Dead Nation Walking

Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

Many people seem to think that America has lost its sense of purpose. They overlook the obvious: that we are striving to become the Bulgaria of the western hemisphere. At least we already have enough vampires to qualify.

You don’t have to seek further than the USA’s sub-soviet-quality passenger railroad system, which produced the spectacular Philadelphia derailment last week that killed eight people and injured dozens more. Six days later, we’re still waiting for some explanation as to why the train was going 100 miles-per-hour on a historically dangerous curve within the city limits.

The otherwise excellent David Stockman posted a misguided blog last week that contained all the boilerplate arguments denouncing passenger rail: that it’s addicted to government subsidies and that a “free market” would put it out of its misery because Americans prefer to drive and fly from one place to another.

One reason Americans prefer to drive — say, from Albany, NY, to Boston — is that there is only one train a day, it never leaves on time or arrives on time, and it takes twice as long as a car trip for no reason that makes any sense. Of course, this is exactly the kind of journey ( slightly less than 200 miles) that doesn’t make sense to fly, either, given all the dreary business of getting to-and-from the airports, not to mention the expense of a short-hop plane ticket.

I take the popular (and gorgeous!) Hudson River Amtrak train between Albany and New York several times a year because bringing a car into Manhattan is an enormous pain in the ass. This train may have the highest ridership in the country, but it’s still a Third World experience. The heat or the AC is often out of whack, you can’t buy so much as a bottle of water on the train, the windows are gunked-over, and the seats are often broken. They put wifi on trains a couple of years ago but it cuts out every ten minutes.

Anyway, even if Americans seem to prefer for the present moment to drive or fly, it may not always be the case that they will be able to. Several surprising forces are gathering to take down the Happy Motoring matrix. Peak oil is actually not playing out in the form of too-high gasoline prices, but rather a race between a bankrupt middle class unable to pay the total costs of motoring and an oil industry that can’t make a profit drilling for hard-to-get oil. That scenario is plain to see in the rapid rise and now fall of shale oil.

Nowhere on earth is there passenger rail that pays for itself. But, of course, you don’t hear anyone complain about the public subsidies for driving or air travel. Who do you think pays for the interstate highway system? What major airport is privately owned and operated?

Some of the decisions made over our rail system are so dumb you wonder how the executives on board ever got their jobs. For instance the train between New York City and Chicago never runs on time for the simple reason that Amtrak sold the right-of-way to the CSX freight line. CSX then tore up the second track because there was an antiquated state real estate tax on railroad tracks. As a result, freight trains have priority on the single track and the passenger trains have to pull over on sidings every time a freight needs to go by. Earth calling the New York state legislature. Rescind the stupid tax.

America is going to need trains more than it thinks right now, despite what the “free market” says. The condition of our trains is symptomatic of the shape of the nation. The really sad part is we missed the window of opportunity to build a high-speed system. Capital will soon be too scarce for that. But we still have a conventional network that not so many decades ago was the envy of the world, and we know exactly how to fix it. We just don’t want to. No will left. Apparently we’d rather just turn into the walking dead.

Note: JHK’s 2014 Garden Report is finally up

The new World Made By Hand novel

!! Is now available !!

Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist

HistoryoftheFuture_Thumb

My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books
or Amazon

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Dutchman
Dutchman

In the mid 50’s – early 60’s my family would take winter vacations to Florida. We would board at Philly, and they would load your car on an auto transport. In about 24 hrs we were in Fort Lauderdale, and you had your car! I remember the meals in the dining car – and the large seats.

kokoda
kokoda

The U.S. didn’t ‘miss the window of opportunity’ to build a high-speed rail system. Crony Capitalism governed and decided to waste the funds on the GloBull Warming Hoax.

Warren
Warren

There used to be a Railroad named the Louisville and Nashville, now you can’t even find a passenger train that goes from Louisville to Nashville, unless you go by way of Chicago.

I once had to go from Boston to Hartford I took the bus. The bus route goes from South Station in Boston to the train station in Hartford, big mistake, had I taken the train which left a little while later for the same price I would have cut my trip by more than half, because of the stops all the bus makes, or course the fact that the driver freaked out half way there and just stopped the bus on the side of the road for an hour did not help either.

TE
TE

JHKs unionist/liberal comes out a little.

