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Remember that we're not talking about trains for 2010; we're talking about trains for 2040.
There's an old Greek proverb that says, "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Whether we like it or not, the population of NH is going to increase over the next 30+ years, particularly as the Boston metro area expands. Infrastructure that is designed solely for vehicular traffic is neither economical nor sustainable in the long run with such population growth.
Automobile-centric and automobile-dependent development is characterized by urban sprawl. If we want to preserve our wilderness and rural lands in New Hampshire, we will eventually have to curb urban sprawl. Trains have played a huge role in curbing sprawl in Europe and East Asia by making transportation without a car much easier. Trains encourage people to live near downtowns, revitalizing main streets and Mom and Pop stores rather than encouraging the development of strip malls and suburban subdivisions (see: Southern California, for example).
This means that people who like to live in cities have a greater incentive to do so, whereas those of us who prefer the country and wilderness will get to enjoy it for much longer, since the rural areas of NH will be less rapidly encroached upon by sprawling development.
If a private company wants to step up to the plate and take on the task, I'm all for it. But if private corporations (whose only social responsibility, in the words of Milton Friedman, is to maximize shareholder value) didn't build the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system, we shouldn't hold our breath for them to build railways, either. I agree that government inefficiency and waste is a major problem, but that doesn't mean we should write off any and every possible public works project. Instead of constantly complaining about "the government," we could be trying to use it as a tool to get important things done (you know: "of the people, by the people, for the people" and all that jazz).
Bottom line: America needs to recapture the pioneer spirit of forward-thinking and innovation.
Trees are not trains either. I am attending to a sugar bush, thats a Sugar Maple trees i will never see grown to tap, but I still do it. Right now these are the diameter of my thumb, and a drill is 7/16" so drilling one would indeed cut it down.
Many trees more than this will die for a stinking fast train going no where for a good reason IMO.
Fast trains are for serving people, slow trains are for serving material.
Who is riding a train from Montral to Burlington when it is a simple short drive? Who is riding a train from Boston to Montreal?
I have been in both cities and don't find many people from Boston in Montreal, or the other way around. You can drive right up I-93 and hop on I-91 in a heartbeat in be in either place in under 6 hours.
I live east and central in NH and can be in Montreal in less than 3 hours. Thats going the legal speed limit too.
All trains do is bring stink and ugly. Just look at NJ if you want to see stink and ugly.
I watched the freight trains die, I even hooked a ride on one near their end. I hopped it in Barlett NH and planned to get off up in Faybian somewhere, but it was moving a little faster than I felt prudent in jumping off, so I went to Whitefield where it stopped.
There is no freight, if there was the trains would still be running. There is no people who want to go to these places cars can't do better.
Why do people try to reinvent the wheel? Trains are a hobby status item these days. If it won't carry frieght there is no use of it.
My mountains were ment to be wild places and scenic not have trains running up and down the valleys. We did that, they and the tressels are gone, long gone, and there is no need of new ones.
Trees are not trains either. I am attending to a sugar bush, thats a Sugar Maple trees i will never see grown to tap, but I still do it. Right now these are the diameter of my thumb, and a drill is 7/16" so drilling one would indeed cut it down.
Many trees more than this will die for a stinking fast train going no where for a good reason IMO.
Fast trains are for serving people, slow trains are for serving material.
Who is riding a train from Montral to Burlington when it is a simple short drive? Who is riding a train from Boston to Montreal?
I have been in both cities and don't find many people from Boston in Montreal, or the other way around. You can drive right up I-93 and hop on I-91 in a heartbeat in be in either place in under 6 hours.
I live east and central in NH and can be in Montreal in less than 3 hours. Thats going the legal speed limit too.
All trains do is bring stink and ugly. Just look at NJ if you want to see stink and ugly.
I watched the freight trains die, I even hooked a ride on one near their end. I hopped it in Barlett NH and planned to get off up in Faybian somewhere, but it was moving a little faster than I felt prudent in jumping off, so I went to Whitefield where it stopped.
There is no freight, if there was the trains would still be running. There is no people who want to go to these places cars can't do better.
Why do people try to reinvent the wheel? Trains are a hobby status item these days. If it won't carry frieght there is no use of it.
My mountains were ment to be wild places and scenic not have trains running up and down the valleys. We did that, they and the tressels are gone, long gone, and there is no need of new ones.
1. Not many trees , hopefully not many trains for the High Speed line , the other lines maybe one or 2 trees per town....the lines are already in use for freight...
