Charles A. Turek's Blog: It All Spills Over Onto Goodreads, page 5

Reading Incentive

I have reduced the price of the eBook digital versions of all four of my books to $0.99. The best way to get started is to visit my Home Page .

New Books To Read

This appears to be the month that two anticipated novels become available. Why the distributors and publishers chose after Mother’s Day (in the United States) to release these books is a questions I’d like to have answered. It would seem to me that they are books you would buy for Mom, particularly since both books are the next in a series involving one character. I suppose maybe these books are something that Mom might trade the (always well thought out gift of a) Cuisinart for, as I’m reasonably sure Mom would rather be kicking back with a glass of wine reading than producing Panini sandwiches for the gang.

In any case, the first book is the next of Dan Brown’s series about Robert Langdon and his encounters with the mystic world of symbolism. I’ve read all of Brown’s other books, and I look forward to reading Inferno, although I think it rather presumptuous of his editors to allow him to invoke Dante Alighieri. I’ve read all his other work (Did I forget to list them on Goodreads?), and the Langdon stories are getting better with time, so I hope that trend continues. Deception Point and Digital Fortress aren’t up to his later work, and are probably only of interest since The DaVinci Code became such a hit.

The second novel coming this month is another Dean Koontz Odd Thomas story. This series is strangely engaging and yet not enough that I want to read every novel by this prolific writer. I can therefore only judge his work from the Odd Thomas novels, yet I still anticipate the new one with as much interest as I had after reading the first. A movie about this character has been made and the release date is as yet uncertain, as far as I can see. The novels sustain the character pretty well, but I don’t know if the movie will. The trailer available on some Internet sites suggests that it will be touch and go.
Happy reading.

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More on What We Read

Having just finished the first draft of the first "sequel" I have ever written, I look back and realize that I have had to read a lot of things in order to do some proper research and write this book. Everything ranging from engineering information on steam locomotives to geography of the Los Angeles basin had to be read and digested and put into proper place in the story to create a functional and interesting narrative. But in no case did I have to read entire books to get this information. I have encountered innumerable books that I would like to read from cover to cover while doing research, but there just isn't enough time. So here's an example where what we read is more important than how much.

Please check out Pagination Books

What We Read and What We Write

There are no set rules about what you have to read in order to become a good writer. None, anyway, except those established by a liberal arts college for an English or Literature degree. Nonetheless, I heartily recommend reading more than writing. Unfortunately, that's hard to do when you're staring down the abyss of a self-imposed deadline, or worse, when you're just too absorbed in what you're writing for anyone else's work to be interesting.

By posting what I'm reading on Goodreads, I'm afraid that some of you will get the wrong idea. So please let me explain: At any one time, I am involved in reading at least one and sometimes three current magazines, one fiction and one non-fiction book. These numbers can vary, depending on how many things I start to read and then decide to go back to writing something. And I've put off reading months and months of periodicals at one time or another just to get through a good but difficult novel.

On the other hand, I don't consider myself a literature snob. My "read and enjoyed" lists are honest. I won't put in a novel by Hemingway just because that kind of a resume sounds good. If I haven't read it, it's not there. Go ahead, ask me for a review, if you want, just to make me prove it.

I have more thoughts on what to read rather than on how much that I'll share soon.

Why Are We All Excited?

Those of us who would see Passenger Rail grow and prosper in America have been burned before.

I can understand mainstream media getting excited.  There is too much news media and not enough content, so every gurgle that issues from the mind or mouth of a politician gets reported.  In the fashion of the "new journalism," the enthusiasm of the journalist, or the disdain, shows through on the page, or in the TV news article.

But I think those reporting in such specialized areas as Passenger Rail should learn to hold their water.  Let's face it.  Bigger Amtrak budgets don't always result in better Passenger Rail service.  When and if they do is the time to get excited.  I would much rather hear about the successes resulting from the use of funding than about projected funding that may or may not materialize.

If all of the excited speculation of the past decade had resulted in solid passenger rail service, we would be riding HSR trains on dedicated rights of way from Chicago to Detroit and from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we would have Amtrak service that made money, and we would be light-rail commuting in a dozen small cities that are barely able to keep bus service solvent.

So let's not get too excited!

For another view on what is and is not possible and probable in passenger rail, please see RailwayAge guest blog [here].

