For three days, riders of trains going from New Jersey to New York City, who, by their aggregate voting patterns, are overwhelmingly liberal, suffered as they stood on crowded platforms for trains that never came!

For the third day in a row, electrical problems in century-old rail tunnels under the Hudson River on Wednesday stymied the commutes of tens of thousands of New Jersey Transit riders, illustrating again the shortcomings of the region’s languishing infrastructure system.

Commuters, many of whom have grown inured to grinding delays and overflowing platforms, lashed out on Wednesday, blaming the transit agency for their being habitually late to work and criticizing Mr. Christie for failing to find a solution to the state’s drained transportation fund.

Wendi Glassman, a lawyer who has been riding the 13 miles from her home in Elizabeth, N.J., to Manhattan on New Jersey Transit for 30 years, said her 26-minute commute took about three hours on Wednesday.

Even with how Democratic New Jersey is, and lawyers, and New York lawyers, chances are extremely high that New York "lawya" Wendi Glassman voted for Obama.  Do you feel sorry for her?

In any event, who is to blame for this?  Some people quoted in the article pointed fingers at Chris Christie for not spending billions to fund a new tunnel, but that's a red herring.

“N.J. Transit pays Amtrak approximately $100 million annually toward keeping the Northeast Corridor running, and we have requested of Amtrak to know if our money is truly going toward ensuring reliable rail service for our customers,” Veronique Hakim, the agency’s executive director, said in a statement.

There's your real culprit.  Amtrak isn't spending money to maintain the train lines.  Any idea where Amtrak's money is going?  Try personnel costs.

Just look at these salaries: a systems developer makes $105,000.  A conductor makes $86,000. A "decision support analyst" makes $83,000.  A claims representative makes $72,000.

Additionally, the average salary for the 1,200 Amtrak employees in the food and beverage service is $106,000.

Amtrak is losing money rapidly:

How do you lose $85 million per year selling $9.50 cheeseburgers, as Amtrak reportedly has?

One way is to pay Amtrak employees 19% more in salaries and benefits than comparable private sector workers... benefits were 81% higher than private sector levels, including 19% more paid leave, 181% more generous health coverage, and 51% more generous retirement benefits.

Admittedly, Amtrak has other problems, such as being forced to ply long-distance routes that are unprofitable.  But simply spending more money on the system, as the underarm-soaked liberals on the train platforms would support, will not solve the problem.  The extra money will be sucked up by the unions.  Somehow private airlines and bus companies manage to turn a profit without subsidies.  Why can't the train system?

Exit question: Do you think, of all the liberals standing on the crowded, sweltering train platforms, that even a single one has an inkling what the real problem is?

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.