Jesup, GA Train Depot

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haolerider

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The once dilapidated train station in Jesup, GA has been restored and recently received the Georgia Trust "Excellence in Rehabilitation" Award. After a fire in 2003, the station was abandoned with its roof caved in and interior gutted. The City of Jesup received over $800,000 in Federal funds to restore the station. As one of only five Amtak stops in Georgia, the station is looking fine now. Jesup is also a favorite for rail fans with a covered platform for train viewing. This is a good example of a local government working to restore viable train stations to enhance the community.
 
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The once dilapidated train station in Jesup, GA has been restored and recently received the Georgia Trust "Excellence in Rehabilitation" Award. After a fire in 2003, the station was abandoned with its roof caved in and interior gutted. The City of Jesup received over $800,000 in Federal funds to restore the station. As one of only five Amtak stops in Georgia, the station is looking fine now. Jesup is also a favorite for rail fans with a covered platform for train viewing. This is a good example of a local government working to restore viable train stations to enhance the community.
I'd restore my house if someone else paid for it, too!

It's great it has been restored. I took a trip from/to Jessup when it was a burned out shell.. But let's give credit where credit was due. The feds paid for it. The feds deserve the credit.
 
The once dilapidated train station in Jesup, GA has been restored and recently received the Georgia Trust "Excellence in Rehabilitation" Award. After a fire in 2003, the station was abandoned with its roof caved in and interior gutted. The City of Jesup received over $800,000 in Federal funds to restore the station. As one of only five Amtak stops in Georgia, the station is looking fine now. Jesup is also a favorite for rail fans with a covered platform for train viewing. This is a good example of a local government working to restore viable train stations to enhance the community.
I'd restore my house if someone else paid for it, too!
It's great it has been restored. I took a trip from/to Jessup when it was a burned out shell.. But let's give credit where credit was due. The feds paid for it. The feds deserve the credit.
I said the Federal Government supplied the funds, but the City of Jesup had to take the initiative to apply for the grant.
If your home is a historic landmark, there are plenty of grants available for you to restore your home to it's former grandeur! All you have to do is take the initiative to apply!
 
Thanks for the photos. I had walked through the original station after the fire, but the only photo of the new station i have is from the Georgia Trust Summer 2014 magazine. My wife is a member and they also presented awards for the Southern Railway station in Lavonia, GA and the Sparta Railway Freight building in Sparta, GA.
 
Thanks for posting, and way to go, Jesup! :hi:

The Feds seem to have an unlimited supply of (borrowed) money to throw around anyway (everywhere except Amtrak, that is); at least this improves the community!
 
Does anyone know if there are any car-rental possibilities at Jesup that would connect with the Silver Meteor's early-AM arrival and early-evening departure there?
 
Thanks for posting, and way to go, Jesup! :hi:

The Feds seem to have an unlimited supply of (borrowed) money to throw around anyway (everywhere except Amtrak, that is); at least this improves the community!
Well, the feds do print the stuff (money). I've visited the building where they print it, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Really, as long as lots of people are still hurting for money, why not print some more and employ people. If we start getting inflation they can always shred the excess money. I have a few bags of shredded money that I bought as souvenirs.

(This sounds silly, but it is actually sound economic policy.)
 
Note that only the Southern 1/5th of the building is used for Amtrak waiting - about 250 sq ft. There are two bathrooms, and a couple of seats. And A/C. And Wifi. Last time I was out there, there were quite a few passengers boarding and disembarking. Very popular little station.

Again, I fail to understand why it took $800,000 to rebuild. My home cost a quarter of that and is over 3,000 square feet. And the cost included the 2/3 acre it sits on. With a piece of plywood, it'd even be ADA compliant.

With the growing passenger count in Jesup, it would have been nice to a) Extend the platform so two stops aren't necessary, and b) Have 1/2 the station used for passenger waiting area and even... Perhaps... BAGGAGE service!