The employees, and executives, have stripped the railroads bare. I knew it was bad, but now that my little bro works for them – going on ten years – I see how very horrible it is. Same thing happened as I learned of my cop uncles benes and life, and my sis-in-law teacher, and my retired sis-in-law CPS worker and UAW workers too.

We have allowed a generation and a half, to reap all the profits and now stand around blaming and condemning the generations that didn’t.

The railroads would HAVE money if there weren’t thousands of votes/jobs and billions of dollars for the unions and corporations. Same as the Post Office and Fannie/Freddie too.

Then along comes those good little Statists that think we haven’t spent enough. As if it will ever be fixed as long as collective bargaining and spoils to the richest continue along.

Bend over folks, just another spending debacle and further jackboot with millions in authorizations for unrelated and either fascist, or insane, pork.

We keep voting them back in. McCain, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Boehner, Dodd, the list goes on and on and on. Insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting the results to change.

We have been insane for a long, long, time. Men wake up individually and it is taking much longer than I ever thought it could.

underfire
underfire

For decades nothing has been done in this country that doesn’t directly benefit the elites. Trade policy, energy policy, foreign policy, all of it. If there’s any benefit to the rest of us it’s only a side effect.

DC Sunsets

JK once again, as a leftist, cannot see the forest for the trees.

Rail is a white elephant because of political involvement. This was true since rail came to North America, where we saw well-run, profitable rail systems bankrupted by their politically-savvy, crony-capitalist competitors throughout the 19th century.

JK writes books about the “world made by hand.” What he can’t seem to imagine is a world not run by politics (AKA organized crime.)

Everything he hates about rail is a direct consequence of the ABSENCE of freedom in rail operations. Every bad thing is a product of political organization rather than market organization.

But he’s a leftist. His mind has a blind spot a mile wide, and within that space he simple can’t imagine what he’s missing.

DC Sunsets

Prechter wrote a column about “Peak Oil” some years ago.

He pointed out that, regardless of oil extraction, what people really want (regarding cars) is TRANSPORTATION, and that transportation needs can be met a variety of ways.

His point was that even if no more oil could be extracted from the ground (a position he thinks is suspect), systems for nuclear power that either take fuel all the way to 90%-plus extraction, Thorium-based systems or some other innovation could provide centuries of power and only political barriers exist to running rail systems everywhere.

Every ill we see is a product of the political organization of society. From pollution (which should be treated as a trespass, i.e., a tort) to rusting capital equipment, every negative can be traced to a perverse incentive generated by sometimes unintended, often INTENDED consequences of legislation meant to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Here, at the apogee of politics, all roads lead to ruin before renewal.

Rife
Rife

It is historical fact about how GM bought up trolley companies, ran them into the ground, then replaced them with smelly busses. If that is supposed to be capitalism, then it isn’t any better than communism…..

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

This always baffled me-

Amtrak lost close to a BILLION dollars on food service in a decade.

1) A captive audience. You either buy from them or you don’t eat/drink

2) Zero competition. Nobody is selling food on the train but you.

3) No rent/utilities to pay. It’s a train. All you have to pay is salaries and wholesale product.

4) You can charge whatever you want. Like a movie theater or a ballpark, the cost is set by the provider based on points 1-3 above.

It isn’t possible to lose money on food service on a train unless-

Theft. At numerous levels.

“Amtrak charges about $2 for a soft drink, but the cost to taxpayers is about $3.40 when labor is included. A $9.50 hamburger on the train costs taxpayers $16, the charts showed.”

What labor is involved in selling a canned soft drink?

Dwayne Bateman, an Amtrak food service employee who testified at the hearing, called the analysis misleading. Mr. Bateman said food service workers also helped in other areas onboard, including passenger safety. “You may just see us handing out hamburgers, but we do other things,” he said.

Like steal money.

Whatever. JHK is a good guy even if he is a hopelessly liberal fan of the nanny state.

generalTsaochicken.
generalTsaochicken.

Anything that mates large corporations and governments tends to father children better aborted.

Aquapura
Aquapura

I agree with Kunstler so far as it’s ridiculous that in this country we don’t have reliable and regularly scheduled rail service between nearby cities of decent size. I’m not talking about a NYC to San. Fran. high speed link, but those short hops under 500 miles. While Europe does trains better we cannot gloss over the fact that with the advent of low cost air travel many opt to fly in lieu of trains, which are expensive and slow…even with French style TGV trains. I’ll admit that I’ve taken a Ryanair flight for $100 over a 24 hour train ride for $300. It’s common sense. Check Amtrack and corresponding flights in the USA, same deal.