2. The MBTA has fast trains , up to 110mph which is allowed over crossings.....Commuter Trains are not supposed to be super fast....they average between 70-90mph up in New England.
3. Theres a large Boston - Montreal Air and Bus market , the train will tape into that. The Train would reduce that down to 2hr between the 2 cities , the train can operate at high speeds in ICY weather , fog , and Blizzards....
4. Why are you restoring to childish attacks , most of trains in my state are clean. Most of the Towns they run through have cleaned up and are building up around the stations. In 2000 , the state designated Transit Oriented zones around most stations , thats when it really started. My state is doing fine , aside form the budget issues.
5. Freight died and came back , its pretty big and has freed up the interstates for excess trucks.
6. No there not , The Northeast has the most train usage......about 15 million ppl use trains daily in the Northeast thats expected to grow to 30 million by 2040 with all the lines there restoring in my state and SE PA and Mass.
7. These will run through the Mountain.....
My conclusion , you don't know anything about Train travel in the Northeast or about Train and the Economy....
Iv'e been thru NJ and find it not a great place at all. Some of the smaller towns are ok, but borderline ok.
You go drive a train in a blizzard here, and you will hit something hard if you move it fast.
You might build it, but you will never fill it.
My conclusion is you know nothing of NH winters, or rocks.
This is a scheme for a nit whitt.
Places like NJ, NY, Mass, are always seeking no good in NH, Vt and Me.
Hell this train isn't even ment to service NH, Vt, or Me, it is ment to serve stinking Mass. Run it through NY, keep it out of NH.
The only good thing is i will be dead in 2040, till then keep it on paper.
Your just another suit to me, grubbing around for money to fill your over stuffed account. There is never enough for people like you. The more you get, the more you want more, it never ends.
40 years ago and more NH was a pristine place to live with clean water and clean air, then it started and it hasn't stopped. City dwellers like you move here, drive the costs of everything up and claim you want to live in the rural country life, but bring that city dwellin life with you.
You build outlandish buildings that can't stand winter, just 3 winters back a lot of places caved in for the 6 feet of snow that fell, and some of these places are still ruins and ugly. Why they even build split level ranch houses here now, nothing like the classic New England Cape that at least could shed snow.
You ain't got a clue what snow even is.
All you can think about is dollars linin' yer pocket in the name of progress. Keep that down there in NJ. Run the line thru NY. We have wild life worth a lot more than any stinkin trains.
I hope you track runs right up a Native burial ground, that'll fix that.
Just $$$$$$$ and no respect for the land what so ever, yeah it sets me off.
If this hair brained scheme ever comes to a vote to town meetin' I will fight it tooth and nail. Still around here, Town Meetings stand and you just might have a bad day for that.
Ram Rodding a train thru is a plain bad idea.
Last you got 13 trillion bucks to pay up to china? I don't suppose you do, and i don't suppose fearless weader down ta' DC does either. You just might want to fix that first.
Hey, I got a great idea, why don't you run that train from Boston straight to Red Commie China. Just no where near the border to NH. Maybe dip it down into ever so sceneic NJ. That way you can unite all the red commie states with the motherland.
This guy is talking nonsene, making up "facts" & in gerneral is nothing but a train hobbist. There are no plans for a train system in NH.....none. The state voted down money early this year to even look at plans for a rail line. As an aside: bus service in most of northern New England has been cut back over the years.....there's just no demand any longer. Laconia, the largest city in Belknap county no longer has regular bus service. It used to have several buses a day stop downtown.
I93 is being widened to 4 lanes for CARS, not any train line. There is no future for a mass rail, or public transit systen in northern New England.
Last edited by Brave Stranger; 10-24-2010 at 08:51 PM..
There's an old Greek proverb that says, "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Sorry, but this is a poor metaphor. If "old men" plant the tree seedlings they own or have bought with their own money on their own land, or on unowned land, or on land for which the owner has given permission, they do so without violating the rights of others or imposing the costs on others. Not so for this train boondoggle, which insists that everybody must pay in a variety of ways, and for decades to come, and all for a questionable project for which no private companies would arise to take on because the need isn't there, which is why the profit isn't likely.
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Originally Posted by Verseau
If a private company wants to step up to the plate and take on the task, I'm all for it. But if private corporations (whose only social responsibility, in the words of Milton Friedman, is to maximize shareholder value) didn't build the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system, we shouldn't hold our breath for them to build railways, either.
