The old Soviet Union may be dead and gone, but it’s ideals and tactics are still very much alive.
Reports have arrived which say Amtrak President Joseph Boardman has stopped the internal distribution of Amtrak’s primary daily summary of the previous day’s performance, including on-time performance, equipment availability, and unusual occurrences.
Progressive Railroading’s HSR Updates online service has a story today (August 20, 2012) about Governor Mitt Romney’s potential for eliminating Amtrak subsidies. The story goes on at length about various scenarios and has quotes from interested parties, including a quote from the Eno Center for Transportation, located in Washington, D.C. The folks at Eno say they are a “neutral, non-partisan think tank” working to promote transportation.
News item in the form of a press release from the Federal Railroad Administration:
If President Obama wins re-election in November, state departments of transportation can most likely expect huge increases in the cost of Amtrak operating their state-sponsored service simply because of the coming changes in the way Amtrak and states due business due to the changes in federal law. Amtrak is going to be passing along more and more and more of its costs of doing business because it expects fewer federal dollars overall for the company, and the difference has to be made up somewhere.
It’s full-speed ahead on a privately financed, $1 billion plan that will launch fast, hourly passenger rail service between downtown Miami and Orlando by 2014…
Every fall, Amtrak knows winter is coming to Chicago. Yet, every winter, Amtrak acts like it is caught by surprise at the harshness of the typical Chicago winter, and has trouble finding non-frozen and useable equipment for dispatching trains out of the very busy Midwest hub. In the fall, it seems Amtrak never prepares for winter.
Commentary by Russ Jackson, URPA-RailPAC, Dallas, Texas
Premise
Food and Beverage availability on long distance trains is essential and its existence is not negotiable; only the “how it is done” is.
By Anton J. Lazzaro, California
I have just returned from a short trip on the Coast Starlight and I have had it. I haven’t been on an Amtrak long-distance train since 2010 and now I remember why. The service, the cleanliness, the Amtrak… I want to make a few points about why Amtrak will NEVER be able to compete. No: It is not because of airlines and cheaper modes of transportation. It is because of examples like this I have been seeing for YEARS.
The folks on Capitol Hill last week held a hearing in the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure about the ongoing costs of Amtrak’s food and beverage service.
