High speed rail coming to Iraq
Alstom has signed a deal with the government of Iraq to build a high speed rail link connecting Baghdad and Basra:
Basra is approximately 450km (280 miles) south-east of Baghdad and the proposed line would involve a 650km network, Alstom says. The line would handle speeds of up to 250km/h (155 mph).
The deal is not quite final – Alstom has 12 months to come to a deal with the Iraqi government, and financial terms were not disclosed, presumably because they haven’t been determined yet. So we don’t know what the cost is.
But this is another sign that almost every other country on planet earth realizes that high speed rail is a must-have in order to compete in the 21st century. Iraq’s neighbor Iran has been working with China on an HSR line. Saudi Arabia is already building the Haramain HSR project to connect Jeddah, Mecca and Medina. Turkey is building out its own HSR network.
Iraq and its neighbors, many of which are oil-producing countries, are well aware that oil-based transportation is not something you would be wise to depend on in the 21st century, and are working hard to build out sustainable alternatives.
Meanwhile the United States, in thrall to a bunch of crazy people whose ideas of innovation stopped sometime around 1956, is destroying HSR projects left and right, making bad excuse after bad excuse why we shouldn’t get with the rest of the world and build high speed rail.
It’s gotten beyond embarrassing to hear all the reasons why we should just keep foolishly depending on oil to move people around, why a system of transportation that has proven successful all over the world somehow won’t do well here. It’s now a threat to our future prosperity, maybe even our national security, for this country to see so much political obstruction to high speed rail and the other elements of a sustainable 21st century infrastructure.
That obstruction won’t last for very long. It’s driven by a few people who came of age in an era where driving, oil consumption, and American global dominance were all seen as natural and good. Younger generations, and even majorities of people the same age as the anti-HSR folks, realize that those things are no longer a viable basis for prosperity and social happiness, and are quite ready to move on.
But because that small group of 20th century zealots has enough money and power, they can block our efforts to evolve a 21st century system of transportation. Defeating them is not just an important political goal. It is essential for our ability to build a strong, sustainable society in the 21st century.
If Iraq can build HSR, there is no reason – none whatsoever – to stop California and the USA from building it too.
I really do wish for image tags here, so I could insert an lolwut image. Iraq and Saudi Arabia may very well be buying it for the “Oooh, shiny” factor and/or bribes. I would be surprised if a sustainable future was in any way part of the planning. Their electrical sector is heavily dependent on directly burning crude oil (which leads to an oil consumption only 1/9th that of the US and about a third again higher than CA; that’s a per capita consumption 50% higher than US and double that of CA). HSR for the Hajj is essentially going to simply be a road congestion mitigation project, not a “sustainable oil free future” one. Saudi Arabia would hate that, they’re completely dependent on oil exports. An oil free future is a poverty stricken future (well, more so than it currently is, poverty for the royal family as well as everyone else).
Because HSR only targets a small fraction of the trips that people make perhaps? Because electric cars simply don’t have the range to satisfy most people’s needs and hydrogen is a horridly bad idea? CAHSRA estimates that HSR would only eliminate 12.7 million barrels of oil annually. That’s about sixteen hours of US consumption at current levels, not to mention 2030 when that number is supposed to be. It’s going to be utterly insignificant to our national oil demands, oil pricing, or national security relating to oil (as it is, even if we didn’t import a single drop of oil, we’d put just as much military effort into protecting the supply of it as we do now since high oil prices are rather bad for the world economy and therefore our economy by connection; all hail globalism).
On the bright side, you’d reduce CA oil consumption by one week’s worth. That might actually lower gas prices by a few pennies.
If you really really wanted to drastically lower oil consumption and CO2 emissions, pay Ford to bring over the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic (65 mpg and lower CO2 emissions than a Prius; triple and a third the current fleet averages), waive the sales tax, and pay for their advertising (preferably using this video from the 4:44 time mark because the British do the best reviews and that would definitely attract the SoCal population with Pendleton and Coronado). It would even be cheaper than building HSR.