Also, if one can afford it in Europe, they own and drive cars. There are American style highways all over Europe outside of the city centers where American tourists go. Don’t buy the illusion to think that Europeans shun vehicles.

So, while we should be ashamed of our passenger rail service it’s only one leg of a three legged transportation stool.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

Had to do a little digging but discovered that the guy who opens your soft drink can and hands it to you is paid a little bit over 80K plus benefits.

http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/majors-that-pay-you-back

That’s more than the 9 out of the top 10 starting salaries for STEM graduates.

Once more for the slower folks.

A primate with opposable thumbs and the ability to open a can of soda pop earns more than a nuclear engineer. Therefore Amtrak cannot make a profit by selling a 50 cent can of soda for $3.50.

Somebody get Dagny on the horn before the coal train hits the big tunnel.

TJF
TJF

Read this for today’s most hilarious dose of irony: Krugman’s blog , where Krugman actually complains about incompetent economists hacks who keep embarrassing themselves by getting very simple things wrong, and are somehow are not named Krugman.

bb

One reason is that people don’t want the human shit from the intercity being able to get on a train and come into their suburban areas. They tried to get rail in Atlanta a few years ago but the white population said fuck you .Those whites didn’t want blacks having a way to their neighborhoods

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr

It is cheaper to move a ton by rail than truck or air so Amtrak should be inexpensive but considered it is managed by leftist government minorities and unions, it is no surprise that is the most expensive, most filthy, has the worst service and the most accidents. Add Amtrak to the schools, IRS, Cops, military, etc.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

If people wanted more passenger trains, there’d be more passenger trains. No one like a leftist to try to ram something few want down everyone’s throat. On top of shilling for more widespread use of a 19th century technology, they purposely screw up road repairs so that even major rebuilding jobs don’t result in more lanes. They purposely make bottlenecks in freeways so that people will clamor for choo choos. Trains are great for hauling coal.

Rise Up
Rise Up

hardscrabble farmer says: Somebody get Dagny on the horn before the coal train hits the big tunnel.
————
1000+ Who is John Galt?

DC Sunsets

@Rife, I’m not sure why people downvoted your comment.

GM did get massive gov’t subsidies to put buses on the roads and that helped kill trollies.

The current auto system is entirely a creature of the tax-subsidized road construction gig, which was a fantastic political patronage system. The Interstate Highway System is also a vast gov’t boondoggle.

We never know what the market would provide, because people never really want to try it. Politics is so much more “fun.”

Dutchman
Dutchman

@dc: “The Interstate Highway System is also a vast gov’t boondoggle.”

I’m not sure what you mean, but it’s vastly better than what we had before. I remember in the mid 50’s – 60’s if you wanted to drive from state to state you needed a bunch of maps from AAA. Also the route numbers would change – sometimes from county to county. I was a confusing mess.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

Dutchman

Now that is the truth, traveling state highways and detours galore not to mention most were two lanes . I really would not trade interstates for that…no sir.

geo3
geo3

Would be great to be able to take a train from Columbus to Chicago..sick of the drive and would love to see the sights never seen from the Inter-state. Incredible that major cities no longer have passenger rail connections.

Chicago999444
Chicago999444

It’s unfortunate that Kunstler can think of no other way to rebuild our railroads and transition to cars than by government action, and he never asks how our government will do any better building a state-of-the-art system from scratch than it did cobbling the remains of the failing passenger railroads together under the Amtrak umbrella.

And I wish rail advocates would just forget about “high speed” rail- true high speed rail is 125 mph to 300 mph. It is extremely uneconomical and hence unaffordable because the fares the market for it would be willing to pay would not begin to cover the costs, nor is it necessary for rail to be “high speed” to compete with heavily subsidized air travel, especially for trips under 500 miles, or even 1000 miles. Conventional rapid rail, with speeds of 80 mph to 110 mph, would compete perfectly well, and travelers would be much better served, and more willing to pay, for trains that ran at 80-90mph frequently, regularly, and on time, than “high speed” that is overpriced, runs infrequently, and does not run where people need to go because the investment cannot be justified for short-hop travel, or to smaller cities and towns. Our private for-profit passenger railroads ran service at 100 mph regularly and frequently between almost every city and major town, and very profitably, in 1927, and most travelers would be very grateful rail fans if such service were available today

What Kunstler and others on both the “right” and the “left” do not get is that there is nothing “free market” about our current pathological car dependence, and the destruction of our railroads and transit systems, anymore than the destruction of our cities and small towns and their replacement by tens of thousands of square miles of suburban sprawl was the result of “free market” choices. At the end of WW2, our railroads were as competitive and profitable as they were in the 1920s, and our system was the envy of the world. What happened in just a short decade?

