The government managed to kill high speed passenger rail before it was
known as that, and taxed passenger rail traffic to subsidize airport
construction as well. Funny how we expect government solutions to be
good these days. I believe by current progressive thinking these
decisions were bad.
Rick Womer wrote:
Thanks, Brian.
Passenger railroads almost disappeared in the US with commercial aviation and
the interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s. Spending 18-24 hours on
a train from St. Louis to New York lost its appeal when one could fly there in
2-3 hours; and taking a train a couple of hours north to Chicago could not
compete with driving one's own car. So, by 1970 there were only 3 trains a day
through Union Station, and it was too expensive to maintain for that amount of
traffic.
The only places passenger rail is in half-decent shape in the US (which is only
quarter-decent, by European standards) is in the "Northeast Corridor" from
Boston to Washington DC, around Chicago, and on the California coast.
Rick
Rick
http://photo.net/photos/RickW
--- On Mon, 12/1/08, Brian Walters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Great image - wonderful architecture.
I'd love to see a photo of that hall back in its
heyday.
(How can a station that catered for 100,000 passengers
daily end up
being abandoned? Ending up as a shopping mall seems a sad
end but
better than demolition, I suppose.)
Cheers
Brian
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Brian Walters
Western Sydney Australia
http://members.westnet.com.au/brianwal/SL/
On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:28:47 -0800 (PST), "Rick
Womer"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
I left Denver last month and traveled to St. Louis,
where I had a day of
shooting while my wife toiled.
This is the Grand Hall of Union Station. The station
is a huge and
glorious structure, built in the 1890s and once the
largest and busiest
railroad station in the U.S. In the 1930s and 1940s
it served 400 trains
and 100,000 passengers daily. Abandoned in the 1970s,
it was restored in
the 1980s as hotels, convention center, and shopping
mall.
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=8317483&size=lg
K10D, DA 10-17 fisheye, ISO 800, f/3.5 @ 1/20,
handheld, RAW via LR2.
Rick
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