Blind Spot

  My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers.

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     I happened to be flying into Minneapolis the very day that Northwest Airlines announced its merger with Delta --Delta to be the more senior (more equal) partner -- in effect, to absorb Northwest and run its operations. Many observers are not optimistic that the merger will rescue these companies in any case, since both airlines are financial basket-cases, but it's a sort of last-ditch effort to save them both.

    It was less than great news up around Minneapolis, Northwest's corporate headquarters. A lot of people I talked to were anxious that Delta would cut service to a lot of little cities in the upper Great Lakes and northern prairie region, places like Duluth, Grand Forks, Green Bay, Traverse City and many other towns. Instead of one or two flights a day, they may end up with one or two a week, or none at all, they feared.

     The Northwest pilots were none too pleased, either, because Delta was making noises about their own pilots seniority counting for more than Northwest's pilot's seniority in terms of preferred assignments and scheduling. In fact, the Northwest pilots were so pissed off they threatened to scuttle the merger.

     That part of the country is a big region of wide open spaces Things are very far apart. You wouldn't want to drive a car from Des Moines to Rapid City, even if gasoline was a good bit less than the $3.50 a gallon it is now. Driving around the prairie is especially tedious -- and dangerous because of the tedium. The landscape is boring. The roads are dead straight and mostly dead flat.

     It happened, also, that I got a little guided tour of Minneapolis from the author-shlepping service that my publisher engaged. We rode past the old Minneapolis central train station. He said no trains stop there anymore (there's a dinky afterthought of a station next door in St. Paul). Anyway, the only train that comes through the Twin Cities is the pokey once-a-day Amtrak to Seattle.

     In other words, this region of the country has next-to-zero railroad service. Can we pause a moment here to ask: exactly how far does America have its head up its ass? Do you get the picture? Can you connect the dots? The airline industry is dying and absolutely no thought is being given to how people will get around this big country -- except to make the stupid assumption that we can just drive our cars instead. Even during the several days I was around Minneapolis, no news media or politician raised the subject of reviving passenger railroad service.

      In point of fact, these are exactly the kind of trips that would be better served by rail, anyway -- the towns that are less than five hundred miles apart. The travel time between trains and planes would be comparable, considering the two hours or so that you have to add to every airplane trip because of all the security crap, not to mention the delays. As a matter of fact, USA today ran a front page story two days after the Delta / Northwest announcement saying "Air Trips Slowest [now than] in Past 20 Years." Subhead: "Trend likely to persist as congestion worsens."

     One big reason for the airport congestion, of course, is that the runways are cluttered up with planes making trips of only a few hundred miles. This has been a problem for quite a while. Periodically, it gets so bad that the media gets all excited and sometimes (last summer, for instance) the President makes a statement deploring it. Since the current president is a knucklehead, it apparently hasn't occurred to him to get behind a revival of the passenger rail system. But Mr. Bush is apparently not the only elected knucklehead in this country, because absolutely nobody is talking about this.

     Now get this: we are sleepwalking into a transportation crisis. As I already said, the airline industry is dying. The price of petroleum-based aviation fuel is killing it. And forget the fantasies about running it on bio-diesel or used french-fry oil. Driving cars will not be an adequate substitute, either. It's imperative that this country gets serious about restoring the passenger rail system. We can't not talk about it for another year. We must demand that the candidates for president speak to this issue. If you who are reading this are active reporters or editors in the news media, you've got to raise your voices behind this issue.

Comments

[Holmes, I presume]

Okay, JR, you’re right… asoka wins with:

“If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain.”

[Johnny Rico]

"The landscape is boring. The roads are dead straight and mostly dead flat."

Fuck you. This is America. Ever been to the Ukraine? Just kidding. It's your landscape as much as it was the Indians' before we started growing corn in perfect rows.

Travesty

[Johnny Rico]

The "If" being the key part.

I'm serious about Masterpiece Theatre. Some of the best parts of life are free (with no ads).

Asoka always wins. That's what makes him asoka. If he lost he wouldn't be here :)

He is good.

[Borne Calamity]

Transportation of bulk products under 500 miles is still cheaper by truck than by rail. For passengers it may be more cost friendly. But I wonder what added capacity rail really holds in store for passengers. Since rail for shipping use already became overloaded last year there is no real excess rail out there nationwide. And at one to two million per mile it's going to be expensive and tedious to expand rail.

[Holmes, I presume]

Is Jim drinking and writing again?

No presidential candidate is going to talk about railroads as an election issue in 2008… thereby suggesting -- whether correctly or not -- that Americans are such losers and so hopeless (key word) that we should want to throw our lot in with the guy/gal implying that the prospect of continued operation of personal vehicles for all, our god given right, is now suddenly in question…

http://cprr.org/Museum/Southern_Pacific_Bulletin/Ten_Mile_Day.html

“Ten miles of railroad track laying in one day! It is a record that will probably never be challenged. It is not likely there will ever again be such a spirited race for railroad supremacy as the one that inspired the Central Pacific and Union Pacific to such marvelous feats in those early days. Never will there be assembled such an army of railroad workers.

With the eight sons of Erin and the sons of "John Chinaman" rest the palms of a great track-laying victory.”

[Johnny Rico]

"What we want has made that dangerous evolution into what we need."
-Lt G.