HSR should be built and can serve a valuable role here in California, but let’s not overplay it too much.
joe Reply:
June 25th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Why not reduce the need to build, own and operate cars?
HSR isn’t a stand alone system – its a system that interfaces with local public transportation and therefore reduces car dependency beyond the incremental capacity it offers.
HSR connections offer a kind of “network effect” for public transportation.
Each adult buying a efficient 17-23K car that lasts 8-12 years and requires extensive road construction and maintenance is cheaper that HSR?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 25th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
It is cheaper for the government and building a sufficiently dense and frequently served light rail and streetcar system (busses being rather heavily stigmatized against) would be mindboggelingly expensive.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 25th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Arguably rail is potentially much cheaper for the government/taxpayers, because it can successfully be completely owned and financed by private companies, whereas roads almost never are.
More importantly, though, a transportation system based purely on cars has such corrosive effects on the structure of cities and society that it simply isn’t a viable alternative in the long run. Yes, nobody really realized this 60 years ago, and it took trying it to see how awful the effects are, but now we know. We shouldn’t keep making the same mistakes.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 25th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
The market is already speaking. Ridership on trains is high, vehicle miles traveled has been down since before the recession hit, young people are driving less, and so on.
Just last week UCLA released a study showing that urban housing in the dense coastal areas is faring better than suburban sprawl inland.
The evidence is piled up so high you can’t see the top of it without binoculars. But for some people the evidence doesn’t matter and will never matter; they are absolutely convinced that driving is awesome, nobody will ever want to do anything else, and it will always be 1985 (or 1975 or 1965 or 1955, depending on their age and their definition of when life was best) and anyone who says otherwise is just crazy.
This is the fit of madness through which our society has to live. Years from now we will look back on this, hopefully with a laugh, and wonder why the fuck things like HSR were ever an issue. But for now we have to suffer through it and hope our sanity holds, and more importantly, hope these projects survive the silly years.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 7:37 am
.
To quote modern American poet Jesse Spanos: “Whhoaaa!”
Gas could be $0.99 a gallon and the Inland Empire, Central Valley, and Sacramento would still be struggling in the housing market. And yes, there would be a noticeable increase in transit ridership too.
Simply put, car sales increased dramatically after the Supreme Court said racial covenants were not enforceable on home sales. Whites moved to get away from functioning, diverse economies. Now the problem is that the future of America isn’t as white and isn’t nearly as industrial as its past. Hence, someone’s Robert age is going to say “Moreno Valley is cool n’ all but I would like to be a hair closer to where I work”.
And given that the housing bubble featured plenty of fraud, usually aimed at people of color buying houses in Stockton Lincoln, or Apple Valley it’s no wonder….no wonder that those areas are rusting on the vine.
Pure and simple, the “culture wars” that HSR is now a part of have everything to do with the demographic winds howling through the country…one that will leave our white and post-industrial past behind and leave us with a multi-cultural and hopefully, more industrial future.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 25th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
In terms of moving people around the state, it doesn’t matter what powers the engine inside an automobile – we have long since overshot the carrying capacity of our roads and freeways. On the basis of traffic alone it makes sense to move more people via trains and buses, since it takes up less space on the roads. And unless we are willing to tear down more city blocks and spend even more billions on expanding freeways than it would cost to build trains (including light rail, subways, commuter rail and high speed rail), then we’re going to need to build the trains.
This is the American problem in a nutshell – people are so unwilling to spend money, and so convinced that driving everywhere is the Greatest Thing Ever and the Only Possible Way To Live, that we are going to stand by on the side of the road while the rest of humanity passes us by, building sustainable transportation systems that 50 years of evidence proves works.
We should maybe designate one state in the union for people like you to move to, where you can live out your nutty fantasies of never spending money on infrastructure and depending on oil forever. And we’ll move forward with big rail projects, as the voters have consistently mandated, in California. And in 2030 we’ll check back in with each other and see who was right and who was wrong. If we’re wrong, then I owe you a coke. If you’re wrong, you owe me one.
