Can’t We Learn from Everyone Else?
Even after being out of the advertising business for a dozen years now, I’m still often reminded of a former client of mine back in Honolulu. He was the president of one of the banks in town and a wise man. Whenever one of his competitors came out with a new financial product or changed interest rates or took some action that seemed unusual, the first thing Jack would ask was, “What do they know that I don’t know?”
This bit of visual commentary appeared on Facebook the other day. Frustrating, isn’t it? While we’re chugging along at 79 miles-per-hour behind an Amtrak locomotive, almost everywhere else in the world, people are routinely being whisked around on high-speed trains running at 200 miles an hour . . . in Japan and in France and in Germany and in China. For the love of God, there’s even a high-speed rail system being built in Uzbekistan!
I want to confront the nay-sayers and the anti-rail politicians in this country, and taking a page from my former client’s book, scream at them: “Does it ever occur to you that the whole damn world might possibly know something we don’t know?”
Except Jack wouldn’t scream.
You left out Canada, with a picture of a RDC.
I’m not that creative … I pulled the whole thing off the internet!
Not sure I’d find the ride, the scenery, the dining experiences, and sleeping experience all that relaxing on the California Zephyr, or the Empire Builder, or Southwest Chief, or Cardinal, at 200 mph.
I kind of like it the way it is. What’s the hurry?
No hurry on those routes, I agree. But high-speed rail should be connecting major cities in a dozen or more corridors. For instanced, Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati. Or Houston-Dallas. Or Miami-Orlando. Or Washington or St. Louis or Detroit to Chicago. Or Portland-Seattle. Or L.A. to Phoenix. Etc., etc.
New York-Albany-Buffalo-Cleveland-Detroit-Chicago. And yes, that’s a “long-distance” route, and it’s pretty clear it would justify high speed rail!