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National Association of Railroad Passengers: www.narprail.org
Hotline #545Congress is in recess until the end of the month, and members of the House and Senate are in their home districts. Be sure to attend any town hall meetings they hold and let them know that increased investment in passenger trains is important to you! Click here to visit our Action Alert center. Airlines are suffering from continuing oil prices above $100 and even $110 a barrel, as documented in a March 20 Wall Street Journal front page story. The day before, AP reported that Delta “said Tuesday that it would offer voluntary severance payouts to roughly 30,000 employees — more than half its work force — and cut domestic capacity by an extra 5% this year as part of a plan to deal with soaring fuel prices. A rival, United Airlines, said it would ground as many as 20 airplanes, or 4 percent of its fleet, in the face of soaring oil prices.” On March 6, ATA Airlines said it would discontinue service at Chicago Midway Airport due to “the high cost of fuel…We will redeploy our ATA aircraft in profitable charter service.” ATA will continue to fly between Hawaii and the West Coast, but other scheduled service will cease effective April 14 (domestic) or June 7 (international). Rep. John Mica (R-FL), the Ranking Member on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, on March 14 introduced H.R. 5644 which, according to his news release, “seeks to develop high speed rail in the congested corridor between Washington and New York, to be followed by proposals for other high speed corridors around the country. Mica said, “With up to 75% of the nation’s aviation delays attributable to New York airspace congestion, a viable high speed corridor in the Northeast would also free up critical airspace and reduce aviation congestion nationwide.” The release cites the average speed of Acela—83 mph New York to Washington—while noting that “French and Japanese trains hit [top] speeds of 200 mph and more.” Under H.R. 5644:
The 23 co-sponsors include Bill Shuster (R-PA), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials; Don Young (R-AK), past chairman of the full committee; and two Democrats, Jim Costa (CA) and John Salazar (CO). The bill does not include funding. At a July 11, 2007, House appropriations hearing, Amtrak President Alex Kummant said an investment of $7 billion would produce 2:20 service, evidently including five stops (implying 2:00 non-stop service) and also would “improve reliability/capacity for all users” of the corridor. This week Amtrak announced events for National Train Day in New York, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles on Saturday, May 10. NARP will be present at these events to promote an agenda of growth in our passenger train system, and we are working with rail advocates and other stakeholders planning Train Day events in several additional cities across the country. Watch the NARP web site for more details in the coming weeks, including resources on how to host a Train Day event in your own town. Kansas is the latest state to ask Amtrak to prepare a study to examine increasing passenger train service in their state. Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has commissioned a study costing between $150,000 and $200,000 with Amtrak that would look into linking Kansas City, MO and Oklahoma City via Newton, KS utilizing “a connection between the Southwest Chief and an extended Heartland Flyer at Newton; a further extension of the Heartland Flyer to Kansas City; or another new service.” New York State DOT has proposed $151 million in passenger rail capital upgrades as part of its five-year capital program for Fiscal Years 2009-10 and 2013-14. $80 million will go to expand commuter rail capacity on the Long Island Rail Road’s Main Line between Bellerose and Hicksville. $71 million in improvements have been identified for both Metro-North Rail Road and Amtrak service along the Empire corridor, including a $13 million capacity expansion at Rensselaer station, $13 million for station improvements, a $13 million crossover near Hyde Park, and $32 million to expand Metro-North’s Poughkeepsie Yard and realign the Main Line. Amtrak will operate a special train to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, CA next month. Up to 500 festival and camp site ticketholders may register online to ride the Coachella Express, leaving Los Angeles Union Station on April 24 and returning on April 28. Tickets are free for (and restricted to) Coachella festival and camp site ticketholders. The train will offer checked baggage service. A special temporary platform will be built in Indio (where Amtrak ceased Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle operations in 1998), and shuttle service