When Kannapolis station was rebuilt several years ago, the station was incorporated with City Hall - so at least they got multi purpose out of it. Wonder how much that cost... Anyone know? It was probably in the millions...

FWIW, the gazebo about 100 yards South of the Jesup station is a nice railfan spot with a scanner feed...

By the way, we've talked about this renovation two years ago - not about the cost - but it's a nice reminder of our little station in Georgia.
 
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Note that only the Southern 1/5th of the building is used for Amtrak waiting - about 250 sq ft. There are two bathrooms, and a couple of seats. And A/C. And Wifi. Last time I was out there, there were quite a few passengers boarding and disembarking. Very popular little station.Again, I fail to understand why it took $800,000 to rebuild. My home cost a quarter of that and is over 3,000 square feet. And the cost included the 2/3 acre it sits on. With a piece of plywood, it'd even be ADA compliant.With the growing passenger count in Jesup, it would have been nice to a) Extend the platform so two stops aren't necessary, and b) Have 1/2 the station used for passenger waiting area and even... Perhaps... BAGGAGE service!When Kannapolis station was rebuilt several years ago, the station was incorporated with City Hall - so at least they got multi purpose out of it. Wonder how much that cost... Anyone know? It was probably in the millions...FWIW, the gazebo about 100 yards South of the Jesup station is a nice railfan spot with a scanner feed...By the way, we've talked about this renovation two years ago - not about the cost - but it's a nice reminder of our little station in Georgia.
I think the Kannapolis station renovation was paid for by NC. They have had an on-going project to renovated stations.....even those that are not currently in use for passenger travel. Some of them are on the line that goes to Asheville.....which has been talked about for many years.
 
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Note that only the Southern 1/5th of the building is used for Amtrak waiting - about 250 sq ft. There are two bathrooms, and a couple of seats. And A/C. And Wifi. Last time I was out there, there were quite a few passengers boarding and disembarking. Very popular little station.

Again, I fail to understand why it took $800,000 to rebuild. My home cost a quarter of that and is over 3,000 square feet. And the cost included the 2/3 acre it sits on. With a piece of plywood, it'd even be ADA compliant.

With the growing passenger count in Jesup, it would have been nice to a) Extend the platform so two stops aren't necessary, and b) Have 1/2 the station used for passenger waiting area and even... Perhaps... BAGGAGE service!

When Kannapolis station was rebuilt several years ago, the station was incorporated with City Hall - so at least they got multi purpose out of it. Wonder how much that cost... Anyone know? It was probably in the millions...

FWIW, the gazebo about 100 yards South of the Jesup station is a nice railfan spot with a scanner feed...

By the way, we've talked about this renovation two years ago - not about the cost - but it's a nice reminder of our little station in Georgia.
How is the long term parking there? I have not departed from the station in a number of years. Before the fire the parking area was not defined well and spaces were few and at a premium. Hopefully the renovation of the station included a real parking lot with additional spaces.
 
Thanks for posting, and way to go, Jesup! :hi:

The Feds seem to have an unlimited supply of (borrowed) money to throw around anyway (everywhere except Amtrak, that is); at least this improves the community!
Well, the feds do print the stuff (money). I've visited the building where they print it, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Really, as long as lots of people are still hurting for money, why not print some more and employ people. If we start getting inflation they can always shred the excess money. I have a few bags of shredded money that I bought as souvenirs.

(This sounds silly, but it is actually sound economic policy.)
We probably shouldn't go there, but I'll just say that $17 trillion and rising (a trillion is truly an almost unimaginable number) deficit is and should be very scary. (And it's both parties' fault.)

That said, I do not begrudge Amtrak the scant funds it receives, because it provides a needed service. Highway and air are heavily subsidized. Some things are necessary and are a reasonable use of funds. As for Jesup, that would be way down on my list of things to cut. :)
 
The debt is 17 trillion, and it's not an unimaginable number. The deficit is a totally different number- essentially the amount the debt increases in a year.
 
