High Speed Rail

Obama wants $53 billion in taxpayer money(yours) to build a high speed rail system across the country. It's implementation is to be completed by 2015. Lucky me. I rode on high speed rail when in France in 1997. It's system is callled the TGV or Train a' Grande Vitesse. The average speed for the TGV in France is 170 mph. Interestingly,
the record speed in the land of silk panties for men is 357 mph. My son lived in France at the time and gave Lizzie and me the low down on the train. It sees more suicides than any other method of self-destruction-----kersplat! Of course, at a more normal speed of 60 mph in the US or rocket speeds in France does it really make much difference when meeting a bullet head on. The TGV might require more Windex on the windshield is all.

Joe Biden, our vice-President of the United States, gained fame by riding Amtrak to and fro daily from Delaware to DC when in the Senate. Did you know there is only one corridor of Amtrak that makes money in the US? It's from Albany, New York to New York City. Every other train in America is a loser. That's not a huge problem for over half the folks in this country. For the other half who pay taxes the loss is in billions of dollars. But, why should the government care. It's your money.

I'm a naysayer on high speed rail but only because: I'm from a railroad family. There were, at one time, 24 passenger trains that came through our town in Iowa. Today, there are none. Why? It's not profitable. It's not a money-maker for 95% of the country. Remember the Concorde? It could fly between NYC and Paris in about two hours. That's four hours or so faster than normal flights. Where is it today? It's an 'Abraham Lincoln'. It's 'history' because no one flew on it.
High speed rail is like watching The Keith Olberman Show on television. It's a side-show, a comedy act but once seen that's enough and normal citizens move on to other things.

You are aware that Obama and Biden very much want high speed rail to help make America great, again.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Joe Biden's son, Hunter, is a lobbyist for Amtrak and sits on their Board of Directors.