Another One Bites the Dust?

Today, American Airlines and American Eagle announced that they are seeking Chapter 11 protection. In other words, they've filed for bankruptcy. I can remember a time when there used to be a lot more major air carriers in this country: Eastern, Pan Am, TWA. They're all gone now. So are a grab bag of smaller carriers. United managed to stay in business, but only just. Most of the others that are left are on shaky ground. Let's face it. Domestic airlines are an endangered species. Meanwhile, congress and the senate are trying to kill the only passenger rail service left in the country. So when all of the airlines go under, how will we get from place to place in this country? If we lived in Europe, we could travel to any destination by rail, quickly and cheaply. Also in Japan. And China. But not in the US, where passenger rail routes have been systematically eliminated over the past 30 years. And why would our government, which gives billions of dollars in subsidies to automobile manufacturers and airlines, want to kill passenger rail service in the US? I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to hazard a guess. BIG OIL.

This country used to be criss-crossed with passenger rail lines. You could go anywhere in the US by rail. Everybody traveled by train. Literally thousands of passenger trains ran across the country every day. And they were fast, reaching average speeds of 110 mph. And they always arrived on time. Today, there's only AmTrak, and they only run a few routes, and they are perpetually late and over priced. So what happened? Two things: the automobile and air travel. Both of these industries were, and still are, heavily subsidized by the US government to help them stay in business. The rail roads? They got no subsidies. And they all went under. Finally, at the eleventh hour, congress stepped in and created AmTrak, a private company that receives government subsidies to stay in business. But it was too little too late. The automobiles and the airlines dominated travel by the time the government acted to save the rail lines.

So how does BIG OIL come into all of this? All three of these forms of transportation require fuel, which is made from oil, but planes and cars require far more fuel - we're talking multiples of ten - to transport the same number of passengers the same distance as a train does. It was in the best interest of the oil companies to put people in planes and automobiles. Additionally, cars travel on roads, and roads are predominately made of asphalt, and asphalt is made from oil, so making more and more roads is also in the best interest of the oil companies. Trains travel on rails which are made of steel. Anybody know a major American steel manufacturer? Been to Pittsburgh lately? No steel mills there anymore. Oil companies pumped a lot of money into lobbying congress to aid the airlines and automobile manufacturers, as well as themselves, with subsidies and tax breaks, so that every American could afford a car of their own and could drive anywhere they wanted on nicely paved roads and could fly across country over night. Of course, the car companies and airlines quickly joined BIG OIL. They knew which side their bread was buttered on. Together, they killed rail travel in this country. You could almost call it a conspiracy, except that we all know that conspiracies don't exist. Don't we?

So now that passenger rail service has all but disappeared in America, we are faced with the prospect of the airlines disappearing too. And how will we travel then? By car? As the price of gas keeps going up and up? Makes one stop and think. Maybe someone ought to lobby congress to pump a little more money into AmTrak. Maybe some wealthy tycoon, some Buffet or Gates should consider using their fortunes to restart rail travel in this country. Not that either of these things is likely to happen anytime in the near future, not when BIG OIL still has a strangle hold on congress.