will be operated to and from the festival site. Festival organizer Paul Tollet told Billboard Magazine that Amtrak President Alex Kummant “really liked the idea of getting kids talking about trains.” Tollet is partnering with Amtrak to help the festival reduce its carbon footprint. The American Public Transportation Association has good statistics on how mass transit relates to energy supply and carbon emissions. See the March 20 entry on the NARP Blog or, for more detail, go to APTA’s web site. Teenagers interested in advocating for public transportation are encouraged to apply for the American Public Transportation Association’s Teening Up for a Greener World: A Youth Summit to Advance Public Transportation. The three-day summit will take place June 22-24 at Catholic University in Washington, DC, and will include seminars, tours, and a day on Capitol Hill. APTA will underwrite 100% of the travel, program, and living expenses for program participants. There are 50 spots available for high school juniors and seniors 18 years old and younger. Applications are due by April 25. California Student PIRG is sponsoring a High Speed Rail Spring Break next week in order to organize young people to heighten awareness and build support for California’s HSR plans. A $9 billion ballot initiative to fund initial construction is expected to be on the General Election ballot in November. Washington, DC Union Station may soon host the city’s intercity bus terminal. Talks have recently been renewed between Union Station Redevelopment Corporation (USRC), the District of Columbia, and Greyhound Lines. Congressional leaders have sent a letter endorsing the idea to USRC President David Ball. House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chair James Oberstar (D-MN) and Ranking Member John Mica (R-FL) signed the letter, as did Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. The letter says, in part, “We believe that it is essential for Washington, D.C. to have an integrated transportation center which includes rail, bus, and transit to enhance passenger travel… This transfer will enhance Union Station’s role as a true intermodal transportation center and will serve as an outstanding example for the rest of the country… Relocating Greyhound’s intercity bus terminal to Union Station will enable passengers to move seamlessly from one mode of transportation to another and will help continue the prosperity of Union Station.” The current intercity bus terminal is outdated and sits three blocks north of Union Station. A bomb threat caused the evacuation of nearly 300 passengers from southbound Amtrak Silver Meteor train 97 on Saturday night in Emporia, VA. A 23 year-old Yemeni man reportedly got into an argument with another passenger. When confronted by the conductor, he declared that he had a bomb in his bag. Passengers were evacuated and taken to a nearby elementary school while Virginia State Police Bomb Squad swept the train. Three and a half hours after the train was evacuated, they determined the threat to be a hoax. The man was detained by the FBI and faces a felony charge of making a threat on a public conveyance. Northbound Amtrak Springfield Shuttle train 490 suffered a minor derailment on Monday due to a mudslide north of Windsor Locks, CT. None of the crew members or six passengers were injured, and all were transported to the next and final stop of Springfield, MA by van. Service between Springfield and New Haven was protected by motorcoaches for the rest of the day. Major storms in the Midwest this week disrupted Amtrak’s operations of the City of New Orleans and Texas Eagle. On Tuesday, the City was bus-bridged between Carbondale and Memphis. Eagle trains bus-bridged between Longview, TX and St. Louis. On Wednesday and Thursday, service was cancelled entirely between Fort Worth and St. Louis, with no alternate transportation provided. For today, Amtrak will operate a shorter bus bridge, Little Rock-St. Louis. As of this writing, Amtrak expects to resume all-rail service with trains departing tomorrow (March 22) from both San Antonio and Chicago. Amtrak’s westbound Southwest Chief train 3 terminated in Flagstaff, AZ on Sunday following a BNSF freight train derailment near Williams Junction. Passengers were bussed between Flagstaff and Los Angeles, and eastbound train 4 originated in Flagstaff on Monday. Amtrak Cascades service was disrupted north of Seattle on Monday following a BNSF freight train derailment due to a tractor-trailer truck fouling a grade crossing. Service between Seattle, Bellingham, and Vancouver, BC, Canada was protected by motorcoaches for the rest of the day. NARP regional meetings continue next Saturday, March 29; Region 7 meets in Milwaukee. The final meeting of the season, Region 12, will take place in Sacramento on April 19. |