©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com 

Another Tunnel Too Far

The title of this post was the title for my second published novel, a story set in time during the Great Depression and in the Chicago tunnel system, where the tragic main character is employed. See A Tunnel Too Far. Sitting down to write a new story, or any piece for that matter, is like entering a tunnel portal. You don't know where you are going to be when you come out the other side. When you are halfway through and can't see either end - the point of no return - it's horrible. Turning back may be an option only in the very beginning, but once you are committed to the journey, you better hope there's a light at the other end.

National Train Day

All about Amtrak and trains.  See also [press release] and [NM info].

Letter to Republican Elites from a Conservative Rail Enthusiast

Dear Republican Elites:

Passenger trains are not archaic dinosaurs that eat up public money that can be better used to cut the debt.  They are public conveniences, nay even necessities, that eat up public money in order to make the economy and our lives better.  Stop treating them as something to be cut from budgets or sold off to whatever idiot wants to buy them from Amtrak.  They are the most fuel efficient mode of mass transportation of human beings on the planet.  They are part of a comprehensive transportation policy that includes highways, buses, air and waterways.

Limited and constitutional government envisioned by conservatives does not automatically mean the curtailment of all public subsidy for transportation modes.  If it did, we would all be going back to horses, wagons, and private toll roads on private lands.  Limited and economical government does mean that public funds should not be used by the government to favor one mode of transportation to the exclusion of another, except for the purposes of national defense.

The Obama regime appears to have gotten passenger rail and high-speed rail right for all the wrong reasons. When stimulus money was rolled out, it didn't go to transportation as part of a comprehensive plan.  The regime wanted money to go to an industry that it perceived did or would employ labor union members who would vote Democratic.  The right reasons?  America needs more than one mode of transportation for people and their belongings that can meet the need to travel long distances in short times.  Airlines have met this need for years, but are becoming more inconvenient due to their vulnerability to attack, hijack, and conversion (to flying weapons) by any person or group of nefarious bent.  In fact, a comprehensive transportation plan for the rest of this century should envision a third mode, possibly high-speed commercial highways that are independent of rail and air travel.  I hate to say it, but with the advent of computerization, rail doesn't have to be the only so-called self-guiding mode out there.

Sequestration has made it clear that the Washington Elites, whether on the left or right, are only going to cut those things that will hurt the general public the most.  So it would not surprise me if Amtrak and commuter rail funding dries up.  It doesn't have to be that way.  Though the DOT is one of the leanest in Washington, it is still a bureaucracy.  If it's a government-run entity, there is still plenty of fat to be trimmed before we really need to curtail trains and transport, or let highway bridges crumble into rivers.

Lets wake up and get a clue.  Despite what liberals might profess, conservative does not have to equate with 'stupid.'

© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Contingency Plans

The recent near disaster on board the cruise ship Carnival Triumph got me thinking about transportation policy.  (The cruise was neither a Triumph nor a Carnival.)  In previous posts, I've discussed transportation policy as a government function.  For many, many years, federal and state governments have decided what transportation projects get the nod and what ones don't.  However, every major transportation company (Southwest Airlines or Union Pacific, for two examples) should have its own transportation policy.  I'm sure that most actually do.  What the near disaster makes me ask about policy is, "What are your disaster contingencies?"

Nowadays, disasters come in all shapes and sizes, and are mostly defined by the media.  A good definition seems to be anything that puts a great number of lives, or a great dollar amount of property at risk.  For the purposes of this discussion, I would like to suggest that a good definition of disaster is a major disruption in the scheduling, forwarding, and delivering of freight and passengers.

I'll get back to the Carnival Triumph in a minute, though only tangentially.  This is, after all, a railroad-focused blog.  But I would like to take these transportation policy risks from the bottom (of the river) up and demonstrate how our neglect of redundancy in transportation policy puts America at risk.

A river barge hits a bridge.  It may be a highway bridge, a railroad bridge, or (call the environmentalists) a pipeline bridge.  It could be a bridge that carries all three.  River traffic is disrupted for days, maybe weeks, while spilled fuel is cleaned up.  Do we have alternate waterways?  You know we do not.  The likelihood that there is any other mode of transportation capable of moving the barge commodities safely during the outage is small.  Probably the railroad can reroute trains, truckers and travelers can drive another highway, and there may even be a redundant pipeline.

