Rep Steven LaTourette (R-OH) making sense on CSPAN RE: Amtrak

He is a supporter of passenger rail and he said "shame on us (the US)" for not supporting passenger rail. Even the Republican/Support Bush callers are mostly in favor of Amtrak. He wants David Gunn, the fired Amtrak president, to come back as President of Amtrak.

Who is this guy? Any Ohio people here who know about him?

The irony is that the budget numbers the congress is discussing are miniscule compared to monthly spending in Iraq. :(

The scariest thing that he said that passenger rail is like a dinosaur: if it goes away it will never come back. :(

edit: correct spelling mistakes. It's Amtrak without a "c".
Oops! My bad. :)

duplicity and the rest, and starts making perfect sense, should we call that "LaTourette's Syndrome"?

Shame on you! :rofl:

The Rep. Rep. said it was his first appearance on c-span -- his words could have been written by me, and I am a big Amtrak (no c) supporter.

If this guy holds true when the camera isn't on, we have a good friend on the subcommittee.

See http://PeaceTrainToDC.com

Welcome to DU! :hi:
I hope to tride the train to Slidell, LA from Atlanta, GA for MArdi Gras in February!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

:spank:
One of my good friends, Rick Fowler, has Tourettes Syndrome. He wrote a book called "The Unwelcome Companion." It is an excellent personal story about living with Tourettes and his suffering prior to diagnosis in his thirties. He wrtoe the book as a resource for young people with the syndrome so that they don't have to suffer like he did. I believe that it can be ordered online.

I just chuckled at the idea of a fellow called LaTourette having an uncharacteristic outburst.

:hi:

:) You've come up with a great new DU term! ;)

But that seems a bit presumptuous.

unfortunately I can't get past La Tourettes Syndrome...:rofl:

Why the hell is he a Republican?

He made excellent points about the efficiency of 400 mile trips over air travel, he debunked the major (RW) myths about Amtrack, he discussed how the rail lines handed over passenger rail to the Feds and left us with crappy rolling stock and infrastructure. He spoke about riding the rails all over Europe and Japan. He spoke about conservation of fuels and how train travel can help conserve energy.

I like him. He wants the feds to support Amtrack with money and he wants them to rehire the fired president.

Subsidised mass transit is crucial for a healthy and just society.

Mind the gap! Mind the gap! Mind the gap! Mind the gap! ;)

London is just a fantastic city. I was quite lucky to spend two weeks there (one in early October and one in mid-December) when I went on my 3 month European tour in the early 1990s.

What is the current state of British Rail? Is it well-run and are there any funding issues? Which party or parties support public transit more?

British Rail is something of a mess, but improving ever so slightly. Tube and London-wise, we got the Olympics which is great news for transport because several great projects will certainly go ahead and money is being poured into the system. Sadly, the government's preferred route for the money to take is via larcenous consortia of private contractors, but that might be changing as well because a few of them are in the process of being sued or sacked.

Things could be better, could be worse. I'm a bit more cheerful about the prospects for transport than I was three years ago, when the mess seemed hopeless.

As for which party is best on transport, they're all equally useless - Labour's confused, timid and incompetent, the Lib-Dems are well-meaning but utterly clueless, and the Tories are downright eeeeeeeeeeeevil.

Thanks for your kindness about my city. I love it as well. I also love the USA, which is why I'm here ... :hi:

which means, financially, he may be in trouble.

Some of the dittododos in this town (Cleveland) tried to dismiss the works of Sherrod Brown, Dennis Kucinich, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and other Cleveland Dems in trying to keep the Govt. jobs here (the financial dept), and tried to give all the credit to LaTourette . . .

And here's a quick note - last year, there was an expose about how he was either cheating on his wife, or was running around with someone while seperated . . . and that died out REALLY QUICK . . .

The media in Cleveland is owned by Clear Channel/Fox . . .

like Halliburton or the Carlyle Group.

This puts money in the oil industry's pockets.

It's so perverse how it works. Big oil does away with Amtrak and makes oil run out quicker (bad for us) but they make more money right now (good for them).

The problem with corporations, especially American run ones, is that they don't think past the next quarter's earnings report.

The people running Exxon have children and grandchildren. They will have to deal with the depleted resources and pollution, just like ours will.

It was a subplot in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit', if I remember correctly. There are 20' strips of land all over LA which were the old trolley lines. Now, irionically, LA is rebuilding light rail.

Now, only NOLA, Philly and San Fran have trolley cars. NOLA's are damaged. :cry:

:shrug:

Number one. Defund Amtrack for decades so it does not have the capital to replace old aging equipment with newer more efficient, cheaper to maintain equipment.