That seems a much better way of settling the debate rather than blowing up perfectly good projects and plans because a few people have their fingers in their ears saying “nuh nuh nuh I can’t hear you.”
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Robert, I’d be much obliged if you would actually bother to read what I and others write. Had you actually done so, you might have noticed my earlier remark, and the numerous comments I’ve made on this blog previously, supporting the construction of high speed rail, but noting that oil consumption isn’t a problem that it will meaningfully address and suggesting that we shouldn’t try and oversell it. I’m not the only one who can look at the numbers and Reason et al. will smack you silly, and deservedly so, if you try and use such unfounded assertions against their attacks on CAHSR.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 10:47 am
Paulus, by itself, as you say, HSR wouldn’t be worth much. However, we will eventually need it–and the electric freight rail, trolley lines, and rapid regional rail as espoused by Bruce McF.
It’s part of a total package–and Reason, Cato, etc. do not want to see any of the package at all–no trolleys, no electric freight, no intercity rail, and no HSR.
Perhaps we need to emphasize this systemic or holistic approach? Or maybe this site is a little too specialized?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
I think I’m probably a wee bit cranky and assertions not backed up by facts are always a pet peeve of mine. Toss in what feels like an increasingly cheerleadery feeling here and somewhat inevitable I’d probably react the way I did (seriously, Iraq is a horrible place to build HSR due to security and the fact that they can’t even keep the lights on).
Oil independence is a nice idea and one that should, where feasible, be worked towards, but it’s neither achievable nor realistic and traffic congestion mitigation is going to be the best goal and benefit to work for. Trolleys are probably the single best urban project as they should have the highest cost-benefit ratio (as a result of hopefully low costs from being built into the streets). Electric freight rail is probably lowest on the lists of things to do, rather expensive to do thanks to all the bridges having to be reworked in order to accommodate double stacking. On the other hand, it’s also the perfect area for a PPP and would save far more oil than HSR would (BNSF, for example, burned 1,295,147,000 gallons of diesel in 2010, about 30.84 million barrels of oil and that’s while saving quite a bit more that would’ve been used by trucks in its absence).
joe Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
Hey, Look, HSR isn’t as awesome as cancer research! Don’t you want to stop cancer?
You can’t stop one solution because you prioritize another.
The most impact for carbon sequestration isn’t in the US. It’s the tropics. So does that mean the USDA stops teaching US farmers how to till the land to increase the organic content?
No.
Go to another blog and write about oil independence.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
“I think I’m probably a wee bit cranky and assertions not backed up by facts are always a pet peeve of mine. Toss in what feels like an increasingly cheerleadery feeling here and somewhat inevitable I’d probably react the way I did (seriously, Iraq is a horrible place to build HSR due to security and the fact that they can’t even keep the lights on).”–Paulus Magnus
All of us get cranky now and then.
And Iraq certainly is about the second-to-last place I would have thought would consider HSR–the last place being Afganistan!
At least, Afganistan hasn’t considered HSR yet, but if it does, well, we would have to quote Chester A. Riley with “What a revoltin’ development this is!”
Drunk Engineer Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Don’t look now. (Not quite HSR< but still not bad.)
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
(Sighs)–Nice straight right-of-way, modern concrete ties and heavy rail–the potential is there, although it looks like the line may be needed for freight service.
Equipment looked like something from Russia, or perhaps China.
swing hanger Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Russian make diesels. Beyond “shovel ready” (which seems the farthest rail projects can get in the US) to “up and running”. Stuff like this will be more effective in keeping extremism at bay than bombing villages to kingdom come.
Nathanael Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
I wonder if this is China or Russia. They’re both angling to get control of the routes through Afghanistan.
The US government is geopolitically incompetent and has been since before I was born.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Assuming that we can combine continued oil dependence and broad based economic growth is not realistic in the face of growing demand by others and peak global petroleum supply.
