Sleepless in Midland

What's with the left's fascination with trains?

Years ago when citizens of Houston were contemplating a light rail system in the city a friend explained that some people were really wowed by the idea because they played with electric trains when they were children and never grew out of it.

That love of trains is playing out again as we see with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal. From NPR:

"Overhauling transportation systems" to reduce emissions — including expanding electric car manufacturing, building "charging stations everywhere," and expanding high-speed rail to "a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary"...

As children, our electric trains probably came from Santa Claus. And to many, Uncle Sam is Santa Claus.

But bringing the real world of high speed rail dreams grinding down to school zone speed, the other day California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a shift in priorities that would de-emphasize the $77 billion rail plan in California which has been going on for the past decade with hardly anything to show for it:

“Let’s be real. The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long,” Newsom said about the train, which is under construction in the Central Valley. “There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were.”

Reality set in. A cross country high speed system in the U.S. would be incredibly expensive. Maybe taxpayers should take up a collection and buy model trains for members of congress to try to satiate their train fantasies.

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2:36 PM 2/13/2019

The real reason for bullet train's appeal -- boys like to play with trains

Once again we're hearing about the Texas bullet train and all that its backers expect it to bring. See With Trump on board, Texas puts high-speed rail on the fast track:

Texas Central’s plan is to build a private 205-mph bullet train that covers the 240-mile trip between Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth using Japanese technology.

Trains would depart every 30 minutes, 18 hours a day. A one-way trip would take 90 minutes, compared with five hours to drive or about three and a half hours by air, if you include all the transit and security, Keith said.

The promoters hint they can do it without taxpayer funds. That's a grand promise. It would be convincing if they could point to any passenger rail project anywhere that didn't ultimately require both government funding and property confiscation.

In this day and age when the driverless car appears be emerging from dream to reality, it would seem that the money could be put to better use in prepping vehicles and highways for smooth, coordinated transit. In that case maybe some Texans could benefit from it besides those relatively few who travel between Dallas and Houston.