Hotline #59 - November 6, 1998

Washington observers are already looking ahead to issues that will be important in the new, 106th Congress in 1999. The first is whether the Clinton Administration's fiscal 2000 Amtrak budget request will fulfill the specific promises about future-year funding in Clinton's last budget. The second is whether Amtrak will get the full definition of capital it wants; that is, the ability to spend federal capital funds on maintenance-of-way in addition to maintenance-of-equipment.

Also, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.) would like to take the aviation trust fund off-budget, as he did this year, in effect, for highways and transit. That would leave Amtrak and the Coast Guard the only major transportation programs without special budget protection. However, because of recent lapses in collecting the aviation ticket tax, that trust fund does not have the high surpluses that the highway trust fund had, and so there may be less pressure to take aviation off-budget.

The Congressional elections of November 3 apparently mean little change in the area of transportation. Two friends of passenger rail lost their re-election bids -- Sen. Al D'Amato (R.-N.Y.) and Carol Moseley Braun (D.-Ill.). D'Amato, however, will be replaced by Charles Schumer (D.), who has a good voting record in the House.

Extended Pennsylvanian service between Pittsburgh and Chicago begins November 7. While it provides daytime service across northern Ohio and Indiana, it also cuts in half the amount of service from Pittsburgh and Johnstown to New York. Ceremonies will be held tomorrow before the arrival of the eastbound rain at several stations between South Bend and Pittsburgh. A Thruway bus that didn't make it into the fall timetable will connect from the train at Toledo to Detroit, Dearborn, Ann Arbor, and Jackson, Mich.

The first new Talgo set will be unveiled November 9 at King Street Station in Seattle, at 11:30 am. The set then will travel to Pueblo, Colo., for testing.

Amtrak launched a new discount ticket program -- Rail Sale -- yesterday, available only on its web site. Amtrak will post discounted coach seats on the web site approximately two weeks or less before the departure dates. Seats that were posted yesterday were discounted by 60 or 70%. This seems to be an attempt by Amtrak to get some revenue for seats that might otherwise go unsold.

Amtrak passenger miles in fiscal 1998 increased 2.7% from fiscal 1997 -- up to over 5.3 billion (from under 5.2 billion).

Amtrak last week commended Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) for his success in getting a provision in last month's Omnibus Appropriations bill allowing Vermont greater flexibility in how it spends its federal transportation funds. Vermont thus becomes the only state that can use its federal funding for intercity passenger rail.

Amtrak last month awarded another grant to the Great American Station Foundation, this one for $1 million. The grant was announced by acting president George Warrington, at the Foundation's Railroad Station Revitalization Seminar in Washington Union Station on October 21.

Peter Pan Bus Lines and Greyhound have announced they will share bus routes between major Northeastern destinations. They will coordinate schedules and cross-honor tickets. The chairman of Peter Pan, Peter Picknelly, said, "Our real competition is not each other, but the passenger auto, Amtrak, and the airlines."

The Arizona Republic reported on October 11 that FBI agents were investigating stolen vehicles and other debris thrown down a mineshaft in connection with the sabotage derailment of the Sunset Limited three years ago.

Voters in Charlotte, N.C., on November 3 approved a $1-billion, half-cent sales tax to be used for improving area transit. Much of it involves bus improvements and busways, but a couple light-rail lines are also in the mix.