What happened was that our government policy makers decided that everyone should live in suburbs and own a house and a car, and that air travel was the future for long distance travel… whether people could pay for those things or not…. and most people could not. So, first came the regulatory strangulation of our railroads, with a vast multiplication of regulations that made it increasingly difficult to make a profit in passenger rail, especially for short (under 500 mile) trips. At the same time, our government made a massive “investment” in automobile and air transportation, supplying the public with “free” highways, the better to convey all the middle classes of our cities to the cheapjack auto suburbs that were popping up like mushrooms after the rain, with all the cookie cutter subdivisions with the signs proclaiming FHA!! VA!! NO MONEY DOWN!! $60 CLOSING COSTS!

We deliberately destroyed our civic fabric and made social disintegration and life on revolving credit a certainty for our middle classes by subsidizing automobile transportation and suburban home building. There was nothing “free market” about any of the policy decisions and subsidies that skewed the choices of the public and made those choices inevitable.

llpoh
llpoh

Chicago – you are dead right. The issue is that people are spread out too thin in the US. It can take as long to get to an airport as it does to fly half-way across the country.

In Europe, people tend to be massed together. They can get from their houses to a central hub and then away to their destinations very quickly. Not so in the US. To make high speed trains viable, you would first need to be able to get folks from their homes to the central hub quickly – which is not possible. It needs to be done via mass transit, not via cars.

It is too late to fix.

Chicago999444
Chicago999444

Ilpoh, the major reason people are so spread out in this country is because our our 19th and early 20th century policy makers decided to make that happen by means of massive intervention.

And THAT happened because our population demanded those interventions, beginning with the clearance and extermination of the native population by our military, followed by massive land AND cash grants to railroads like Union Pacific, which received cash subsidies of $16,000 per mile, a princely amount of money in the late 19th century, AND grants of the best California land, to build the transcontinental railroad. I have always wondered if Ayn Rand had any notion of how much a hand our government had in building that railroad and how it guaranteed the wealth and profits of that railroad, or did she have any idea of how much intervention it took to make western settlement possible at all, when she was writing ATLAS SHRUGGED… or if she just decided to ignore the inconvenient facts because they sure as hell queer her narrative of the rugged, lonely hero, her fictional Nate Taggart, heroically building a transcontinental railroad almost with his own two hands.

Even with all those efforts, made at great cost to the taxpayers in the crowded and extremely productive Eastern industrial cities, early settlers could scarcely make a go of it, and most of them either stopped at the Kansas/Missouri border, or ended up retreating there when they couldn’t squeeze a living out of their 160 or 320 acres of arid scrubland- and private irrigation companies went broke one after the other.

Thus, the Reclamation Service, later known as the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Bureau of Land Management, which cobbled together the dozens of government agencies that managed and parceled out the lands of the west as quickly as our army “cleansed” them of their original native owners.

Yeah, sure, our population would have gradually migrated west as their means allowed, and to the extent that early efforts were successful. This vast continent with its spectacular bounty of mineral riches, huge populations of wildlife, and seemingly limitless tracts of fertile land, was an irresistible lure to our population and its leaders, and the effort to civilize it seemed justified by the need to protect our western coast. But, without massive efforts that all came at the expense of the most populated and productive part of the country, our population could never have sprawled the way it did, and most of the west would still be wild and unclaimed- and we would all be living a lot more densely. Settlement of the west would have happened only in areas close to water, and in climates where people could reasonably live without ongoing assistance far beyond the means of the local tax base. And I really believe that as our resources deplete, we will have to live more densely and within our local means, whether we want to or not, as it becomes economically impossible to maintain underused highways in the more remote regions of the country, and we no longer have the wherewithal to build or maintain dams or reservoirs in these places. For this reason, any young person planning his life should consider just what it takes to maintain “normal” life in his area of choice, and how well set that area is by way of natural features and local resources to maintain human life, because the wherewithal to alter nature in a big way, something that usually only a powerful, centralized government can marshal the resources to do, may not be there.

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