Today, April 15, is the due date for income taxes in the United States. To celebrate "Tax Day" I decided to post a photo of your tax dollars hard at work. This was taken last December 26, when the northeast United States experienced a big snowstorm. The location is South Station in Boston.
Yup, that's an Amtrak train leaving Boston for Washington...in the heavy snow. Amtrak continued to run trains through the night as the snow kept coming, getting people to where they needed to go. There were delays of course, but the trains kept on running. After this snowstorm, a lot of Amtrak ads showed up at train stations showing a part of the Amtrak line in a snowstorm, and then a line of text saying something about how the trains keep running in the snow, or that you don't have to worry about the snow, etc. Given the circumstances, I think Amtrak did a very good job keeping the trains running when everything else was shutting down. One major reason for this is that the railroad owns the tracks it runs on, whereas the busses and airlines do not own the roads or airports they use. Amtrak is in charge of keeping their line running or not, whereas the busses and airlines are subject to what someone else says.
Many people don't see it this way. These are people who we like to call NIMBYs (Not In My BackYard) because they do not like trains and see no point to them. However, trains have several advantages over other forms of transportation. How many airplanes were in the sky during this snowstorm? How many motorists can say they felt safe as they traveled that day? I saw a column in a magazine recently (I forget the magazine, or I'd say what it is) where it showed how much money, in dollar amounts, come out of the average person's taxes and where they go. Based on an annual federal income tax of $5,400 per person, a whopping two dollars and some change went to Amtrak. In comparison, the airlines and the interstate highways got a lot more money. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the need for these other forms of transportation, my argument is simply that the railroad does not get the attention it deserves.
Anyways, I will step off my proverbial soap box and let you all enjoy the photo!
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