Hotline #800 - November 19, 1993

The search for an Amtrak president continues, in a process the Washington Post called "looking more and more like the battery-powered rabbit that [keeps going and going and going]." The Amtrak board met November 16 and was expected to choose from among New Jersey Transportation Commissioner Thomas M. Downs, former Los Angeles County transit chief Neil Peterson, and Amtrak Executive Vice President William S. Norman. However, the board's only reported decision was to do more background checks on the three candidates. Current President Graham Claytor has always supported Norman. Now it is hoped the board will make a decision at its regular meetings November 30 and December 1.

Thanksgiving schedules go into effect in the Northeast and, as always, travel demand will be greatest Wednesday, November 24 and the following Sunday, November 28.

Southern Pacific is single-tracking its Donner Pass mainline between Colfax, Cal., and Sparks, Nev., used by Amtrak's California Zephyr. Double track was installed on the old Overland Route in 1925. SP freight business on the line has decreased greatly in recent decades.

The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that all signals were working when a Burlington Northern freight train collided head on with a Union Pacific freight in heavy fog at Kelso, Wash., November 11, killing all five crew. The busy double-track line is owned by BN and was closed to freight and Amtrak trains for three days.

A work stoppage by independent truckers this week disrupted some business. A convoy of truck cabs jammed Independence Ave. on Capitol Hill on November 16 and fouled the air. Partly they are protesting the 4.3-cent-a-gallon fuel tax increase that took effect October 1, as if that would even begin to pay the cost of environmental and road damage done by trucks. The Senate Commerce Transportation Subcommittee had a hearing on diesel fuel price increases yesterday.

New Jersey Transit announced a plan this week to double the number of parking spaces at Metropark, a station it shares with Amtrak. Some of the new spaces will be set aside for overnight Amtrak parkers.

The next in a series of DOT-sponsored hearings on the progress of ISTEA will be at San Jose on November 30, in the Santa Clara County Board Chambers.

Amtrak is now selling space on a second sleeping car on the Sunset Limited. The first trips of the expanded train will be December 12 from Los Angeles and December 17 from Miami.

A murder-suicide shooting involving two Amtrak employees took place in New York Penn Station the evening of November 16. A redcap apparently shot a Metropolitan Lounge worker to death, then killed himself, as a result of a soured love relationship. Both were long-time Amtrak employees. The shooting did not take place in a public area of the station.