But if you built it singlehandedly with your bare hands, who are these other guys standing here with the same funny vest? And why don't you seem winded? And what if it had been 2 min. slower, not faster, with the MPR vehicle there waiting for the train at its destination? And as an UPDATE question, why not at least a month without a breakdown - like the Panama Canal, going and going? I mean, it's not rocket science, the golden spike, wasn't that driven in 1869, with a bigger crowd than you got? And locomotives that ran more than three weeks?This link:
Now that the $317 million Northstar choo choo has begun offering a microscopic fraction of the commuting public a heavily-subsidized ride, you would think that Northstar rail and its chief shill Dan Erhart had discovered a cure for cancer, sent a man to Mars, and solved world hunger all in one fell swoop.
The Star Tribune's Paul Levy is always happy to oblige with a puff piece on the Good Ol' Boys, probably in order to secure a soft landing on the government payroll should he be one of the next employees to get pink slipped off the sinking ship at 425 Portland Avenue.
Of Levy's puff pieces, this one was undoubtedly the most obsequious. To read Levy, one is led to believe [Trainman Dan] Erhart built Northstar with his bare hands.
Reading this piece is valuable in that it gives readers a true understanding of the mentality that has allowed Erhart to spend thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars on restaurants, junkets, and contracts for those who turn around and contribute to his political campaigns. It also easy to see Erhart has no understanding regarding why so many of us taxpayers find that type of behavior deplorable.
Erhart is a "visionary" because of this train? Hardly. Northstar rail is little more than a $317 million legacy project that relies on 19th Century technology and millions in operating subsidies for generations to come.The Watchdog hopes that readers didn't miss the story that encapsulates the Northstar story. MPR sent a vehicle to Big Lake to compare travel times between Northstar rail and vehicle travel. The difference? The train beat the car by a whole 2 minutes. 2 minutes! In other words, we spent $317 million in taxpayer dollars so people could get to work 2 minutes faster.
The Watchdog barks here, http://anokacountywatchdog.com/, so there's more barking to that item, plus more items barked about elsewhere. Good pup.