SS United States to be turned into an artificial reef| My thoughts

hello everyone this is Andrew AKA otherwise known as Otherwise Known on my main Channel as Rocket City rail fan and stuff well Andrew beond the on the rails on this one and this is uh unscripted what I'm about to say so but I just had to just let my motions out about this news regarding the SS United States because I'm heartbroken about it so in case you did not hear the news it was just re this is at a 10 I'm recording this at uh 10:13 p.m. at night in a Eastern Standard Time so out in the Northeast United States that uh the SS United States was uh some uh company or firm whatever has come to a de is coming to a deal to turn the ship into an artificial Reef after that thing has just sat dormant in Philadelphia yards for just multiple decades and I'm lost for words about this now ships are not really my main uh interest as you can probably tell I'm more of a train guy but this should I still feel like people not interested in ships especially train people should uh be aware of this news and well but also uh all the motorheads in the United States and all the AirHeads too whatever you probably these people interested in planes and cars sorry but kind of not at the same time it's devastating that uh such a historic uh ship in our country is uh unfortunately taking a back seat to preservation again whilst things like planes and cars trucks just always get all the love and attention it's a problem that uh railroad history has struggled with too in this country and that really came to highlight that we need to stop giving it a backseat with that uh group that's trying to turn some uh Central Railroad of New Jersey terminal near uh Staten Island into some weird um anti-il crap instead of a as an actual Railroad Museum like it should and you know there's countless uh railroad facilities that have just been turned into all kinds of anti-il crap and stuff instead of being preserved as what they should be instead just as actual railroad museums and not falling victim to America's car Centric Antics and stuff or playing Centric uh Antics too so to give context on uh SS United States it was uh again this is unscripted don't know my ship history that much but it was the final ocean liner that we ever built here in the United States and probably North America I don't know what sorry if I'm forgetting you Canada and uh Mexico but it wasn't just that this was the uh largest passenger ship and last that we ever built in the United States but also the fastest hit like uh something well over 40 knots and it holds the record to this day for the fastest trans Atlantic Crossing by a c for a ship still to this day so which is signif really significant thing but unfortunately despite that it's uh not becoming enough to stop the ship from uh being treated half as bad as a Us's Arizona was by the Japanese I know that's an exaggeration but it's so depressing to see as we just continue to get so fixated as Americans on cars and planes other military vehicles that we just turn away from other methods of transportation like uh trains and uh ships and just throw them in the back seat of being almost irrelevant not and not investing enough of our uh time into just putting that stuff into our education systems and such and it's significant too of just uh where this where where United States came from to begin with this ship was the the brainchild of a uh I think it was William Francis Gibbs or something like that but he was really inspired by uh all these European shipping companies like the card over in the UK whatever uh Germany's top shipping company was at the time throughout the uh 1910s until the uh 50s or something like that but he was really inspired by them to start his own shipping company and prove that we as Americans could compete in the transatlantic market and not just and that it wasn't just something for the Europeans exclusively and stuffff it's kind of like how our uh modern our culture post uh 1950s uh just turned away from uh rails and stuff and just assume that uh we had no place in competing for that with Europe and Japan but well we're starting to see that that's not really the uh case that hey there's a need for actually uh to stop being car Centric and for highspeed rail to make Transportation easier and stuff as well as various other forms of uh Rail and stuff which is kind of related to the whole ship thing that's just something we thought would competing in the transatlantic Market with uh Europe over the Atlantic we just thought it wasn't possible but thanks to this guy and the efforts he basically did The Impossible and brought his own shipping company and his own ships into the picture and proved to be a worthy adversary to all these European Shipping Lines and stuff and show that we potentially could have a place in uh that market but it wasn't to be I know you uh ocean layer people will know this better but around the uh 50s and into the 60s planes started coming started a massive air compet competition uh started coming to shipping companies well at least those shipping people across the sea because planes now were getting to a point that they were they had the range to travel all the way across the Atlantic without refueling on the way but doing so at a much faster speed too whereas by ship it would take you a few days by playing it was just a a few hours and so shipping passenger uh shipping companies started just drying up rapidly and so and with that so many ships either sent for scrap immediately or derated to a or just sold off to become cruise ships only to then just be scrapped anyway like uh United States's uh predecessor SS America that's what happened to her and well and threw a bunch of hiccups eventually just turned into an AR official Reef well after that was a result of a massive preservation tragedy where it seemed like she was finally going to get a peaceful end as museum ship but wasn't B and so in United States was no different to this uh Trend and stuff she eventually was decommissioned when uh it just be when there was just evident that just no one was uh going to travel this just going to travel