And over a twenty year period, oil independence is quite achievable. It does, of course, take adopting as a policy to achieve it, but that only says it won’t be achieved by accident.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
But Saint Ronnie said we didn’t have to worry about this. Cutting taxes and regulations on oil companies would unleash an orgy of competitiveness that would solve all of our problems and cure dandruff too.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 7:42 am
I didn’t even notice the irony before:
Indeed, even when a fact is finally cited it distracts from the issue at hand:
Steel Interstates have the potential to save far more than a substantial share of the 231,000 barrels/day in 2006 consumed by rail ~ it has the potential to save a substantial share of the 2,552,000 barrels/day in 2006 consumed by truck freight, which hauls about a quarter less freight ton-miles than rail but consume 11 times the oil.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 10:48 am
Oh, and your comments about road capacity are true as well–and Robert has commented about how much more those would cost to get the same capacity, and even then they would not have the speed or safety factors of HSR.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 7:34 am
Not mind bogglingly expensive. Just expensive.
We need $100b’s per year to fill in the gap in residential investment that is the hangover from the great Property Bubble of the 90′s and Two Thousandsies. I’ve seen an estimate that we’d need on the order of $1,000b to $2,000b to build out a network of electric rail and trolleybuses to make our urban areas oil independent. Spread out over two decades, that is on the order of $50b to $100b annually, which is well within our means, given a $15,000b economy and an output gap of over $500b annually at the moment
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 6:16 am
“Iraq and Saudi Arabia may very well be buying it for the “Oooh, shiny” factor and/or bribes”.
The business plan of the Saudi project is based on realistic ridership estimates. All muslims have to visit the holy sites at least once in their life. As the world’s muslim population increases every year, so will ridership.
The importance of bribery in Saudi Arabia is overestimated. The Chinese are said to have been discarded because they tried to bribe Saudi princes who resented being treated like African chiefs.
Personal relations between heads of states are more important. Talgo is expected to beat the Alstom-SNCF consortium because kings Abdullah and Juan Carlos have strong personal ties while president Sarkozy’s calling the burkha “a mobile prison for women” was devastating for French interests.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 10:00 am
Al-Yamamah arms deal.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 11:22 am
The claim does not dispute the existence of bribery, but rather its importance. BAE was in any event on the inside track in the Al-Yamamah deal because of the likelihood of usage restrictions imposed by a US Congress in deference to the Israeli lobby if the US had been the supplier.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 7:28 am
“HSR for the Hajj is essentially going to simply be a road congestion mitigation project, not a “sustainable oil free future” one. Saudi Arabia would hate that, they’re completely dependent on oil exports.”
This is carelessly slipping between Saudi Arabian oil consumption and global oil consumption.
Saudi Arabia would indeed prefer that other countries delay becoming more oil independent until after Saudi Arabian oil production has started to slip. Witness the pro-oil-consumption “news” bias of Fox News, partly owned by a Saudi oil prince.
However, it is well known that with oil production at or near its domestic peak and set to begin declining sometime in the decade ahead, Saudi Arabia faces a threat of declining oil export revenues is its domestic oil consumption rises more quickly than the rising price of oil ~ and Saudi Arabia well understands that there is a price of oil that leads to economic downturn and undermines the value of their accumulated balances of financial assets in European. American and East Asian financial centers.
On the other hand, tampering with the extremely low price of oil within the Kingdom would be perilous for for domestic political reasons.
Finding means of reducing their oil consumption and their structural dependence on oil its simply prudent policy. And since they have more sense than to believe the laughable assumption relied on in the above comment that pursuing this policy will somehow affect global oil independence, one way or the other, their preference for continued global oil dependence, at least to the point that does not threaten their accumulated financial wealth, has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 11:17 am
This is the “one size fits all” assumption: that it has to meet all of the needs of most people to be viable, because that’s the way we built the system to support (grossly inefficient) vehicles that satisfy the assumption.