Two mandate that Amtrack consist of a NATION WIDE network. Most routes on Amtrack outside the NE and NW corridors are unprofitable. So the net result is a huge annual operating loss.

Three. Bitch and moan about how Amtrak can't make a profit.

Four. Divide Amtrak into pieces and sell them off.

Five. Give your buddies the best chances to get the "good parts" of Amtrak (the NW and NE routes) at fire sale prices.

Six. Your buddies buy them, spend superficial amounts of money on upgrades, raise prices dramatically, show huge operating profits and sell it off for a HUGE PROFIT.

That's privatization in a nutshell. Ask anyone in the UK what they think of their Rail privatization plan.

It's a racket.

Very good on Great Lakes Water Quality, no on bunker-buster nucular weapons, etc.

He reversed his long-standing and well documented opposition to CAFTA and voted for CAFTA on Tom Delay's insistence--that's an issue that we ought to nail him with next year. He cited some bogus data from a local company who refuted him after the vote.

There is a right wing rat line of out-of-state fundy money that keeps gops winning in Lake County.

edit: recommended so that DUers can enjoy Dr. Taxloss' diagnosis.

I love train travel. I rode trains all over Western Europe and into Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. The rail system in Berlin was still divided west and east. You had to get off the Western rail and walk over to the Eastern side in order to board a train to Czechoslivakia. It was like going back in a time machine to 1945. Amazing. The country side looked unchanged from WWII. This was right after the Berlin wall fell. I visited Prague. The city was still very un-western. It has changed much since then.

I grew up in Chattanooga. There is a huge rail station there that is nothing more than a tourist attraction (The Chattanooga Choo Choo complex.) I live east of Atlanta, a city founded as a rail nexus. There are hundreds of small towns in GA with rail lines and old depots which are unused. The tragic irony is that up until the late 1960s, you could take passenger rail all over GA. You could ride into Athens on the train from Atlanta. Athens used to have 5 rail stations. Now we have one which is part of a senior citizens complex.

There is huge (Republican) opposition to funding passenger rail in GA. Instead, our awful Repub senators, Chambliss and Isakson, want to build two new interstates in GA and destroy part of the North Georgia mountains, the Savannah river floodplain and countless historic and natural treasures. :cry:

My notable train journey was an hour trip up the Italian coast from Gaeta to Rome. Two midshipmen and walked around the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Then we got dinner, some beers and a buzz.

We were American seamen with short haircuts and civilian clothes. We did not fit in.

Now I have in my head the classic: "Midnight Train to Georgia"

I took a boat to Corfu! On the return trip, I went to Rome and then to Milan! Ah! Italy and Greece. What a great time I had. Wasn't Rome amazing? It's so ancient and all of those old buildings are huge! The Trevi Fountain was so romantic and beautiful.

Amtrak's Crescent travels from NYC to New Orleans daily with stops in Toccoa and Gainesville in North East Georgia and also in Atlanta.
Some people commute from Atlanta to Clemson on Amtrak.

Imagining the voices that I had read in Latin literature. Too bad we only had one evening while we were on liberty to go there.

Clemson is 130 miles on the highway! That is like Marylanders who commute to Washington from various towns near Harper's Ferry. We were going to make use of the Maryland train to go to the antiwar protest in September, but it does not run on weekends.

If the Democrats can find a viable challenger in his NE Ohio district, he's in trouble.

for Amtrack and is tired of under funding and the appoiontment of people with no transportation experience to the board. He was dissappointed with both Clinton and Bush*. He wants an overhaul of the Amtrack board and he wants the board to be independent.

He said we have a third world rail system and that is wrong. He said rail is the best way to get cars off the road. He said that we have the best highways and best airlines so why don't we have the best passenger rail lines?

I think I'll call their offices and let both of these Reps know I support Amtrack too.

OMG! (crazy) Tupelo, MS caller says "Amtrack is sucking this country dry and that even Elvis can' t get on Amtrack." :wtf:

and then only the retirees and railfans will ride. They don't mind if the passenger train sits on a siding for half an hour while a slow freight takes the main line. That's the plan: keep it all in private hands (that's who owns the tracks) and give the public hind teat in their traveling needs, and the real travelers on a schedule will leave in disgust and go back to cars and planes.

Mica spilled the beans today on W. Journal - there are private companies in Colorado chomping at the bit for NE corridor and Auto train privatization while shutting down the already limited service that only retirees and railfans can bear. Remember these points the next time you buy an airline ticket, and don't miss http://PeacTrainToDC.com and http://chooseclimate.org