Your weekly source of fresh takes on news affecting America's passengers. See also the NARP Blog.
June 24, 1992
Early this morning, the Machinists Union struck CSX. Within a few hours, the other big freight railroads, except Guilford and Soo Line, shut down in solidarity, clearly fearing the unions otherwise would resort to rolling strikes against different railroads. As a result, the only Amtrak services running today are the Northeast Corridor -- but not the Montrealer -- and Chicago-Milwaukee -- but not...
June 19, 1992
In anticipation of a June 24 rail strike, Amtrak is not taking reservations for trains originating June 24 or 25, and plans to curtail some overnight trains before June 24. Generally, anything that would be moving at 12:01 am on June 24 will not leave its point of origin, or will operate only part-way. For example, the westbound Empire Builder of June 23 will be a Chicago-St. Paul coach train. How...
June 12, 1992
The House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee had its mark-up on the 1993 transportation budget yesterday. For Amtrak, they have proposed $331 million for operations, $74 million for capital, $146 million for the mandatory retirement payments, and nothing for NECIP. That puts us about where we want to be for operations and mandatory payments. The drop in capital is a problem, but not a surp...
June 5, 1992
The House Appropriations Committee made its allocations between the various subcommittees on June 3. Transportation gets $12.8 billion in 1993, which is down 7% from this year. That is bad news, meaning that some or all transportation programs will have to take a funding cut this year, including Amtrak and transit. Amtrak has announced the postponement of the extension of the Sunset Limited to Mi...
May 29, 1992
House Budget Chairman Leon Panetta (D.-Cal.) has released a staff study showing three ways to balance the budget in five years. Options One and Two have big transit cuts and eliminate Amtrak funding. Unfortunately, Panetta favors Option Two -- but his whole effort may help Amtrak by reducing support for any balanced-budget constitutional amendment. Panetta opposes letting legislators "cast the eas...