Iowa Defense Alliance

Once upon a time in America you traveled by foot, then horse, then stage coach, then train and finally plane. Each  faster than the other. It would take days to travel from west coast to east coast by train and this remained the mode of travel til airplanes came along and cut the days down to hours. Now our not so  bright governor instead of promoting more daily airline flights to Chicago  from Des Moines or Cedar Rapids is taking us back to the past. Now if the airline industry can’t hardly  get enough  passengers every day to maintain daily flights to  Chicago from Des Moines or Cedar Rapids just how is Amtrak going to get enough passengers every day?  Amtrak is a lot faster than the old steam engines i did find some speed records of over 100 miles per hour in 1930s from steam engines but in this day and age of speed and super fast internet and cell phones we want to get there as quick as possible.  I could fly from Des Moines to Chicago go to a Cubs game and fly back home before the train would even get there.

I looked up Grey Hound it would get there about as fast as Amtrak would. It costs $162 dollars for a round trip from Ottumwa to Chicago and Amtrak is losing money. But Gov. Culver is working with Amtrak officials “to make Chicago-to-Iowa possible,” at a price ranging from $40 to $50 for a roundtrip ticket. That would take 3 times the passengers to equal the cost of the Ottumwa Amtrak trip.  So you can tell right away that this will lose money from the get go not to mention the $50+ million for track upgrade. They are planning on calling it the Chicago Flyer it ought to be named Rip Off Express!  Amtrak officials are expecting 120,000 to 190,000 passengers a year for this line i would like to know where they will get all these passengers to appear to ride something thats a by gone era of transportation. I guess everyone in Des Moines better least plan on one train trip a year! Well when were paying for it why not put it through?  Taxpayers provide over $100 for every 1000 miles traveled by each Amtrak passenger. This is turning out to be more of a political payback than necessity. I just can’t envision a multitude of Iowan’s  this day and age who would want to take so long to get there and back we want to get there faster and quicker not back to 1930s or 40s time. Because if that was the case more people would be driving to Ottumwa and riding Amtrak now.

In years past, Culver said, “Passenger rail really connected people in the Midwest. I think people miss that. … People are rather nostalgic about what this used to mean to their town.”   I’m sure the average Iowan or American wants to spend 10 hours on a train and think they are doing it for nostalgic reasons. I don’t know why even Culver is so thrilled with the passenger train idea since he was only 4 when Des Moines last had a regularly scheduled passenger train service that ended on  May 31, 1970, when the Rock Island Lines’ Chicago-Council Bluffs Cornbelt Rocket ceased operations. So please Governor tell us of your train rides back in the good ole days i would be thrilled to death to hear you tell some tall tales. Maybe you was on the train with Babe Ruth!?  Not considering he died in 1948 and you wasn’t born til 1966. I don’t think being nostalgic is worth this cost. I should run for governor i think the old west was pretty wild so i will bring back a stage coach line to Chicago and have bandits shoot at passengers.  Boy that sounds nostalgic doesn’t it !?

Amtrak has never turned a profit and your telling me  in these times when we need to carefully spend money that this is a good idea. I don’t think we need to be spending money on a  upgrade of a blast from the past. I think  he’s got some money invested in this hoping to reap big rewards from the government.  I got news for Culver were BROKE and printing money faster than Parker Brothers for Monopoly. Its a matter of time before it devaluates and becomes worthless.  I’m 43 and have had no interest in going to Chicago or reason to go there in my lifetime. I would rather see the money spent creating jobs in Iowa not making another Amtrak non profit line.