Hotline #911 - January 5, 1996

The federal budget crisis is starting to affect the rail industry. Checks to railroad retirees began to be reduced this week, and freight railroad labor negotiations requiring a federal mediator may be interrupted next week. The crisis continues to delay Senate action on its Amtrak authorization bill. The Amtrak gas-tax half cent remains a candidate for inclusion in the hoped-for budget agreement. Legislators need to be reminded of this.

The last runs of the Lake Shore Limited slumbercoach will be January 6 and 7, not January 1 as stated in our January newsletter. Also, the Silver Meteor's slumbercoach comes off on January 15, replaced by a 10-6 sleeper. On about January 21, the Silver Star will get a second slumbercoach, primarily to increase capacity at Orlando. The Star then will have both a Tampa and a Miami slumbercoach.

On January 29, new Thruway buses will connect both the Star and Meteor to Daytona Beach.

The Cascadia apparently will run between Portland and Eugene at least through January 31. The Oregon Transportation Commission will meet January 18 to consider the matter.

A planning report on the Cascadia Corridor was released recently by the state DOT's in Washington and Oregon, and the British Columbia Ministry of Employment and Investment. It said that a 20-year project to upgrade the rail line from Eugene to Vancouver for better passenger and freight service would cost $1.8 billion -- less than adding another lane to I-5. That would bring the Seattle-Portland running time from 4:00 hours today down to 2:30 hours.

A Burlington Northern freight derailment blocked the California Zephyr route east of Osceola, Ia., on December 31, causing eastbound passengers to be bussed from Osceola to Chicago and the westbound train to be detoured via Kansas City.

President Clinton signed into law on January 2 the bill ending the Interstate Commerce Commission. The few remaining regulatory functions of the ICC are transferred to the DOT, some to a new Surface Transportation Board within the DOT.

First Lady Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, last week took a Washington-New York round trip on Amtrak.

The chairman of MK Rail, Gil Carmichael, has resigned. He is a former Federal Railroad Administrator.

The federal government's authorization for collecting aviation taxes expired December 31 due to the budget impasse. Normally, the 10% ticket tax on passengers yields $115 million a week; additional millions come from general aviation and air freight. The money goes to the aviation trust fund. Most passenger airlines are passing the reduction on to their customers with a 10% fare reduction. Southwest Airlines, however, is pocketing the 10% itself. Either way, this is a massive, though temporary, new subsidy to airline passengers.

General Motors has announced that it will begin mass producing electric cars this year. GM had resisted the idea for years. While electric cars can produce air quality benefits, environmentalists worry that highway interests will push electric cars as the complete solution to the mess caused by internal combustion cars. In fact, many problems will remain, such as deaths and injuries, mobility for seniors and the poor, congestion, and the environmental effects of huge quantities of land given over to cars. It is unclear how well the cars will sell. Some car enthusiasts already complain that the GM electric car won't go fast enough -- its top speed will be 80 mph -- that its range is too short at 60 miles, and its cost is too high at $35,000.