I love trains…but I see another futile attempt to expand Amtrak into areas that jeopardize freight operations. The profitable part of Amtrak is the high-volume corridor between Boston and Washington, where it owns its right-of-way and can maintain schedules. In other mostly money-losing routes, Amtrak has “priority” over freight on tracks owned by the freight railroads themselves, and its schedules are more erratic. Amtrak owing its own rails may not be the answer – witness the train to nowhere: the ill-conceived California high-speed train that was supposed to go from the Bay Area to a field near Bakersfield. Let’s give private enterprises a chance and keep the government from hurting an already congested freight system.
Labor demographers tell warehouse employees will travel no more than 17 miles to work. Has anybody found this to be true?