Hotline #198 - July 6, 2001

The Surface Transportation Board ruled on Boston-Portland passenger rail service on June 29. Guilford must allow Amtrak to test Guilford's track to determine whether 79-mph operation is safe on the parts of the line owned by Guilford (in New Hampshire and Maine). The STB rejected Guilford's assertion that such testing would be "unreasonably burdensome and disruptive." A Guilford official told Foster's Daily Democrat, "We disagree with [the] decision, but we'll follow the mandate of the STB and the law they laid down." Test equipment located in Colorado will take two weeks to reach Maine. The newspaper reported that the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority hopes the service can start in October, but an earlier start is possible.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta was appointed to the Amtrak board June 29 by President Bush. He fills a vacancy left by former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater in January. But Mineta could not be appointed while Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson was on the board, since the law forbids more than one federal employee on the Amtrak board. Thompson was also the board's chairman; no chairman has been selected yet and Thompson's board slot remains vacant.

As reported previously, Northeast Direct schedules change July 9 with the addition of Acela Express service -- up to five each weekday each way Boston-New York (three on weekends) and six each weekday Washington-New York (two weekends). All other Boston trains (via Providence) convert to all-electric, Acela Regional operation, except Twilight Shoreliner. In its first five-plus months of service (December 11-June 1), Acela Express earned $15.3 million in ticket revenue from 130,486 passengers. The only northbound trip that ran during that entire period is the 5:00 am departure from Washington, which was meant to allow a single train set to make a Boston round trip in one day and to familiarize crews with the equipment before dealing with heavy loads.

The Capitol Limited schedule also changes, with the removal of stops at Elkhart and Hammond-Whiting, Ind. NARP has expressed concern about this to Amtrak and asked the reason for such an action that, on its face, is not passenger-friendly.

An incident on Amtrak's eastbound Southwest Chief at Lamy, N.Mex., July 2, sent 12 people to the hospital with non-critical injuries. The train was backing out of the station at about 5 mph to allow the westbound Chief to enter, when it braked abruptly. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that a conductor announced that the emergency brakes had engaged. Amtrak and the NTSB are investigating.

There is now an Amtrak California Rail Pass, which allows seven days of travel in any 21-day period.  Also, there are Northern and Southern California pass options allowing five days of travel in any seven-day period.  These passes are accepted on Thruway buses but generally not long-distance trains in California.  The California pass is different from the Florida Rail Pass announced May 10, which allows Florida residents unlimited travel for a year, including unreserved travel on otherwise-all-reserved trains.

A June 20 derailment of a New Jersey Transit commuter train at Garfield, N.J., may have been caused by a garbage truck, according to the June 22 Bergen Record. A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board told the paper that a flatbed truck that was loading a trash bin may have hit the nearby tracks and misaligned them. Another possibility was that of a sun kink in the rails, but NJT said there had not been extreme heat in the days before the accident.

The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority on June 28 approved development of a 9.1-mile branch of the Blue Line light rail from downtown to Venice and Robertson Blvds. near Culver City, with a commitment to study extension to the ocean in Santa Monica. The line would use mostly old rail right-of-way, with the first segment (to Exposition Park) to open in 2007.

Former NARP Region 8 director William B. (Bill) Weeks, 76, of Seattle, Wash., died at home on June 18. He was a director from 1996 to 2000. He fell ill while on a Trans-Siberian rail tour, which he had to cut short, and died soon after arriving home.

Georgia Governor Barnes has proposed an accelerated transportation plan, with nearly $10 billion, most of it new funding, going to roads and transit over five years. It got general praise from environmental groups, although nearly $6 billion of it will go to highway expansion and HOV lanes. (Some efforts to halt certain highway projects will continue.)  Rail and bus service would get a total of $4 billion. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) would begin four-times-daily commuter bus service from Macon to Atlanta this fall, with other points added later. GRTA also said it would "commence intense communications" with Norfolk Southern for Atlanta-Macon commuter service, which once was to have begun in 2004.  Now the goal is for part of it (Atlanta-Griffin) to start in 2006. An Atlanta-Cobb County light-rail line would get $2.8 billion.

An Amtrak "Monster Mile" special train will run from New York to Dover, Del., on September 23, for the second time this summer (the first was June 3). The round-trip train is available for sale now (trains 935/936). A shuttle bus will be provided from the train to the race track. Connections are available at Wilmington to corridor points southwest of there.

Amtrak Texas Eagle passengers at San Marcos, Tex., began using a new intermodal station July 1. The station, on S. Guadalupe (2 blocks from old site) was opened May 15 by Capital Area Rural Transportation System for Greyhound service. Local transit will begin serving it July 16.