Sorry, but this is the typical statist argument. If there was sufficient demand, private companies would be tripping all over each other to bring the train routes to fruition. James J Hill proved it could be done and was very successful at it. Taking your argument on face value, the fact that companies didn't come along to do that for the interstate highway system was prima facie evidence that it wasn't in demand. Therefore, statism demanded that everybody must have it imposed on them? Be wary of anything done for the so-called public good. Instead, roads would have been built as demand proved a business opportunity would have justified it, but no such opportunities would come along with government efforts getting in the way. Also, be very careful of talking about the peripheral so-called benefits, such as restaurants, shops, what have you, of having those stops purchased with all those public funds. That's a perfect example of Bastiat's broken window fallacy ("What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen"). (If anyone is really interested in aspects of this roads problem, read Walter Block's book, in PDF at http://mises.org/books/roads_web.pdf)
For a Conservative state your spending almost a billion $$$ on a Highway widening project.........yikes and it will take a decade. Idk about you , but my state can do that for 300 million $$$ and 5 years. So NH isn't really that Conservative ......I'm surprised your not calling for the current I-93 Widening project to be built privately. 740 million $$$ is the cost of the proposed NH and VT network. Only for 4 lanes , LOL.... Sheesh , classic example of double standards in building or restoring Transportation. Its 2010 ppl , not 1950 , Passenger Rail in most NE states has surpassed 1970s Ridership. MA , Eastern PA , NJ , CT , and NY are restoring there state wide networks. Amtrak is restoring old lines , breaking profits...... Vermont and Maine seem to like there Rail , i don't see why NH seems to be holding out......As for the HSL , i'm really eager to watch this go down...... since it will be a Federal corridor , Feds get final say not NH. They'll done it elsewhere in the NE , ie the Powerline corridors.
First - if the rails are restored and the trains are there the riders will come. The Downeaster from Boston to Portland Me is a good example. Multiple trains per day and they are full.
Second - Much of New Hampshire is not conservative, it is reactionary (if it didn't exist when I was a kid it should not change) and extremely penny cheap and dollar foolish with a penchant for hoarding instead of investing.
Third – The interstate highway system was ostensibly built as a Defense Highway System but was actually built to enhance the markets for private automobiles, commercial trucks and an infinite consumer for the petroleum companies. That huge numbers of people use it was a side effect.
In addition I wouldn’t mind if Mac stayed in his sugar bush for as long as he likes. I would like to be able the c A couple of thoughts on this subject.
First - if the rails are restored and the trains are there the riders will come. The Downeaster from Boston to Portland Me is a good example. Multiple trains per day and they are full.
Second - Much of New Hampshire is not conservative it is reactionary (if it didn't exist when I was a kid it should not change) get from Manchester to Montreal by train someday instead of having to drive or take a plane or bus. If it costs the taxpayers in the short term that is OK by me; after all I am a taxpayer.
yikes and it will take a decade. Idk about you , but my state can do that for 300 million $$$ and 5 years.
comments like this just shows you don't know much about NH. One you're above Concord (which is quite a bit of I93), you're going through mountains and beside mountains. In order to widen it, that means a lot of blasting through outcropping. Can't do those things that fast or cheap! The roads are not all that straight up there either, since it often winds along the mountains. Just because NJ may be almost as much of a swamp as MD doesn't mean NH is.
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Vermont and Maine seem to like there Rail , i don't see why NH seems to be holding out......
so.... because other New England states like something, that means NH should follow suit? do you ever pay much attention to New England policies? Remember the Bush/Gore election when all of NE voted democrat EXCEPT NH? NH doesn't give a flying fig what the rest of New England does. They can have all the train lines they want, NH will decide what NH wants without any input from neighboring states. If NH decides it would be to the state's benefit, it will be voted in. otherwise, the rail can go pound sand.
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That way you can unite all the red commie states with the motherland.
Sheesh , classic example of double standards in building or restoring Transportation. Its 2010 ppl , not 1950 , Passenger Rail in most NE states has surpassed 1970s Ridership. MA , Eastern PA , NJ , CT , and NY are restoring there state wide networks. Amtrak is restoring old lines , breaking profits...... Vermont and Maine seem to like there Rail , i don't see why NH seems to be holding out......As for the HSL , i'm really eager to watch this go down...... since it will be a Federal corridor , Feds get final say not NH. They'll done it elsewhere in the NE , ie the Powerline corridors.
