Jeeze Louise!

“Oh dear,” Congresswoman Louise Slaughter said. ”Can't we at least just build the thing first?” referring to FastRail across NY state.
Score one for Louise. They're getting the hang of it.
A good response for the noisy blowhard-radio crowd.
“No!” my wife shouted. “Why should we build something just for the sake of building it, after the Fast Ferry debacle?”
“Who's gonna ride it?” someone asked.
“Oh, lotsa people,” Louise bubbled. “College kids.”
College kids are a viable market?
“Most college kids have cars,” my wife declared.
Like the brand new Nissan Maxima my brother gave his daughter for graduating high-school.
College kids choose FastRail instead of taking their car back to college?
Jeeze Louise!
“All we hafta do is put in a third track,” Louise said.
In which case you have three tracks through every podunk burg across NY.
You'll hafta slow for them burgs.
Sorry Louise, but the old New York Central Water-Level Route (now CSX) is 19th century.
As is the Northeast Corridor, which despite that has a viable market.
Fast as it is, the Northeast Corridor is poor as FastRail.
Too many junctions, and ancient restrictive tunnels.
Sections have to be negotiated at 40 mph.
The tunnels under the Hudson River won't clear double-deck passenger cars. They won't even clear freight cars.
It ain't like FastRail in Europe.
I also find it ironic that every PR depiction of FastRail is the Northeast Corridor, which excuse me, is electrified with overhead trolley wire.
It isn't diesel locomotives.
The railroad across New York is. It isn't electrified.
130 mph out of a FastRail diesel train is a lot of diesel locomotives.
They have to generate their own power.
It's not an electrified line, where mega-power is in the overhead wire.
Sadly, I don't think the media understands the main advantage of railroads, which is to move great quantities of freight at little cost.
They think railroading is moving passengers, which it was for a time, but secondary to moving freight.
And a passenger railroad doesn't deliver you portal-to-portal like a car.
Hello; a taxi is a car, and rather expensive.
Years ago we rode the bus home after hiking over to Main & Clinton from Amtrak's Rochester station.
But as a Transit employee, I could ride the bus free.
I had ridden Amtrak only because I'm a railfan.
Most times I prefer my car, or fly.
Louise's FastRail isn't gonna benefit me anything, not enough to make me switch.
The only ones who benefit will be legislators in Albany, plus those who build it.
—Same as those who built the Fast Ferry in Australia. Paid for by us taxpayers.
L.A. to Las Vegas is a viable market. Maybe even Chicago to Milwaukee. But Buffalo to Albany? Who's gonna ride it? The Fast Ferry made even more sense.
The CEO of Regional Transit was crestfallen his beloved Transit Center in downtown Rochester crashed with Renaissance Square.
His angle was government funding of the project.
“Government funding” equals you-and-me; or our children's children.

• Louise Slaughter is the US Representative for New York's 28th Congressional District.
• The “Fast Ferry” was a recent service that was instituted between Rochester and Toronto across Lake Ontario that went defunct for little use. Its single boat was a large high-speed catamaran. The idea was to avoid the long trip around the lake, but customs were never made easy. —The boat was eventually sold.
• New York Central Railroad, across New York State, called their railroad the “Water-Level Route,” because it followed rivers, and crossed no mountains. It was built in the 1800s, before modern-day construction equipment. It was therefore easier to operate. —It long ago was four tracks, but was reduced to two a while ago. The right-of-way is still four tracks wide, so adding a third track would be easy and cheap.
• The “Northeast Corridor” is the old Pennsylvania Railroad electrified line from New York City to Washington DC, now owned and operated by Amtrak. It's been extended to Boston.
• “Amtrak” is a government corporation promulgated in 1970 to take over rail passenger service. It mainly runs passenger trains over the independent railroads with its own equipment, but it also owns and operates its own railroads; e.g. the old Pennsy electrified line from New York City to Washington D.C., the so-called “Northeast Corridor;” although the Corridor has been extended to Boston over the old New York, New Haven & Hartford line, which was fully electrified. (Previously it was only electrified to New Haven.)
• RE: “Double-deck passenger cars........” —Amtrak uses passenger-cars with two seating decks, one atop the other, where they will clear, which is most of their lines, but not the Hudson tunnels.
• “Main & Clinton” is the main intersection in downtown Rochester, where buses line up at night for transfer. —We probably got the lineup around 10:15 p.m.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service in Rochester, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).
• I've been a railfan since age two; I'm 66.