McCain just had his first vote in 6 months

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The Amtrak bill was a bill to improve safety on Amtrak trains that would include equipment that could have prevented the recent Commuter train accident in California that killed several people and injured 130.

That was a pretty stupid move on McCain's part.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The Amtrak bill was a bill to improve safety on Amtrak trains that would include equipment that could have prevented the recent Commuter train accident in California that killed several people and injured 130.

That was a pretty stupid move on McCain's part.

The equipment that would have prevented that accident was the drivers two eyes getting his fckn face out of a cell phone and onto the tracks.

Yeah, why don't you tell that to the guy.  Oh yeah.. he's dead. 

[Ban my account ffs!]

The Amtrak bill was a bill to improve safety on Amtrak trains that would include equipment that could have prevented the recent Commuter train accident in California that killed several people and injured 130.

That was a pretty stupid move on McCain's part.

The equipment that would have prevented that accident was the drivers two eyes getting his fckn face out of a cell phone and onto the tracks.

Yeah, why don't you tell that to the guy.  Oh yeah.. he's dead. 

Well, his own stupidity caused his own death plus the death of others. Can't say as I feel much sorrow for him.

So you think we should forego technology that can slow trains if they pass a red light or jump the tracks and instead just rely on human judgment.. because that's what you've implied.

You'd better hope the engineer doesn't faint

[Ban my account ffs!]

Being pissed off at a dead guy does absolutely nothing... and recognizing that, I didn't bring it up in my post.

I'm sure I could come up with a million different "shoulda, coulda, woulda" situations as well.. but they don't solve problems.

And yes, our rail system is so neglected and out of date.. it is a joke.  India has a better rail system than we do.

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I agree that the rails should be public and the trains private.  I could see having some government subsidization of passenger rail in areas that could greatly benefit from having it but it still wouldn't be profitable to service it...

Jfern, your argument doesn't hold up.

If anything, doing what we've done with our train system to the road/cars, we'd basically have all private roads owned by various trucking companies... and all passenger vehicles would be owned by the government and the government would have to negotiate with the trucking companies to allow people to drive on the private roads and spend a ridiculous amount of money to do so on roads that were really built for the sole purpose of carrying semi-trucks that hadn't really been updated in decades because the needs of the trucks are much less than your average passenger vehicle....

It would be a big, fat, expensive mess where the inefficiencies of government meet the inefficiencies of the private sector and our economy would suffer greatly for it.

Now why the hell does that make sense for our rail systems?

The tracks should be public and the railroads should pay fees/taxes to use them just like our road system.