Take a look a rail’s potential

Take a look a rail’s potential

I’ve worked 36 years in the rail- road industry, most in management. Some will then say my commentary isn’t objective, but I’m not involved with passenger rail. I simply want to cite information that’s not typically apparent to those outside the industry and admonish those rushing to quick judgment against passenger rail corridors to slow down and look around our country at some “case history,” then consider the options.

Opponents often belittle the project as not having case history to support it, and as another crazy idea ginned-up by people who don’t understand what the real world wants and needs. But as examples of case history, similar passenger rail corridors in North Carolina, Virginia and California are very successful. As ridership grows, they increase service to handle the growth and provide a product attractive to travelers in those corridors.

The original American passenger rail corridor, dating to the early 20th century, still thrives between Washington, D.C., and Boston, one of its greatest advantages being overall travel time between Washington and New York City is less by rail than air. There is no reason Ohio’s corridor wouldn’t yield similar benefits.

Passenger rail corridors cited above operate on expanded and upgraded existing rail beds. This means not only is there little to no additional land consumed, but also existing rail freight lines critical to our nation’s coast-to-coast and regional transportation system are improved. Particularly advantageous, the cost to build a mile of new railroad track is a fraction of the same length of new highway.

Some will complain passenger rail corridors depend upon public funding. Minus the public dollars spent to support air travel, airlines would be forced to increase ticket prices dramatically to generate enough income to support their infrastructure costs previously paid for with public money — a sobering moment for the traveling public and airline executives alike.

Look at the road network we know today as the Interstate Highway System. Who has traveled lately and not seen it is crumbling? And reconstruction is underway and not nearly complete. Can we afford reconstruction, maintenance and building additional miles (further inflating future costs)?

I don’t pretend to know those answers, however I know it’s wise to carefully consider the options. The Interstate System is already a tax burden, so, instead of continuing to pave more and more of Ohio’s landscape, we should carefully consider our options and take a look at what other states are already doing with development of passenger rail corridors.

Terry L. Feichtenbiner, Poland

Doubling our exports? Really?

When President Obama was in South Korea he made yet another hot air promise. In the next five years we will double our exports and create thousands of jobs.

At first I thought this was a great idea. But what do we export? How about televisions, but they come from China. How about sneakers, but they come from Vietnam. How about T-shirts, but they come from Pakistan. How about toasters, but, again, from China.

So what can we export that will create thousands of jobs? From our port there is a small rowboat loaded with our exports. Incoming is the Queen Mary, stacked high with imports. The trade deficit is so high we will never recover.

William E. Heston, Girard

Playing the odds ... and losing

It will never happen to me. That’s why I talk on my cellphone while driving, don’t play the lottery, and seldom wear sunscreen. Because based on my theory, it’s always the other guy who rear ends someone because he lacks the concentration necessary to talk and drive at the same time. It’s always some lady from a town I never heard of who wins $185 million. And it’s always some poor schlub with plain old bad luck who develops skin cancer.

Thinking “it will never happen to me” has worked out pretty well. There have been a few bumps in the road along the way (mostly during my teenage years) but nothing that really set me back or drastically changed my view on life.

So naturally I thought my family and I had made it unscathed through the “Great Recession” — the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Man, am I tired of hearing that slogan. In fact, over the past couple years my wife and I discussed how we hadn’t really felt its impact.

This changed about a month ago when I was notified that my position was being eliminated. It’s not like hearing “you’re fired,” but it still stings. It’s strange, but it wasn’t so much about being without a job for the first time in my adult life, as it was about seeing holes shot through my “it will never happen to me” theory.

I have since abandoned “it will never happen to me” and hit the old Internet machine in search of a new job/career and new life theory.

But in the meantime, I’ll still talk and drive, I may have to start playing the lottery, and it’s too darn cold to think about sunscreen.

Bill Hegarty, Poland