Somebody done fucked up. GOP solution: cut Amtrak funding to punish them.
Thoughts and prayers…but no money for infrastructure. People in the civilized part of the world notice our rail system’s third world status.
This is suspicious coming in the heels of the other accident that affected Senators and Congressmen who were going to the white christian racist retreat.
I would not exclude conspiracy and foul play until a full and transparent investigation is completed.
Elaine is doing a bang up job over there at transportation.
Mangolini can’t even get the train part right. (Too early?)
I would say a crash bang job, but I see what you did there…
Meanwhile, the South Carolina Department of Public Safety reports that 56 people have died in car crashes so far this year.
Condolences to the families of those killed, and get well soon to the injured. But the people who survived should just thank their lucky stars that they now have health insurance for $12.00 a month since Donald Trump got elected.
Oh, shit…
Sure is a good thing they’re getting rid of all those business-destroying regulations, ain’t it?
Not so fast, grasshopper, Amtrak and CSX now need a bunch of new locomotives to be built, presumably by Trump Choo Choos, Ltd.
We have daily shootings because 2nd Amendments freedoms! Will it be the daily trainwreck next for lack of maintenance and new rail infrastructure? We already have daily trainwrecks in the White House and Congress, but I mean on the actual tracks.
Yes, thoughts and prayers for the families of the dead and the wounded, too. I’m getting far too cynical for my own or anyone else’s good.
She did going Laboring too. Union leaders hated her.
It’s too soon after this tragedy to politicize our rail infrastructure bill. Real Americans only give thoughts and prayers.
If our rail system could only be turned into a public-private partnership, it would be so much better.
Oh, wait.
I’m guessing this is mostly due to the lack of Amtrak funding already. Kind of sucks too since I have a kid that’s going to college in Charlotte and it’s been very convenient when he wants to come home to Raleigh by using the train.
With all the anti crash stuff on cars these days I wonder if they could quickly retro-fit similar warning devices on trains if fixing the whole system would be slow and hard to get funding for? And for that matter what about air bags and making seatbelt wearing similar to planes.
Good old Raleigh. I have fond memories of the place, though I have to remind myself that they came from the experiences of a young child and can only be viewed back through the fog of 50+ years.
I lived here for a couple years in the mid-1960s while my dad was in grad school at NC State. Looks like much of the block hasn’t changed a bit – tiny houses on large lots – though the area across the street was all woods when I lived there. It’s 9 homes to the acre for detached homes here in my Southern California suburb, so a 0.57-acre lot is almost hard to picture.
It was time spent in a different world. We had a neighbor who raised rabbits for food. Most of the people around us drank coke at breakfast (coffee probably sucked really bad back then). One grandfatherly neighbor taught my younger sister to whittle wood with a knife – at age 3. We all ran loose and barefoot as much as possible. Rain turned the drainage ditch along the road into slippery wet clay that wouldn’t fully come out of your clothes for several washes.
The fondness of my memories is certainly helped by the fact that I was white and too young (and too white) to be aware of and to understand civil rights issues and segregation. I have a few memories of my parents doing things that I later recognized as attempts to prevent us from absorbing the surrounding acceptance that segregation was simply normal and right. Perhaps if I was older, they might have done more and I might have have ben more aware of it. It would be interesting to discuss it with my older siblings.
Anyway, thanks for letting me wander down memory lane. I sure hope NC can regain a sensible state government and resume its efforts to treat history as something to learn from rather than something to return to
Raleigh and the surrounding RTP area have grown a lot even since I first came to Raleigh in '79 to start at NCSU (yes it was University then!) After graduating I stuck around and remember playing volleyball in an adult league in the mid to late '80s that was in carolina pines community center
https://www.raleighnc.gov/parks/content/ParksRec/Articles/Parks/CarolinaPines.html