Re: Swift Meat
Posted by Pierre on August 9, 2012, 11:28 pm, in reply to "
Re: Swift Meat"
Oddly enough, I think the answer is faster trains. We road Amtrak from Chicargo to Temple, Texas. 36 hours! one way. About the same price as flying, but we had a bunch of stuff we needed to get to our daughter and SIL. Amtrak has a more liberal carry-on and checked baggage policy. Ellen and me bought the private, two person, berth. This included 3 squares a day in the dining car. The reason for the slowness of travel was due to the fact we spend way too much time sitting still on sidings, waiting for freight trains to pass, coming from the other direction. Yes, freight takes priority now-a-days. The other problem is rotten rail road beds. For one stretch through a swampy area in Missouri, we were crawling, because the cars was rocking back and forth so violently, we'd have fallen off the tracks if we moved faster than a snails pace. The hopper cars layin' in the swamp water testified to that! Chicargo to Temple, Tx is is about a 1100 mile trip. If you could average 100mph, that'd get the trip down to 11 hours. 15 if we want to be conservative. That means, only 2 meals, instead of the, average (36 hours (1.5 days) x 3 squares) 4.5 meals. I suspect the 'cost' of the food items cited included the cost to procure, store, prepare, then serve the meals. Most of the trips I've plotted out on Amtrak can be driven in much less time, but you still have to figure the cost of fuel, meals and lodging. So, for our traveling dollar, Amtrak is not a bad deal. But flying is not that much more expensive. In some cases, it's cheaper. This country of our'n is stuck in the 19th century as far as passenger train travel goes. It's time we improved our standards. Better tracks, dedicated to passenger travel only is what it takes. Faster, bullet trains could rival air travel, for speed, comfort and value for the traveling dollar. Trouble is, it's going to cost money to do that.
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- Re: Swift Meat - Asa July 29, 2012, 8:26 pm
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- Re: Swift Meat - Asa July 30, 2012, 7:13 am
- Re: Swift Meat - Sheldon July 30, 2012, 11:25 pm
- Re: Swift Meat - Pierre August 2, 2012, 8:35 am
- Re: Swift Meat - Sheldon August 2, 2012, 5:21 pm
- Re: Swift Meat - Pierre August 9, 2012, 11:28 pm
- Re: Swift Meat - Asa August 3, 2012, 7:38 am
- Re: Swift Meat - Sheldon July 30, 2012, 11:26 pm
- Re: Swift Meat - Al July 30, 2012, 7:53 am
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