Long term parking is okay. The northern 2/3 of the station is visitors center/tourism office, etc. The stuff that used to be in the little red caboose (that is still across the tracks). They moved a dilapidated gazebo from another city park and put it next to the caboose. Buffed it up, and put in another scanner. CJ
 
We probably shouldn't go there, but I'll just say that $17 trillion and rising (a trillion is truly an almost unimaginable number) deficit is and should be very scary. (And it's both parties' fault.)
It really shouldn't be. If you look at the "national debt" as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, it's smaller than the "national debt" England had in the 19th century when it was running the world. And England theoretically had to pay its debts in gold -- which we don't, not since the 1930s. (In practice, England didn't either.)

The problem is actually the use of "debt"; one of the points of John Maynard Keynes, which has been reiterated by a group promoting what is known as "Modern Monetary Theory", is that "debt" doesn't really make much sense as a concept for a government which prints money.

The only actual problem with the debt is that it is interest-bearing -- the interest on the debt is the only real issue. Instead of issuing interest-bearing bonds to rich people, the government should actually print money, which is exactly like debt except that it doesn't pay interest. At the moment, the interest rates on government bonds are very close to zero, so it makes little difference, but it matters if interest rates go up. The concept of funding the government by printing money is ancient and is called "seignorage" in the jargon of the accountants and economists.

There is a limit to the ability to print money, but we are nowhere near that limit, and we will be nowhere near that limit as long as we don't hit a real resource shortage.

For instance, if everyone who wants to is employed, or if we can't run our factories without more oil (as happened in the 1970s), or if there's a massive crop failure and we run out of food, then we have to stop printing money and start shredding it. We are not anywhere near that situation, with high unemployment, a "general glut" of most resources, and factories which are successfully shifting off of oil-dependence.

There's a whole mess of stuff I learned about this by a deep dive into 200 years of economics research over the last couple of years. It's not actually as complicated as it sounds, but I won't claim that it's intuitive, because it isn't. Most people have never been in a position where they could personally print money, so it's hard to understand what things are like if you're the government.

The question of what the government should actually do with the money is another one; I am not at all happy with the government's priorities ($1 trillion/year on the military, scraps for Amtrak), since I think a bunch of these decisions make us all worse off. But that's a question of resource allocation, of priorities. It should be separate from the question of money.
 
but I won't claim that it's intuitive, because it isn't. Most people have never been in a position where they could personally print money, so it's hard to understand what things are like if you're the government.
It's not all that hard to wrap your head around, once you convince yourself that it's a completely different beast than your or my checkbook and family budget. :D
 
Well, guys, we have differing opinions on the perils of the economy, and I certainly hope you turn out to be right! Our children shall see...

At least we, or most of us, agree about Amtrak. :)
 
The national debt, let me help your thinking, is about $54,000 a person. Or about half the median personal Debt of an American citizen.
 
Yes, but to a fiscally conservative person, that's an excessive amount. I don't see anyone in line to donate an additional $54,000 to the government to ever take care of it. The debt continues to grow. Home mortgages are a large part of personal debt, and I'd venture to say that most people are actively, systematically (monthly) reducing that debt in anticipation of paying it off during their lifetimes, as well as enjoying the roofs over their heads in the meantime.

I am fiscally conservative in my personal life as well. At this stage of my life I have no debt, and could "afford" to live a little higher than I choose to do. Actually I'm not very politically oriented one way or the other. My post was initially made as a friendly, spontaneous response to post #3. I didn't mean to ruffle any feathers (or manes). :) It's just "difference in folks." Peace.
 
Actually, the largest component for a lot of people is credit card debt. Also, you have to realize that debt is not suggestive of financial condition. At all. In fact, the wealthier the person, generally speaking, the higher their debt.

If you were to raise the payment of the wealthiest 5% of people in this country, 10% of their income, and held it there for 10 years, without increasing spending, that debt would be nearly gone.

I don't rail on it because it is a very small debt, and a relatively small deficit.
 
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