Background

To begin, I quote from a local source from Bremen, Indiana about 18 miles south of South Bend. “Baltimore and Ohio first came to Bremen in 1874 laying track and building a wood station. It was the connection to the outside world before automobiles were invented. Railroads brought folks to and from town along with the mail. It is hard to imagine all the freight going in and out of every town along the line such as crops, food, coal and dry goods. Train stations were also a hub of communication because they held the telegraph office.”

Thus the trains came before modern highways. In fact, the “Lincolnway” near my home in South Bend was one of the first roads and begun in 1913. Ken Burns in his series on the National Parks indicates that people could DRIVE to the new national parks for the first time about the same time. Automobiles gave the small but burgeoning middle class an unparalleled, unprecedented mobility. I remember reading that when the automobiles first sputtered into history, people would shout “get a horse”! Even after WW2 when I went from Chicago to Miami with my parents and cousins in 1948, there were no motels but motor courts, some quite primitive by modern standards but yes, with indoor plumbing! As a part of the Cold War, Eisenhower added the superhighways to supplement the Pennsylvania turnpike, the first one, that dates, I recall to 1940. It was about 1953 and designed to move people out of cities in case of nuclear attack.

My generation grew up with trains. As a kid I had a “streamliner”, “Burlington Zephyr” all aluminum and shining. It was on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago a few years ago. I remember coming to Mexico on a train in summer, 1951, flying to LA, and returning to Chicago on a “sleeper”, the El Capitan. I believe that I first flew in that same summer.

Advantages and Disadvantages

I will now jot down the need for and advantages of High Speed Trains, their drawbacks, and the complex political situation surrounding them. 110 miles per hour is the current goal to be expanded to 220. The French have tested one that would travel at about 350 mph. (I saw a video of it at the Indiana High Speed Rail or Golden Spike conference in Merrillville near Chicago last spring.) So called “magnitrains” (maglevel levitation) that travel above the road bend could go even faster but are expensive and safety is a factor. 1.) Trains go from point to point, not out in the “boonies” outlying areas as planes do. They are perfect with the young “wired” generation -- you can use your laptops AND cell phones to your heart’s content. 2.) They are not affected much by weather and can travel in just about anything but a blizzard or earthquake! (Maybe a tsunami!) No problem with leg room at all. I have seen photos of European and Canadian trains, and they are sleek, modern, and except for very long hauls like Chicago –LA, economical. They are as Illinois Governor Quinn said, “back to the future”.

Public Domain

FRA Compliant High Speed Rail

I fly a lot, just recently to Boston from Chicago. Security, of course, legroom, cramped quarters, and a feeling of being in a tin box are always concerns. Food is bad when you can buy it. Trains can link Midwestern cities that are somewhat isolated now like Evansville, Indiana that I recently visited. People seem to want them. As for automobiles, the roads are jammed, FOREVER under construction, and dangerous at night when you practically have to ski as the road narrows. I have heard of this elsewhere. Truckers drive like the roads are THEIRS, especially at night.

Now the drawbacks. Coast to coast and over water will require planes, of course. Then we have a federal system! Indiana resists trains, especially in Indianapolis where the state capitol is. Hoosier politicians, especially in south central Indiana, LOVE their roads. Part of this is the network of interstates around Indianapolis and, at least in good weather most of the time, the sheer convenience of driving, although parking garages grow more expensive by the day. We flew to San Francisco, but the Hyatt-Regency there charged $40 a night for parking. We have the South Shore between South Bend and Chicago, but the latest direct train back to SB from Chicago is at 7 pm. Otherwise, you take the train to Michigan City and drive the last 30 miles or so. If you miss that last train, you have to stay in a not-cheap hotel. It is ok for commuters and shoppers, but tough if you are neither.

Finally, cost. Amtrak loses money. Americans love their automobiles. I am not sure even the freight people are on board, but as with everything, ALL “stake holders” (all those affected by an action) have to be given a PIECE of the action. On November 3rd many in my area were urged to vote “no” on a “South Shore tax” that would pay for expansion of the South Shore AND the bus system in other counties but NOT ours (St. Joseph)! It is a tough time to raise taxes on anything. I am for trains but do not hold political office, and it is rough economic times for a lot of people. It often becomes a choice between cut services or raise taxes. A friend of mine lives on a DIRT road because people don’t want an extra assessment. It goes on and on.

Supplement Assessment

“A strategy for reducing transportation's dependence on oil in R and D for transportation in the next five next five years is vital….If new energy sources for transportation become competitive, public behavior will change and vehicles propelled by new energy will sell" -- Kaji Omi, "Alternative Energy for Transportation" in "Excerpts. Issues in Science and Technology". (25^th Anniversary Issue).

Supplemental Material from the Wall Street Journal

On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 a WSJ article by Scott Patterson and Douglas A. Blackmon was headlined, “Buffet Bets Big on railroad. Berkshire to Buy Burlington Northern for $26.3 billion” (A long-term optimism about the U.S. economy.)

The purchase “reflects his (Buffet’s) long-term optimism about the U.S. economy.” Buffett betting that “In an era of high fuel costs, railroads will perform better than the trucking industry. - --“as U.S. commerce recovers, so too will demand to move goods around the country.”

Buffett “likes U.S. railroads because their businesses are relatively immune to competitive pressures from low-wage overseas economies, which in recent years have battered U.S. automakers and other industries”.

T.J. Stiles puts railroads in historical perspective on W1 of the same issue. “Billionaires, like little boys, have long liked to play with trains. With his latest purchase, Warren Buffett is on track to be today’s Cornelius Vanderbilt”.

“States constructed some early railroads, but heavy losses discredited such public investments” (W2). In Vanderbilt’s day, nothing approached the size and importance of the railroads, not mining, energy, or even manufacturing. But the efficiency and wealth produced by his lines fostered a far larger and complex economy. (The railroad bubble popped and started a depression.) Buffet can’t match Vanderbilt’s power and fortune because of the economy’s diversity. Yet that same diversity should help to bounce back, and boost, Burlington Northern.

“The railroad has been iconic since its inception. It represents the quintessentially American urge to conquer space and time. (Not want a Commodore today). “Violent, ruthless, brilliant, honest and competitive to the core. Matched to his tumultuous times, as America spread across the continent, “fought a Civil War and erected a corporate economy”. He was “just the man to battle to the top of our first great industry”. Times have changed, and railroads are now among our oldest industries. The quieter Sage of Obama (Buffett) might be the right man to make us proud of it again”.

This is NOT about passenger trains, but the freight people are slowly coming “on board” as I heard last spring in Merrillville, Indiana at the Indiana High Speed Rail or “Golden Spike” convention. (There is a replica of that “last spike” of May 10, 1869 on W2. This is the kind of “back to the future” that I like as I “pass the torch” or, in this case, SPIKE!!