Hotline #862 - January 27, 1995

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing yesterday on Amtrak to review the service cuts. Thirteen Senators attended and asked questions, which was impressive. Testimony generally reflected support for passenger rail service. Generally, the Senators supported the concept of a national Amtrak system, but were unsure of how to proceed. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) gave an eloquent speech about Amtrak's perennial lack of adequate funding and read from a table NARP prepared that ranked the world's nations by per-capita public spending on mainline railroads.

Virtually all the reasons the service is important were covered before NARP Executive Director Ross Capon spoke, so he was able to concentrate mostly on funding issues.

Witnesses included Sen. James Jeffords (R.-Vt.), Federal Railroad Administrator Jolene Molitoris, Amtrak President Tom Downs, Kenneth Mead of the General Accounting Office, Ross Capon of NARP, Meridian (Miss.) Mayor John Robert Smith, Missouri Railroad Administrator Jack Hynes, and former New Jersey Gov. James Florio, who represented a new labor-based coalition called START, or Save Transit and Rail Transportation. All advocated a strong, national Amtrak system, with different ideas on how to achieve that. The one exception was the GAO witness, who painted a gloomy view of Amtrak's funding needs, but who was helpful in confirming that no intercity passenger rail network in the world is profitable.

Here are the pro-passenger train press conferences scheduled by the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group along the route of the Palmetto on January 31:

New York Penn Station, 9:00 am; Newark Penn Station, 9:00 am; Philadelphia 30th Street Station, 10:00 am; Washington Union Station, 1:00 pm; Richmond station, 3:30 pm. Also on February 1, Tampa station, 8:00 am. Ross Capon of NARP will speak at the Washington event.

Regarding the service cuts described in our January newsletter, Amtrak is going ahead with the February 1 changes, and indicates that the April changes will take place on April 2, the normal spring timetable day.

The Amtrak board met January 25. On-time performance in December for trains away from the Northeast Corridor was up a lot over the year before, from 68% to 75%. President Tom Downs discussed a new program in which the Northeast Corridor SBU is joining with the U.S. DOT and the cities of Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Washington to promote rail travel in the Northeast to foreign visitors.

The Federal Railroad Administration has extended the comment period for the Boston electrification project to March 4. It was to have expired January 24. It was extended at the request of Connecticut officials and local residents.

Amtrak has put out specifications for 15 new electric locomotives. It is now estimated that they and the 26 train sets would be ordered in May.

There will be a new San Diegan timetable effective February 5. At that time, a new stop at Solana Beach will replace the current Del Mar stop. The new station is still under construction.

All trains serving Detroit and Port Huron become all-reserved, effective February 1.

Gil Mallery, who is in charge of the Washington and Oregon passenger rail programs, has been made executive of Amtrak's West Coast SBU.

The Japanese Transport Ministry says that the January 17 earthquake at Kobe caused more than $4 billion in damage to the region's railways. The Ministry will subsidize repair work as quickly as possible.