between North America and Europe by a ship anymore that the planes had just taken the market completely and so she's ever since then she just got decommissioned well ever since then she's just been sitting dormant rusting away there have been many EV there have been many attempts to just get her preserved as a museum ship but they've always fallen through due to just various factors including expense expense of it um of it expense of it well the rust you got clean away on the outside but also on the inside it's just yeah it's a mess and just lack of a exposure to this ship even more than uh Americans to trains well Pastor trains as a whole which kind of suffer to similar uh fate in a lot of uh countries here in America worst example government just let that stuff dry up just let pasture rail they just started pushing for more Road and Air transport but not giving passenger rail the but not giving enough attention to passenger Rail and stuff all the while railroads are being regulated like they were still Monopoly when in reality they weren't anymore well politicians didn't pay attention to that and so passenger trains started losing money for the railroads and so Services started drying up until so much but by the uh late 60s it seems like pasture rail was going to collapse and then the rest of the US rail industry would follow suit in the freight aspect but thankfully they stepped in and established Amtrak to well nationalize Pure service through a Amtrak and eventually loosen restrictions on the railroads to the point that uh they were now being regulated like they weren't the only major landbased transportation system and stuff well they had more freedom to well basically complete properly with other modes of uh transportation and well since then they've recovered and now we're just a matter of just uh allowing them to still be relevant while still making safe business decisions and whatnot SS ocean liners just didn't have that same luck and stuff like where it uh they were just completely replaced by another mode unlike rail which uh reinvented itself and reestablished a way to compete with other modes of transportation and stuff but still but still Railroad preservation and uh but yeah but the historical significances of uh ocean liners and uh trains in the United States is just not emphasized enough in our history books and well in our culture as a whole which is so sad not like in a Europe where it means so much to them like could you imagine a European tourist just seeing We As Americans treating our uh Capital ocean liner like this like what would they think of it like just what would they think of us treating such a ship like that when we've given other massive ocean liners like uh the Queen Mary and uh whatever other ocean liner is or yeah when we've well in conjunction with the UK to treat them so much better and stuff like the world just treat it's not that chips are are an easy thing to preserve and stuff I mean we still have a you we still have plenty of uh other Museum ships particularly World War I uh stuff like all four surviving Iowa class battleships uh the sole surviving Heavy Cruiser USS Salem and up theora of Destroyers but but by preserving SS United States as museum ship it would have showed that uh the world that hey we did care we do care about this uh underrated uh relic of our history of our own history as a whole and this final and this final remnant of uh transatlantic trade when people still traveled across the ocean by ship especially immigrants because my grandfather on my mother side that was how he got to America from uh Germany because it was just so poor from the Damage Done to Germany by World War II that the cheapest way he could get AC the only way he could even get across the Atlantic was uh by ship a pretty cramped ship too so we had one final opportunity to preserve a remnant of our of uh that part of US history now it's being turned into an artificial Reef getting the same uh treatment that uh so many unfortunate railroad lines like uh and Facilities like a oh North Pacific roundhouse and a in that one area of uh North Dakota or Milwaukee Road specific extension just not getting preserved as a the things they should be for the industry that they were made for and now now here's the USS United States that's uh very likely now just be turned into another crazy tourist uh scuba diving thing is not as a uh ship like not as a floating ship like a it could have as a proper fate really just that yeah my railroad brain is taking over but you get the idea other people could have better comments on this than me but it's unfortunate and I can't imagine just how upset the designer of the ship's descendants are that their father grandfather great-grandfather's uh life's work is uh getting a fate like this because that's what ultimately made such people so unique that unfortunately this poor ship is just falling into being forgotten about for good but let this be a reminder to of why we of why even the most obscure modes of transportation I think still should get some attention in the United States to the point of preservation so that we can remember we can be reminded of uh some methods that we of some methods that we just didn't catch on with in addition to methods we did catch on with kind of like uh how museums they'll preser things that that worked but things that didn't work so that we can learn from them I don't know what else to say but but for future generations of America I don't care how obsessed with cars and planes you get please treat our railroad history and our shipping history better than SS United States than how we treated that stuff these modes deserve the same amount of attention and love as I do as they in our other modes of transportation that get preserved and like in Europe regardless of uh like I know like I know we care so much about freedom in the United States and well yeah I do believe that's more important because part of why I'm just so grateful to well I've been raised in America hole all my life and not and not have to immigrate from Europe but yeah that being said this is Andrew beyond the rails and on that tragic note take care