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.
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Categories: Commentary Tags: Amtrak, FEC, Florida, Miami, Orlando, passenger train, private, privatization, railroad, railway, Space Coast
Volume 1, Number 13
There are about a dozen projects in the pipeline for private passenger rail in the United States, and the first one is out of the planning stages and into actual operation.
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by Dennis McDonald
During the Second World War the British Government took control of the nation’s railways. The first priority was to assist the war effort, and primary function of the railways became to shift men, equipment, or materials to achieve this. Civilian trains did however still run, both passenger and freight, and attempts were made to provide as normal a service as possible to the public.
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[Originally posted to the All-Aboard email list]
A gentleman on our list asked several questions about VIA service in Canada. Eight years ago I led a project that took VIA apart and put it back together again on paper for the purpose of privatizing the company. Our final report presented to Prime Minister Mulroney’s federal government ran about 800 pages, complete with timetables, marketing plans, and a review of union contracts, among many other topics.
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For now, Amtrak is the only game in town regarding long-haul trains. As California has on many occasions concerning many other subjects, they have shown the way to regional self-reliability through willingness to tax themselves for local concerns. And they should be applauded for this. They wanted more rail, so they were ready to pay for it, along with the necessary equipment to operate services. All other areas of the country should take note. And, don’t forget the commuters of the Midwest in and out of Chicago have been doing this very thing successfully for years.
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