Musk wants private Amtrak, VTA rail strikes & new Colorado rail This Week In Transit

[Vogon_Glory]

3. A privatized Amtrak means a shut-down Amtrak

One of the longest-running lies on the political right is the idea that passenger rail nrtworks can be privatized and that private corporations can run them for profit. This is complete bunk and has been untrue for over half a century. Amtrak was created to take the burden of operating intercity passenger trains off the hands of private corporations, many of which were in dire financial straights (I.e. the Western Pacific Railroad, the Rock Island Railroad, and the Penn Central). It’s still untrue. There have been a few attempts by corporations to resume running regularly-scheduled passenger trains without subsidies, but they failed. The fact that there aren’t any speaks volumes, if not so noisily as Musk and the propagandists at Faux Noise and Town Hall.

A point should be made about right-wing politicos, influencers and propagandists pretending to be journalists. They have little or no understanding of the expense and complexities of civil engineering projects and seem to show little or no interest in learning them.

Passenger rail systems are big, expensive, take years to build, and cost lots of money to run and maintain. Privatizing Amtrak would have the same effect as doing the same in Central and South America (I am counting Mexico as part of North America, not Central America): shut-down, scrapping and then having the politicians and managers who seek to undo their predecessor’s pinheaded move learn that replacing what was destroyed following right-wing dogma will cost tens of billions, if not hundred of billions to replace.

An irony here is that South Africa still has a functional passenger rail network, but if South African expat Elon Musk has his way, we Americans won’t.