’t pension, gave him about a 50% raise when he retired.
Of course, the taxpayers are footing the bill – he never paid a dime into the railroad pension system.
izlamo delenda est …
Savoy Brown. Wow, that brings back memories.
thanks Joe
I rode on a chicom train in 2008 from Suzhou to Beijing and back. The toilet was a hole in the floor with a brass bar to hang onto overhead. The sewage tank below was full and was sloshing up onto the floor as the train rocked along the uneven tracks. There was nothing “high speed” about that train.
I’ve been on Amtrak trains on and off for 30+ years. They haven’t changed one bit in all that time (engines, cars, tracks, stations….).
Everybodies in a hurry now-a-days. If you are living somewhere where you need high speed trains, you need to relocate.