Electric cars have the range to satisfy a large share of most people’s needs. And if there are some people who, due to a variety of transport choices do not need a private motor vehicle to satisfy their transport needs, then electric cars obviously leverage that system to add another cohort for which the electric car plus their access to their local public transport stop (with recharging spot) combine to meet all of their needs.
A system transition like this is not like switching a light bulb ~ its a matter of growing the share of the population that can do what they need to get done with the new system, including some benefit to induce the switch from the increasingly obsolete old system.
What make HSR a strategic move for that in California is that it replaces uses of our existing automobile fleet that are the most difficult to replace by other means ~ combined with the fact that if California is to have it in the early 20′s, it needs to be building it now.
Leading to the repeated red herring, “its not sufficient on its own!”, in response to claims that its a strategically useful part of the mix.
Nathanael Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
If we had a more complete intercity rail system, rather than the enormous gaps we currently have, and if the trains were at modern speeds as they are in Europe rather than 19th century speeds, electric cars WOULD have the range to satisfy most people’s needs, because trains would supply the long distance market. I think that about sums this point up.
But because that small group of 20th century zealots has enough money and power, they can block our efforts to evolve a 21st century system of transportation.
And the centuries beyond.
Interesting that many Middle Eastern countries are adding high-speed rail, even though for many of them their social progress clocks are still stuck in the 1400s.
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 6:48 am
Americans don’t realize their lobby system would be called corruption in other countries.
An example: using antibiotics to fatten livestock is known to spread antibiotics resistance. It has been outlawed everywhere except in the US.
Wad Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 12:47 am
I think Americans do realize it, and the proof is in the low participation rates in the political process. They know the spectacle of American politics is more fixed and less entertaining than professional wrestling, and know that they have no purpose beyond being spectators.
I take it we (USA) is paying for this since we are still spending billions of dollars over there, I don’t recall if Iraq has resumed exporting their own oil at a sustainable level.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 9:46 am
Iraq brought in about 52 billion dollars last year from oil exports and expects 66 billion this year. A rather far cry from what they need and to be honest, building rail lines ought to be a rather low priority. There’s also the minor absurdity of a high speed electric rail line when they don’t even have enough electricity as it is currently.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 11:01 am
If it is like other Iraq/Alstom deals, then it will be French banks (and French taxpayers) paying for this.
I think the real story here is that Iraq is more attractive than California to foreign HSR investors.
Jack Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Full backing of the government will do that for you…..
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 26th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Several French firms got their fingers burnt investing in the US. EDF (Electricité de France) recently lost $2 billion in its Calvert Cliffs nuclear adventure and also finds itself legally obliged to buy coal-fired plants it doesn’t want. These misadventures get a lot of coverage in French media where companies like EDF are ridiculed for getting fleeced by American law firms. Still, many consider having a presence in the US is essential for their image, whatever the cost. An example is nuclear firm Areva which spent millions on lobbying during the Bush presidency. Alstom has a weak federal presence with a lobbying budget of only $350,000.
In France, the maximum contribution to a party is €1000. Some manage to channel multiple contributions through fake non-profit associations but it’s very risky. The CEO of ELF (an oil firm) spent seven years in prison for that and so did the party’s treasurer who claimed responsibility to spare the president and ministers.
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 4:03 am
“they don’t even have enough electricity as it is currently.”
Alstom will provide the necessary electricity. A contract for building a 1200-MW power plant in Basra is being finalized. It includes the plant itself + power lines and substations. The firm also has a contract for rehabilitation of damaged lines and power plants.
Of the 3 Alstom branches (Power, Grid, Transport) Power is the most important but has the smallest public exposure. People know about the TGV, but who knows the Alstom plant in Chattanooga has the biggest rotor-balancing facility in the world?
Interesting article about the Bay Bridge being made in China in today’s NYT:
Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label
OT: Driver who hit train should have had ample warning
Idiot trucker who had a near miss says of grade crossing (see it in Google Street View) where 6 died after a different truck rammed into the side of Amtrak’s California Zephyr in broad daylight:
Reality Check Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 12:13 am
Damn. Once more: here’s the Street View of the crossing. Looks pretty tricky, eh?
