[DarkWolf]

Originally Posted by Henry10

Due to our country's cost structures, and political realities -- your Utopia has started to look more like a fantasy.

Thats a sad thing , but your right.... This So Called "Greatest Country" in the World is really just a giant "How not to run a Country" Manual.... We have all these smart intelligent Universities , People , great thinkers , common people and yet we've fallen behind due to a few loud mouths with less intelligence and ignorance/bigotry running Washington and State Govts into the ground to feed their massive egos...and corporate buddies... Honestly if this continues another 10 years , I don't think i'll stay in this country...its not worth the investment in time and money... That Doesn't just apply to people with small businesses , but people in general... Another Sad note is , my utopia plans for the Northeast would be done within 10-15 if they were in Europe or Asia or even Africa...

[Wilton2ParkAve]

No it's a fantasy. Talk to anyone across Europe except for the UK and Germany. Ask about youth unemployment and declining wages.

[Henry10]

Originally Posted by 7 Wishes

Re: Political Realities --> More due to 'lack of will' and an extreme need in this country to brainwash people with polarizing crap rather than try to work together to common sense solutions.

Yep, those are political realities. Righties don't want spending, lefties want spending at "prevailing wage", i.e. union wages. It looks like these two sides will keep growing apart..

[DarkWolf]

Originally Posted by Wilton2ParkAve

No it's a fantasy. Talk to anyone across Europe except for the UK and Germany. Ask about youth unemployment and declining wages.

Thats not entirely true either , Germany and UK youth employment is fine. Spain is collapsing due to its crumbling Education system which is just as bad as some Southern states. Western Europe is stable except Spain and Maybe Italy....Eastern Europe is booming....where Govt's are making things easier for investors in Businesses. One thing Europe as a whole is still doing despite the recession is there heavily investing in Key things like Roads , Rails , Education , Water , Power , Internet ,etc.. Were not investing much in anything so our slow growth is partial due to the lack of Infrastructure investment aside from Politics.... Theres is recession , the need for reform but the second key area of Infrastructure has been invested in and is ready to handle the key growth once the economy rebounds and it already has in some areas.

[Henry10]

We shouldn't forget that other factors have played in Europe's rail system development -- higher population density. 2nd is cost of gasoline. China's development is simple: very cheap labor, and mountains of cash to burn.

[kidyankee764]

So both of these trains were the new ones?

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by Henry10

Yep, those are political realities. Righties don't want spending, lefties want spending at "prevailing wage", i.e. union wages. It looks like these two sides will keep growing apart..

Exactly, when something somewhere in-between is what would actually work.....

Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey

Thats not entirely true either , Germany and UK youth employment is fine. Spain is collapsing due to its crumbling Education system which is just as bad as some Southern states. Western Europe is stable except Spain and Maybe Italy....Eastern Europe is booming....where Govt's are making things easier for investors in Businesses. One thing Europe as a whole is still doing despite the recession is there heavily investing in Key things like Roads , Rails , Education , Water , Power , Internet ,etc.. Were not investing much in anything so our slow growth is partial due to the lack of Infrastructure investment aside from Politics.... Theres is recession , the need for reform but the second key area of Infrastructure has been invested in and is ready to handle the key growth once the economy rebounds and it already has in some areas.

One thing I'll grant where the US is different is that only the Northeast is structured like most of Europe where there's lots of cities of all sizes in short distances and the cities themselves tend to be quite dense (i.e. the small CT cities actually have higher population densities than bigger cities like Dallas, San Diego, etc.). Most of the rest of the US is more like Russia in that the cities are spread very far apart in distance with not much going on in between and have a "sprawly" nature that is fairly unique in the world (at least compared to the level it goes on in the rest of the world, though a few places like a clutter of cities called the "Rhein-Ruhr complex" in Germany are kind of like that too).

So I'm not saying we have to be exactly like Europe in transportation policy but we still could do a lot more to support alternatives to strictly using the car.

[7 Wishes]

I realize this is getting off-topic so I wanted to also say that it looks like even with a lot more injuries than reported, it's good to hear that there probably will not be any deaths from it. Still not clear on the cause though....

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

So both of these trains were the new ones?

Yeah

[willow wind]

So what's the latest estimate on how soon those two tracks will be repaired and made usable again ? Bridgeport Mayor Finch is saying weeks. Evidently the two affected tracks were the only ones being used by both Metro North and AmTrak to get to and from NYC.

AmTrak seems to have suspended service indefinitely between NY and Boston. Metro North can't get past the area where the derailment occurred. Bad enough for all the injured people. But now, the financial disaster and travel problems on top of it.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by 7 Wishes

I realize this is getting off-topic so I wanted to also say that it looks like even with a lot more injuries than reported, it's good to hear that there probably will not be any deaths from it. Still not clear on the cause though....

Yeah

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but the vast majority of injuries are probably "I'm going to the hospital just in case". 50 of the 60 are probably whiplash. The other two, classified as "serious", can be someone complaining that they hit their head and are waiting for an MRI or ctscan, or someone who fell and had a gash to their leg.

I've already seen people making statements like "we flew up to the ceiling and landed about 40 feet from where we were sitting". Okay - really? Because if that were the case, you'd have deaths.

IMO, local media is blowing this way out of proportion. Yes, two trains collided. No, at this time, it doesn't seem to be that bad. Lots of minor injuries. And unfortunately, within minutes of the disaster, many people likely lawyered-up.