Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

Also google the “Clay report”, there’s a bunch of books and sources from there.

At this point, (1955) bombers and fission bombs were the threat. That’s why we had AT&T invest in hardened long lines facilities, shelters and duck and cover.

The reality of hydrogen bombs and ICBMs kind of took the wind out of sails of civil defense. You’re not going to drive out of Manhattan with 20 minutes notice and get to a place where you’ll survive. This really affected the people associated with this — the think tank guys at RAND and other places assumed they’d all be dead by the mid 1970s, and I can’t help to think that it didn’t affect their points of view.

And Ireland’s anemic rail network is more a result of no investment from the 50s til the 90s than a density thing, really; there is clearly demand for far more capacity and they currently can’t build it fast enough.

This has actually occasionally been done! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric–steam_locomotive

> A few steam engines operating for historical tourism doesn't seem like a big issue for emissions compared to the millions of ICE cars. We should keep them operating on their original fuel.

The CO2 emissions aren't the only issue; they are _seriously_ dirty. Probably fine in Dollywood where it's presumably quite open, but in some countries it's somewhat common to run 'heritage' engines on main lines as an event, and it can really be _pretty bad_ in enclosed stations.

Secondly, road costs are mostly paid for by fuel (i.e. use) taxes, and I think the fuel tax should be increased to pay for all of it personally. What percentage of public transit costs are covered by use taxes? In my area (which is a major city that is not NYC), it's around 10%, and it still makes little financial sense to take public transportation if you value your time at all or are traveling as a group (which families do regularly) and look at out of pocket costs.

Third, you (as with other transit advocates, which I will assume you are based on this comment, feel free to correct me) completely miss the point even though I explicitly stated it. Even if roads are significantly more expensive, Americans can afford it and are willing to pay for the massive increase in convenience. If that changes, then spending patterns should change as well.

And I say all this as someone who prefers living in a walkable area and lives close to a public transit and uses it when it makes sense (which is not often, despite my work also being very close to a stop on the same line I live on).

No? In my area, new local roads are normally built by developers and maintained by HOAs, with fuel taxes covering most state and federal road work (I think it should all be covered by fuel taxes personally).

> Especially out in rural areas where people always complain the loudest that public transport doesn't work because it requires subsidies.

Public transportation makes absolutely no sense in rural areas, so I'm not sure what your point is here.

> If you would make people pay for their road use, rural living would very quickly become unsustainable for most.

People do pay for road use, via fuel taxes, so again I'm not sure what your point is here.

> Let's not even talk about all the externalities like land cost of those roads especially in metropolitan areas.

Feel free to talk about it in detail, instead of playing the usual "Oh, the externalities! Why won't anyone think of the externalities!" game I see over and over from public transit advocates.