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TRAINS: A travel choice Americans want

Introducing the NARP Shop

Friday, August 29, 2008

NARP is pleased to introduce the NARP Shop on CafePress.com, featuring NARP apparel and other products for rail advocates! NARP has marked up the product prices by 10 percent; all proceeds will go towards our rail advocacy work. Please spread the word, and let us know in the comments (or contact the NARP office) if you have any feedback or suggestions!

Thank you for your continued support.

—Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Tags: rail advocacy
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Biden Puts the Spotlight on Amtrak

Please note: NARP does not endorse or oppose any political candidate.

The selection of Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) to be Barack Obama’s Vice Presidential nominee has focused attention on Amtrak. For 35 years, Biden has commuted almost every day on Amtrak from Wilmington to Washington. There has been extensive media coverage of “The Amtrak Vice President.” For the first time in modern history, the word “Amtrak” was uttered in the acceptance speeches of both candidates of a major party. NARP has done several press interviews and I was invited to write a guest entry for The Hill newspaper’s Congress Blog earlier this week.

As I cautioned readers in my entry, while Biden’s support of Amtrak during his Senate career is very clear, Administrations of both parties have never been especially supportive of Amtrak. We all know that several Republican Administrations have tried (unsuccessfully) to zero-out Amtrak funding, while the worst sets of route cuts in Amtrak history have come at the hands of Democratic Administrations.

So, as I closed my The Hill blog entry, “If elected, will Senator Biden’s support and use of Amtrak translate into stronger federal support of and funding for passenger trains? Time will tell.”

The following segment from NBC’s Today Show on Wednesday provides a glimpse into Biden’s life as a regular commuter on Amtrak’s Acela Express:

—Dave Johnson

Posted by NARP

Tags: acela express, amtrak, joe biden, news media, presidential election
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Passing of NARP Treasurer Robert W. Glover

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

It is with great sadness and deep sense of loss that I report the death of our Treasurer and good friend Robert W. “Bob” Glover yesterday morning after a brief illness.

Bob underwent cancer surgery several months ago. He was recovering well but subsequently developed blood clots and then contracted pneumonia late last week. His passing was peaceful, with family and friends at his bedside.

At Bob’s request, there will be no service.

Bob was a NARP member almost from its inception. He joined the Board in 1977 and became Secretary in 1988. He served in this position until 2004 when he became Treasurer.

He served NARP and our cause faithfully and tirelessly all the way to the last days of his life. We will greatly miss his energy, his wit, his insights, his knowledge and his enormous dedication to our cause.

On behalf of NARP, I extend our sincerest condolences to his sister Linda, his family, his colleagues and many friends.

—George L. Chilson
NARP President

Posted by NARP

Tags: bob glover
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Bob Herbert Asks: What About Infrastructure?

Monday, August 18, 2008

In his New York Times column last Saturday, Bob Herbert spotlighted national infrastructure issues at the US Conference of Mayors meeting and lamented their lack of prominence in the Presidential campaign. He highlighted the opportunity Meridian, MS Mayor John Robert Smith sees in a truly national passenger train network to address our transportation needs (my emphasis on the bolded part):

The mayors talked about clogged highways, the high price of gasoline and an air transportation system that seems to get more pitiful by the day. Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Miss., called on the presidential candidates to take a bold, creative approach to the nation’s transportation needs, including substantial investments in railroad infrastructure.

Mr. Smith believes the nation should devote the same level of commitment to developing a first-rate passenger rail system as was marshaled for the interstate highway system in the Eisenhower era.

He also noted this gem from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

At a press conference after the meeting, Mayor Bloomberg said, “We’ve got to make infrastructure investment a national priority,” and he took the federal government to task for “walking away from its responsibility in this area.”

We couldn’t agree more: The federal government needs to wake up. See my guest entry in The Hill‘s Congress Blog that was published yesterday.

—Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Tags: news media, presidential election, us conference of mayors
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Re-Training America Sheds Light on Our Rail History and Future

As we posted in Hotline #565, NARP encourages its members to watch and share a recent student film about Amtrak and public transportation. “Re-Training America” by Heydn Ericson and Malcolm Kenton, both NARP members and recent graduates of Guilford College, examines the history and future of passenger trains and alternative transportation in America. It also features interviews with myself, other transportation experts, and the traveling public. It is now available via YouTube in three parts:

Also see coverage from The Passenger Rail Blog and the CAHSR Blog. Thank you, Heydn and Malcolm, for your efforts to raise awareness of passenger trains!

—Matthew Melzer

Posted by NARP

Tags: documentaries, student advocacy
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A Tale of the Georgia Mixed

Monday, August 11, 2008

While this might be a bit more nostalgia than rail advocacy, it won’t hurt for our younger fighters to learn what America once had and might indeed need again.

Back in the ‘80s, the Amtrak Timetable still had a section of connecting or other services. This once was where the Southern Railway’s Crescent, Piedmont, Asheville and Lynchburg services, the Rock Island’s Peoria and Quad Cities Rockets and D & RGW Western services resided.

Knowing that it would likely soon disappear, I wanted to ride the Georgia Mixed from Augusta through Social Circle to Atlanta.

I wish I had time and money to have ridden the other services—Macon-Camack, Barnett-Washington, Athens-Union Point—but life moves on.

It seems the Georgia Railroad received a tax break if they maintained passenger service, so they hauled a boarded up passenger car behind their freights and allowed the public to buy tickets. In practice, I learned, you were offered the opportunity to ride in the caboose instead of the stifling or freezing coach.

The week before this odyssey, I called the Georgia Railroad to see how it worked I was politely told in a classic southern dialect that I was welcome to come down, but to be aware that the trains ran on a “leisurely” schedule. For instance, while the schedule called for an 8 or 8:30 departure, it was 11 AM And “We ain’t left yet!”

I booked a seat on the Silver Star to Columbia, wandered about town and departed on a Greyhound to Augusta in the wee hours of the morning.

Arriving early, I found a cab and went to Harrisonville Yard of the GA RR.

The departure being delayed as predicted, I was advised to take some nourishment along.

I called another cab, went to a 7-Eleven and bought a cooler, ice, Cokes and snacks.

Back at the yard, I was invited to the caboose and never even looked into the decrepit passenger car with unpainted plywood panels instead of window glass.

We finally got under way with 4 locomotives that I never saw because we had 133 cars.

I soon learned the powerful blows of slack runout and other things the professional railroader copes with daily.

We set out and picked up cars along the way.

I think it was at Social Circle, but it might have been one of the above mentioned points, that my conductor and guide led me to an old wooden- floored country store where we bought apples, bananas and a sandwich to go.

At 10 PM or so, we arrived at Decatur, GA and I was informed that the crew had “died” on the hours of service rule.

I was left with the whole train under my “command” while we awaited a taxi to bring the new crew and my conductor and the voices I had become used to by radio went their ways.

The new conductor boarded and we were soon underway to Atlanta.

As we approached Hulsey Yard, the new conductor asked me where I was going, the hour now being 11 PM or so.

I replied that I had a hotel room and wanted to get near MARTA.

He said he did not have a radio, but that we were coming near a parallel MARTA line and station.

He asked if I had ever jumped off a moving train as he had no way to signal the engineer.

I replied that I had (I will reveal that tale in a subsequent article and the danger, caveats and apologies to rail advocacy to go with it).

I donated my cooler to the railroad crews, handed my bag to my new conductor and, in my safest and most professional form, followed his detraining with the correct foot first that would throw one away from the train in case of tripping.

It was very dark. I was told I had done the jump like a professional and that I was always welcome to come back and buy a ticket on the Georgia Mixed!

He directed me to an iron walkway over the Georgia yard to the MARTA station.

Alas, the service soon went away and the only remnant left are the lyrics to a great Hank Williams tune: “They took me off the Georgia Main and locked to a ball and chain…”

—Jim Churchill
NARP Vice President

Posted by NARP

Tags: amtrak, churchill, georgia mixed, georgia railroad, greyhound, marta, mixed trains, silver star
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Barron’s and Kiplinger’s Acknowledge Passenger Trains

Friday, August 08, 2008

Two periodicals have train-related stories of interest. In the weekly Barron’s (cover date August 4, but will soon be off news stands), the cover story is “ALL ABOARD! With gas prices high, traffic gnarly and imports buoyant, railroads look like terrific long-term investments. Just ask Warren Buffett. Why we like Bombardier, Burlington Northern and Canadian National” (“Ticket to Riches” in the online version).

Text does acknowledge Amtrak’s ridership (“up 12%”) and says “Wabtec, a brake manufacturer, is the only U.S.-traded play on passenger travel.”

Also, as noted in our September newsletter, the September issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine (now on news stands) sports a letter from editor (and NARP member) Fred W. Frailey which discusses the decline of air travel and the need for passenger trains. Publisher Knight Kiplinger (editor in chief of this and two other publications) also has a column with good comments on the U.S. and its use of energy.

—Ross Capon

Posted by NARP

Tags: amtrak, energy, news media
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