Hotline #960 - December 13, 1996

President Clinton today nominated William Daley to become Commerce Secretary. That means it looks more like the next Transportation Secretary will be Rodney Slater, the Federal Highway Administrator. He would be the first black person to be Transportation Secretary. Slater is a longtime Clinton associate, and reportedly did the heavy lifting for the entire DOT budget one year ago, in arguing in the White House against budget cuts proposed by the OMB.

NARP wrote to OMB Director Franklin Raines on December 11 urging adequate fiscal 1998 funding for Amtrak. NARP urged $300 million for operations to continue all existing routes. NARP warned that anything below the $245 million Amtrak has requested could lead to such drastic route cuts as to make the system impossible to defend in Congress.

The California High Speed Rail Commission was to meet in San Francisco today and approve plans for an ambitious high-speed rail project from Sacramento and the Bay Area through the Central Valley to Los Angeles and San Diego. A high-speed rail authority has already been created, and will work toward getting a funding measure on the ballot in 2000.

Ohio has joined the Midwest Regional Rail System Study, bring the total to nine states. The study was outlined in the lead article in the November NARP newsletter. The other states already in the study are Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

Amtrak is pleased with early numbers from the new Ethan Allen, which began running from New York to Rutland on December 1. The most passengers per trip so far was December 6, when 50 people rode north of Albany, with 41 getting off at Rutland. Today, 45 were supposed to get off at Rutland. Amtrak said ridership should improve deeper into the ski season. The State of Vermont supports the operation of the Ethan Allen, in addition to the existing Vermonter.

An editorial in yesterday's Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., says the new Silver Palm has been a big hit there. The editorial also said local travelers are slated to get a much-needed new passenger terminal. The current station in North Charleston looks like what one might have found at an Iron Curtain border crossing.

The RegioSprinter diesel light-rail car has finished its trial run in Calgary, and is now in the United States. On December 19 and 21, it will be on public display at the Amtrak station in San Jose, Cal. The hours both days are 10:00 am - 2:00 pm.

The San Francisco Municipal Railway put into revenue service on December 10 the first two streetcars of a 77-car order from Breda. The new cars are ADA-compliant and are hoped to be more reliable than the ill-starred Boeing cars that Muni has been using for 20 years. The new cars got good marks from riders the first day, but apparently they have a loud, high-pitched whine that has been disturbing some local residents.

A short circuit shut down BART's trans-bay tube between Oakland and San Francisco for seven hours yesterday, including over the morning rush hour. The San Jose Mercury said, "All main arteries in the East Bay" were clogged with car traffic, and that there were lines of people four blocks long waiting to take buses over the Bay Bridge. A bad day, but a good indication of how some cities rely on rail transit.

A joint venture including the Kansas City Southern and a Mexican steamship line on December 6 won the 50-year concession for taking over Mexico's most important rail line, from Matamoros and Laredo on the Texas border to Monterrey, Mexico City, and Veracruz. Their bid was $1.4 billion. The Union Pacific, which feeds the most rail traffic to this Mexican line, and which was once regarded as a favorite to win the concession, came in third.

Automobile shuttles resumed service through the Channel Tunnel on December 10. Passenger and freight trains resumed earlier. Only truck shuttles are not running. That is the sort of train involved in the November 18 fire that did serious damage to one of the rail tubes.