United Rail Passenger Alliance

Regdaring the COMPETITION FOR INTERCITY PASSENGER RAIL IN AMERICA ACT of 2011

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The Cheese Sandwich Bill

The absurd myth of the First Class Subsidy just won’t die. Thanks to Amtrak-o-nomics, formerly known as the Route Profitability System, in which you add up every expense and divide by every income to create meaningless numbers, Amtrak’s figures seem to suggest that coach passengers are subsidizing first class passengers, when in reality the opposite is true.

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After a slow August in the world of passenger rail, we return to a busy soon-to-be autumn.

According to Fred Frailey in TRAINS magazine, Read more…

First off, some unfinished business: Amtrak leadership.

We hear from the UTU that the contract of Amtrak’s President Joseph Boardman has been extended to 2013, leaving only the Amtrak Board incomplete for the upcoming year.

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Volume 7, Number 17

Positive news for commuter operations, and ponderings on the future of high speed and intercity operations. But let us begin with two brief preludes; first, a short poem, called a “Grook” by its author, Danish poet and philosopher Piet Hein. Read more…

This week: A brief report from each coast and then we look at some Amtrak finances.

On the right coast, some good news for the passenger rail manufacturing industry, and a lesson in perseverance. Around 1974 when I was in fourth grade my parents took me to a public meeting about Washington Metro. Even then, I loved studying maps; and one of the “future extensions” was to Dulles Airport. A mere 35 years later, that line may have a chance to finally be built — which is quite quick, really, compared to Boston’s extension of its Red Line past Harvard (proposed in 1912, with the Cambridge segment completed in 1985). In any case, here’s is part of WMATA’s press release: Read more…

National Train Day

National Train Day passed uneventfully in Phoenix. Union Station, the mission-style depot turned fortress, protected by its tall prickly steel fence painted cactus green, was immune to invasion by curious passers-by. No-one rode a train through the station, except one hobo who waved from the end platform of a covered hopper — all freight trains must now traverse the lone remaining passenger track, the bypass line having been removed a few years ago.

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Our desks being at last clear of the beloved IRS instruction booklets, and with last year’s tax forms safely snuggled in their bankers’ boxes, we turn now to how a few of our hard-earned dollars are — refreshingly — wisely to be spent in Ohio.

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Volume 7, Number 12

This week we look first at Amtrak’s slow pace, then at continued nationwide wrong-think surrounding Amtrak’s new venture into high speed rail; and we wrap up with a guest commentary by our Andrew C. Selden. Read more…

Volume 7, Number 11

As Amtrak continues to say the right things, and to do a few as well, the logic of incrementalism is making inroads… but the “old-think” that stunted our passenger rail network for half a century hasn’t gone away yet.

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