Hotline #999 - September 12, 1997

"Job one" for Amtrak still is to get House Democrats to vote for the House Amtrak reauthorization, which could be on the floor the week of September 22, and to ask President Clinton to sign it into law. Call NARP if you need help answering questions from any legislator's office.

Intercity passenger rail fares well in the ISTEA renewal bill unveiled yesterday by Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Chafee (R.-R.I.), Max Baucus (D.-Mont.), ranking Democrat on the committee, and John Warner (R.-Va.), the subcommittee chairman. In the bill, intercity passenger rail is an eligible use of all three main program categories -- National Highway System, Surface Transportation Program, and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality. The six-year bill generally preserves ISTEA features that environmentalists support. The bill has $1 billion for the Capital Beltway's Wilson Bridge, Warner's top priority.

Meanwhile, in the House, the Surface Transportation Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved on September 10 the version of ISTEA renewal unveiled last week as "BESTEA" (H.R.2400). The bill is silent on Amtrak flexibility, so a House-Senate conference committee will have to decide this issue.

Both House and Senate bills should be approved by their respective full committees on September 17. What happens after that in the House is unclear because some House leaders oppose H.R.2400 as a budget buster. Meanwhile, the Senate bill -- with flat funding levels that comply with the recent budget deal -- drew sharp objections from Massachusetts and New Jersey. New Jersey officials said the state's take for ever dollar it pays would drop from $1.12 to $0.93, while the Boston Globe called the Massachusetts share "the worst news yet on Big Dig funding." This refers to the plan to put the elevated Central Artery highway in the heart of Boston underground.

The Federal Railroad Administration said on September 10 that Union Pacific has experienced "a fundamental breakdown in basic railroad operating procedures and practices essential to a safe operation." Eighty FRA inspectors just finished a 17-day safety inspection of UP following several fatal freight accidents. The inspectors found evidence of "harassment and intimidation" of employees, overworking of crews and dispatchers, and inadequate training.

Workers struck San Francisco's BART system on September 7. BART normally handles about 265,000 riders a day.

Maryland House Speaker Casper R. Taylor, Jr., reportedly has promised to oppose CSX's takeover of part of Conrail unless CSX agrees to restore passenger trains between Cumberland and Baltimore for six baseball games a year.

Adtranz, a joint venture of Daimler-Benz and ABB Asea Brown Boveri, the world's largest maker of trains and railroad equipment, said yesterday it plans to cut 25% of its European workforce, or 5,000 jobs, because of sagging demand, attributed to slow growth of European economies and rail industry privatization forcing prices downward.