Archive

Author Archive

Trouble in River City

February 6th, 2013 Comments off

In Meredith Willson’s classic play and later movie “The Music Man,” Robert Preston perhaps said — or sang — it best: Read more…

Categories: This Week Tags:

FECI Says Trains to Run From Miami to Orlando in 2014

August 15th, 2012 Comments off

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…

Read more…

Categories: Commentary Tags:

Rail advocates should heed Mr. Rogers’ advice

July 23rd, 2012 Comments off

The subject of Mister (Fred) Rogers came up recently and I was reminded of a lesson I learned from him long ago: Treat the person in front of you, whether they are ten times your age or one-tenth your age, as a real person, just like you. Never treat anyone “as a child.”

Read more…

Categories: Commentary Tags:

The Design of American Rail Travel; 2012-05-01

May 1st, 2012 Comments off

Volume 1, Number 1

The Third Century.

Historians and preservationists, cover your ears: The Pennsylvania Railroad was not entirely wrong in demolishing New York’s Pennsylvania Station.

Read more…

Categories: This Week Tags:

Eliminate the Middle-Man

March 22nd, 2012 Comments off

by William Lindley

Today, March 22, 2012, Florida East Coast, which owns and operates the mostly double-track railway between Jacksonville and Miami, announced plans for the construction of a privately-funded, privately-owned, privately-operated passenger train system to commence operations in 2014. This will include forty new miles of railway between Orlando and FEC’s main line on the Space Coast. FEC itself, not Amtrak, will be operating these trains.

Read more…

2011 Rail Competition Bill

June 17th, 2011 Comments off

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

Documents attached: Read more…

Categories: Documents Tags:

This Week at Amtrak; 2010-09-20

September 20th, 2010 Comments off

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.

Read more…

Categories: This Week Tags:

This Week at Amtrak; 2010-09-13

September 10th, 2010 Comments off

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…

This Week at Amtrak; 2010-07-31

July 31st, 2010 Comments off

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.

Read more…

This Week at Amtrak; 2010-06-14

June 14th, 2010 Comments off

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…

Categories: This Week Tags: