The Conversation: Rail and Strange bedfellows

A Heavy RAIL and Amtrak conversation is breaking out over a Jonathan's blog.

I love the trains. Other cities use train travel: Chicago, New York, Boston, Phili. In Pittsburgh we used to have rail travel as well.

The Conversation: Strange bedfellows Strange bedfellows
Jack Markowitz, the curmudgeonly and conservative retired Trib business editor, finds himself aghast to be opposed to one of the president's proposed budget cuts: the Amtrak subsidy. He makes a concise yet eloquent defense for continuing to subsidized the nation's beleaguered passenger rail system:

Rail travel gets a public contribution to ticket prices in even the countries with the best, fastest trains, such as Japan and France. In fact, all sorts of transportation receive subsidies overt or hidden.