[Johnny Rico]

"Ten miles of railroad track laying in one day! It is a record that will probably never be challenged. It is not likely there will ever again be such a spirited race for railroad supremacy as the one that inspired the Central Pacific and Union Pacific to such marvelous feats in those early days. Never will there be assembled such an army of railroad workers."

Oh wait! Holmes just posted it.

READ IT AGAIN.

[Johnny Rico]

If Asoka and Holmes will promise to post once a day for the next three weeks -

- I'll promise not to.

[Johnny Rico]

"Is Jim drinking and writing again? "

You've read WMBH, right?

he could be mixing mushrooms with meth. I'd have no idea. But what business is it of ours? I just thought 'Blind Spot' read like one of my better rants (pure shit).

[Holmes, I presume]

No can do, Rico. Anyway, you're the heart and soul of this place and the real moderator. Besides, you know that asoka and I can't make those kinds of crazy commitments. ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHhSo0Y8xeo&feature=related

[Holmes, I presume]

I mean drinking normally helps writers, at least at a certain stage of the process... I understand what you're saying. (A real artist will do whatever it takes and sacrifice everything to realize his or her vision.)

This week's post seemed rushed. That's all I was really trying to say.

[Dr.Doom]

Hi Holmes, just how much to you have to drink to become a better writer? I immediately think of Hemmingway, and JR, of course.

Hey, let's cut Jim some slack. He's on the road, and maybe traveling doesn't agree with his posting schedule. Not everyone's a Kipling or a Steinbeck, or an asoka.

Yeah Jim, without the aeroplanes, the worldt is gonna fast become a very big place. De choo choos are only gonna help so much. Better to break out them horses and stage coaches for a little Deadwood or Gunsmoke action. Where's Kitty?

[Johnny Rico]

"No can do, Rico. Anyway, you're the heart and soul of this place and the real moderator."

Fuck you, Holmes. You know that's not true. There is nothing in the barrel. You know I'm a poseur. I just take charge when my officers are fried.

everybody knows YOU are the shit. The Shit. As in THE. So step the fuck up.

[UncleYarra]

BorneC,
Care to elaborate on those figures?
Esp. the 500 mile one re road & rail.

[Johnny Rico]

I'm not cutting Nudge or Holmes any slack anymore. (I love these two and Holmes will forgive me)

Is that an honorable sacrifice? Is it? Is it!

I don't think so.

We were just discussing the battle of ****

German machine gun posts were undamaged.

"The field of corpses."

[Johnny Rico]

BorneC-

Answer Yarra or forever be relegated to obscurity.

[Johnny Rico]

"He's on the road" - Kerouac

[Johnny Rico]

CFN is the most progressive place on the planet.

There are several (quasi) moderators.

I am one of them. There is no rank.

Doom. Holmes. Bif. OGH. OEO. Nudge. Brandon. Wombat. Patrick. PL. Asoka. Evelyn. Soluble. Do I need to go on. You are all welcome here. Do I need to cry again.

[Dr.Doom]

I mean some folks get all ancy (word?) on de road. Maybe he's not "regular", or the food is shit (he did say Minnesota, right?). He seems moron sensitive to his surroundings than most folks, so God only knows what's rushing through between those ears. Maybe he saw some buildings that made him truly nauseous, like that old Greek temple he posted that looks to still be under construction after all these years. Do those Greeks ever finish anything? What about that statue of that chick with no arms? What's up with that?

[UncleYarra]

Doom,
The sculptor gave up after the statue wouldn't stop talking. Or shave.

[UncleYarra]

JHK asks
"exactly how far does America have its head up its ass?"
Far enough such that pressure has equalised. hence no apparent discomfort.
Since the next top pimp will be no different, perhaps you can all say "his voice has changed, but his breath is still the same" once he is elected.

[Johnny Rico]

Hit The Road jack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcORVY9UGIY&feature=related

[UncleYarra]

OK, so Ozzie's not her thing. Blues apparently are.

[Nudge]

Nice to see a surprise post like this. Jim, hope you travels work[ed?] out OK in flatland. Don't count on any American brain cells connecting enough dots on the transportation thing until awhile after planes and then SUVs become unaffordable for routine travel. Perhaps some child, not yet a driver, will ask the adults if they ever heard of this thing called a railroad.

Holmes, thanks for the link about the story of the 10+ miles of track getting laid in a day. The sad part, though, was the picture at the end showing the former railbed being used as a local dirt trail. Out here in the yuppified part of Mass, we just rip up the rails and turn the railbeds into (wait for it) jogging trails. To add insult to injury, people drive there solo in large SUVs to make use of the trails ~ as if somehow they couldn't get a walk by any other means.

Let's play at being NAR (National Association of Realtwhores) type clowns and start calling a peak in fuel prices .. today's new record national average prices are $3.503 for regular unleaded and $4.200 for diesel, up 1.2c and 0.3c respectively from yesterday. Any good NAR cheerleader worth his or her own weight in bullshit will look at these (temporarily) slowing price increases and declare that the arc has stopped climbing for now, whoopee, and we should all hang onto our Hummers instead of ditching them ASAP.

Doom, I think the word is “antsy”, as in ants in yer pants. As to the statue chick, she obviously had primary and secondary ARMs on her unfinished temple during the big Greek housing bubble of the era, presumably because their own central bank's version of Mr Magoo told everyone what a wonderful thing adjustable-rate mortgages were. When the bust came, she did the jingle mail thing, and the loans (err, ARMs) were pulled. End of story.

[UncleYarra]

Nudge,
get thee to a punnery