National Association of Railroad Passengers: www.narprail.org

What’s New

Here are the most recent additions and major changes to our website.

This list does not include updates to the Action Alert center, Calendar of Events, NARP Blog entries, or our weekly news hotline (which is updated every Friday afternoon).  Click on the appropriate menu bar to the left to read these items.

  • February 4: President Ross Capon’s submission to the Wall Street Journal in response to Wendell Cox’s op-ed, “The Runaway Subsidy Train”

  • February 1: Our statement on the President’s 2011 budget.

  • January 28: We comment on the benefits each Recovery Act-funded project will bring to present and future travelers.

  • January 27: We commend the Obama administration for its historic commitment of $8 billion toward “ready-to-go” passenger train projects, investments that “promise to bring Americans freedom to choose an attractive alternative to crowded highways and airports” and “stimulate economic development in on-line communities.”

  • January 26: NARP unveils My Gulf Coast, a one-stop portal for getting involved in the broadly-supported effort to restore Amtrak service between New Orleans and Florida.

  • January 8, 2010: NARP’s public letter to the head of the Federal Transit Administration, administrator Peter Rogoff, has elicited mulltiple responses, both official (a November 2, 2009 letter from Administrator Rogoff) and from New Jersey journalists (a Deceber 21, 2009 editorial by the Record that echoes NARP’s arguments).  Click through for links to both.

  • December 11, 2009: NARP submitted a letter to the Pew Charitable Trust in response to an erroneous Subsidyscope study on Amtrak subsidies by route, correcting several methodological errors

  • October 13: NARP urges Amtrak “to make growth [its] top priority. Growth requires a significant amount of new equipment,” we write. “Lead times are long. Amtrak must prepare now.”

  • July 14: NARP submitted a statement for the record in response to a hearing held July 7, 2009, by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation & Community Development entitled Public Transportation: A Core Climate Solution.

  • July 10: NARP submitted comments and suggestions to the Federal Railroad Administration regarding their interim guidance for High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program on Friday, July 10, the day preapplications for high speed rail funds were due.

  • July 8: NARP Council of Representatives member Kenneth Joseph testified on NARP’s behalf at a field hearing of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, held in Pittsburgh, on expanding passenger rail service. He called for immediate improvements to existing service in western Pennsylvania, including reinstating Amtrak’s Three Rivers and improving track speed and capacity on the Norfolk Southern Harrisburg-Pittsburgh main line. Click here for links to information about the hearing and copies of each witness’s written testimony.

  • July 1: The National Association of Railroad Passengers is pleased to offer an online copy of the pilot issue of The American Passenger, a publication created by our Marketing & Resource Development Committee.  It has information and updates on passenger train developments throughout the country.

  • July 1: Encouraged by the high-speed rail funds in the Recovery Act, a group of state legislators, business leaders and leaders of health, transit and environmental nonprofits wrote [PDF] to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) on March 27, pushing him to seek federal funding for passenger train improvements. (In a July 1 letter to NARP members in Indiana, NARP Council Member Steven Coxhead of Hammond has urged NARP members to contact the governor and state legislators directly.)

  • June 1: Photos from NARP’s reception on the Hill and Council meeting, including the conferment of the Golden Spike Awards to Representative John Mica and Senator Harry Reid.

  • May 27, NARP’s statement supporting strong passenger investment for fiscal 2010 appropriations, submitted for the record to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing.

  • January 21, Updated Amtrak fact sheets providing a bevy of data on Amtrak services including ridership data, and state-by-state and Congressional district breakdowns of ridership.

  • January 21, Letter to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller endorsing Ray LaHood to be DOT secretary.

  • January 14, 2009, Changes to our regional membership structure and links to more information about the six new geographical divisions is now online.


Important past entries: