 | NARP blogTRAINS: A travel choice Americans want |
» Visit the Official NARP Website
Belated Report on Toledo National Train Day
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
By all indications, the events of May 10 in Toldeo, OH were a smashing success. Organizer Beth McCray tells us that estimated attendance was about 1,000. Of the activities that took place, she writes that there were two local musical groups - a jazz/pops trio and a Dixieland/New Orleans band. A Karaoke contest ended the day. Two clowns - including balloons - were on hand all day. Two model railroad organizations provided working layouts in 3 different gauges. People could sign up for drawings for various donated gifts; drawings were held every hour. Amtrak gave two pairs of tickets good for travel to any destination served by The Capitol Limited and The Lake Shore Limited. There were 38 organizations with displays/exhibits.
Support was provided by local Amtrak employees, All Aboard Ohio, the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, and the Toledo/Lucas County Port Authority, which owns the Amtrak station building.
The highlight of the day was a ceremony with dignitaries to honor National Train Day, which attracted media attention.
Toledo Mayor Carleton “Carty” S. Finkbeiner (D).
TLCPA President James Hartung.
Derrick James, Senior Officer, Government Affairs Midwest, Amtrak.
NARP Board Member and President of All Aboard Ohio Bill Hutchison (l.) receives a resolution from Toledo City Council President Mark Sobczak.
Bill Hutchison and State Sen. Teresa Fedor (D), who presented a proclamation from the Ohio Senate.
Stu Nicholson, Public Information Officer, Ohio Rail Development Commission.
Demonstration of a Segway Personal Transporter.
All Aboard Ohio Regional Coordinator William Gill and Beth McCray, without whom the outstanding program would not have been possible.
--Matthew Melzer
Posted by NARP
Tags: all aboard ohio, amtrak, capitol limited, lake shore limited, national train day, toledo,DC to Chicago by Night: Or, How I Learned to Stop Flying and Love the Rails
Friday, October 31, 2008
In the wake of my first truly long distance train ride, I’ve been thinking about the sense I have of my own mobility.
Now, as someone who is paid to think about the state of America’s transportation infrastructure in general, and trains and transit in particular, it’s probably a bad sign that I had taken this summer’s passing of cheap air fares to be synonymous with the death of cheap-AND-easy long-distance travel. But there you go. Whatever forces shaped my conceptions about travel included cars and planes and Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor, and that’s about it.
That being said, I was not prepared for how painless boarding a train in downtown Washington, DC on a Sunday afternoon and waking up in downtown Chicago on Monday morning turned out to be. All for around $150, roundtrip. Which was about $100 cheaper than any comparable airfare I could find (and I’m talking about red-eye, bottom of the barrel airfares here).
Doing a quick breakdown of the distances, I figured that the roughly 700 miles I covered between DC and Chicago would take me to any city in the northeastern United States, as far south as Jacksonville, Florida, and–of course–anywhere kind of between the District and Illinois. All of this assuming that Amtrak was actually able to run regular service between any two cities in my 700 mile radius.
The point is that I have a lot of friends in these theoretically train-accessible cities. Friends I’ve been putting off seeing because I thought I couldn’t afford to. Friends who are now going to need to get their couches ready.
You are now free to move about the country.
--Sean Jeans-Gail
NARP Assistant Director, Legislative Relations
Posted by NARP
Tags: air travel, amtrak, capitol limited, northeast corridor,©2006 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
» Recent Entries
» Blogroll
» Terms of Service for Comments
You may register to post comments in response to NARP-generated postings on the Blog. By registering you agree 1) that all comments will be relevant to the respective posting and 2) not to post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, or that violate any laws. We reserve the right to permanently block postings from any user who does not abide by the above terms. NARP reserves the right to remove, edit, or move any messages for any reason.
» Monthly Archives