An Amtrak train is wrecked.  I mean thoroughly wrecked.  God forbid it results in loss of life, but in any case there is major loss of passenger equipment.  Amtrak schedules have to be fixed, equipment has to be borrowed from other routes.  A general degradation of the entire system occurs.  There's just not enough passenger equipment, inspected for safety and in good repair, that Amtrak can just field another trainset.  No redundancy.

A giant cruise ship is crippled.  There apparently aren't enough other cruise ships not already on their schedules to send one to offload passengers from the crippled ship from an environment that will become sheer hell for most of them before the crippled ship gets towed to port.  Or maybe there's no mechanism to get them onto another ship.  I don't know.  It seems like there should be.  We have enough engineering students in America to make this happen.

Airlines are grounded due to a terrorist threat.  Or, alternately, the air traffic control system suffers a major glitch and has to be shut down.  Do we have a contingency plan?  Can all those thousands of passengers count on the railroads to put on more trains?  No.  Can they all take a bus?  I think not.  How about driving?  Major traffic jams in major metro areas.

For passenger rail, there should be long-term plans for new tracks, trains, and modern signaling systems to make it all work.  Years ago, these plans should have been implemented so that, today, we would be on our way to true HSR and true independence of passenger rail from the freight system.  Nobody foresaw that Amtrak would be having record years, nor did they see that at the same time as there is record demand for passenger rail there would be record freight delivery by rail.  I don't know why not.  Rail has for as long as I can remember been the most efficient and energy friendly way to move freight and passengers in terms of energy used per passenger-mile or per ton-mile.  Yet it is still thought of as a dinosaur.  That's because government has become the curator of a museum instead of the owner of a modern transportation system.

Privatize Amtrak?  Now may be the time.  Build more rail right of way?  Yes.  Let the NIMBYs be damned!  Plan for the future?  Definitely.  Stop making risk a dirty word?  Most important of all.  And let's stop building things with projected useful life, and start building things to last!  We could surely better handle "disaster" if we did.

Rant over.

© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

US Transportation Policy is No Policy At All

Those of you who have followed this blog or visit often enough to get my political drift know that I am a strong believer in a comprehensive United States transportation policy that includes passenger rail.  I'm going to link to two recent reports that are - or will be - interesting reading, because they both address how our "no policy" approach has put the US behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to transportation.

The [first report] is from a bipartisan organization called Building America's Future.  Before you get into the report and read the statistics that should scare the pants off any user of transportation (freight or passenger), consider its source and understand that the chair-persons for this organization are on the liberal side.  So take some of it with a grain of salt in that there may be a tendency to slant in the direction of higher subsidies for all modes, not just for high-speed rail and freight rail.  In my opinion, the report is on the money in its criticism of how we handle transportation policy and where this will lead us in the not-too-distant future.  Frankly, if we can't move goods and people around fast, in high volume, and in an energy-efficient manner, the United States will continue to fall behind other countries.  Additionally, the solution, I think, is not just in subsidy or government money, but in general tax and business policies, and an easing of regulations, that will help private enterprise get this accomplished.  Even though the report's slant may be liberal, mine is definitely conservative.

The [second report] hasn't really come out yet.  The link is to an article on the Amercian Society of Civil Engineers site that describes the expected March 19 report in generalities.  Nevertheless, the conclusion is the same:  The United States needs a comprehensive transportation policy that includes all modes, and needs to spend a lot more money on infrastructure for all modes.  Again, the slant is probably liberal, as one would expect from a highly commercialized academic society, but the need can be met by applying conservative political principles.

Bottom line:  It would be an extremely bad idea to continue treating rail, and passenger rail in particular, as an anachronism or as a second cousin to so-called "modern" modes like air and highway.  My opinion is that it would also be an extremely bad idea to demand that government fund all of the needed improvements, as liberal political influences would have it.  It would also be an extremely bad idea for government to dump modes that it currently subsidizes - Amtrak, for example - with no backup plan, as conservatives would have it.  Limit taxes on transportation modes and their profits, dump unnecessary regulation, and promote general business prosperity, and the rest of the plan will take care of itself.  AS LONG AS WE HAVE A PLAN!

© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com