Miles Bader Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 3:36 am
Hey, these things are trickier when you’re trying to sleep!
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 7:03 am
“Highway 95 is too busy to have Amtrak traveling like that.”
Grrrrrrrrrrr……
Once again, we have trains bad, bad, bad. . .grrrrrrr……
At least we don’t seem to have the nonsense (yet) that partially lead to the abandonment of part of the Red Arrow system in Philadelphia. Just outside the city, one of its double-tracked trolley lines ran parallel to a highway; of course, the trolley had been built many years before, when the highway was a dirt road and there wasn’t the traffic that came later.
There were of course roads that crossed this trolley line to connect with the main highway running on the other side, and there were a lot of collisions with turning traffic. The low point was when a school bus got hit and there were fatalities. Some preacher got all wound up in a letter to the editor, calling this “murder.”
The route was eventually converted to a busway. I never did find out how the traffic conflicts were handled with buses, or if the safety record improved with this change.
Never mind if you are a rail supporter or even a rail hater. When, when, WHEN are we going to get serious about driver licensing to the extent that we do so for air pilots, river and harbor pilots, railroad personnel, and even truck drivers (despite the problems that have arisen here with an apparently distracted or incapacitated driver)?
BruceMcF Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 7:34 am
We “can’t afford” to get serious ~ building a system so that there is, for many people, “no alternative” way to get to work from the residences that are available, is building it on the carnage resulting from the licensing leniency required to make that system function.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 10:29 am
“Highway 95 is too busy to have Amtrak traveling like that.”
Grrrrrrrrrrr……
Once again, we have trains bad, bad, bad. . .grrrrrrr……
Looks to me like the truck was bad. If it’s vitally important to the people of Nevada I’m sure they can come up with the money to build an overpass for the highway.
synonymouse Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 10:44 am
My take is that Las Vegas so dominates the state of Nevada that most all of the highway money is spent on freeways there. It’s ts for the rural areas.
CComMack Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Most of the Las Vegas Beltway is designated Clark County 215. This is because the county paid for it, back during the boom. Carson didn’t contribute a dime; in fact, it stole money from Clark County when the bottom fell out and budgets got tight. So let’s have no more about how the state overfunds Las Vegas, although I suppose a thread without synonymouse spouting about things he doesn’t know anything about is too much to hope for.
There should be much more federal and state highway money going to road-rail grade separation, and hopefully this tragedy will focus more legislative attention on the issue, especially in Nevada. It’s not as though UP’s Overland Route is lightly trafficked.
synonymouse Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
And now Nevada is going to get stuck with financing liabilities of the Sin City monorail. Seems that mundane but versatile light rail was not Jettsons enough for the casino moguls.
Perhaps they should redirect funding of never-ending “studies” of Desert Xpress and sundry schemes to the needed overpass.
But then some good news today – Blago is going to jail. Would that some local machine pols could join him there.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 27th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Um Las Vegas is in Nevada. Nevada is a low tax state because of the vigorish the state extracts from the casinos. It’s going to be Californians, New Yorkers, Illinoisans etc. paying for it, just like they pay for other things in Nevada.
CComMack Reply:
June 28th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Again, with the easily disprovable lies. Neither the state nor any local government has shown any interest in assuming any ownership or control over the Las Vegas Monorail. The Monorail is working its way through Chapter 11 in Delaware Bankruptcy Court, and its creditors are about to take a 91% haircut on the money they lent the company. That’s probably deserved, since nobody who lent the Monorail enough money to build through the (back of the) Strip, and not enough to actually connect to the Airport, should not have expected their money back.
CComMack Reply:
June 28th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Also, I note that nothing you talk about has anything to do with the comment you’re replying to, with the lone exception that they both involve Nevada. Since all you have to offer in response is misdirection, I’ll assume you’re stipulating to the truth of my original comment.