Hotline #808 - January 14, 1994

The Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey "Blue" circus train derailed on the CSX main line yesterday at Lakeland, Fla., derailing 16 of the 53 cars and killing two circus employees on board. Investigation is centering around a broken wheel on one of the passenger cars. Amtrak's Tampa service was disrupted.

The city council in Kansas City, Mo., has approved a plan to redevelop the abandoned Union Station into a science museum. Amtrak moved out of it a number of years ago and no serious proposal to restore rail service to the once-grand station has ever surfaced.

A coalition of 14 environmental, engineering, and transportation groups called the Tri-State Transportation Committee announced in Hartford on January 11 a proposal to redirect highway funding in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Rather than adding 400 miles of new highway lanes in the region, as proposed by state DOT's, the Campaign proposes diverting the money to rail transit and commuter rail.

The National Commission on Intermodal Transportation, created by ISTEA in 1991, elected a chairman this week. He is Robert D. Krebs, chairman of Santa Fe Pacific Corporation. The Commission had been in a funding limbo until this fiscal year. The Commission includes three NARP members -- Wayne Davis of Maine, Ken Bird of Illinois, and John Roach of Missouri.

The Environmental Protection Agency has threatened to cut off $1.6 billion in current-year federal highway funding to three states for Clean Air Act violations. Legislatures in California, Illinois, and Indiana are trying to act quickly to authorize vehicle maintenance and inspection programs rather than face federal funding cuts in May.

The proposed sale of the Central Vermont Railway by parent Grand Trunk is making unions angry, according to the Journal of Commerce. The unions say they were not part of setting up a proposed employee stock ownership program. They say that program, set up by Grand Trunk, cuts wages in return for stock ownership of a new Central Vermont company. Other bidders, such as short lines, exist, but would have to bid 10% above the employee company to get the property.

In other union news, merger negotiations between the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers were formally broken off this week.

Tom Matoff, the general manager of the Sacramento transit system, has accepted a similar post with the new Seattle metropolitan transit authority.

The 25th anniversary of revenue Metroliner service, begun by Penn Central in 1969, is January 18.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority filed suit on January 7 in U.S. District Court against Amtrak, seeking damages resulting from a December 1990 accident in Boston's Back Bay Station. Amtrak's Night Owl, going about 76 mph on a 30-mph curve, derailed. It then hit an MBTA commuter train stopped at a platform and caught fire. It injured 270 people and caused $9 million in damage, including the partial collapse of a street above the tracks. MBTA wants Amtrak to pay all property damage and personal injury claims.

VIA Rail will raise its corridor fares 10%-15% at the end of the month.

The effort to privatize British Rail was muddied further this week when the government said one potential bidder of freight operations might be allowed to buy some track, too. That differs from the previous version of the plan, under which a state-owned company called Railtrack would be created April 1 to own and maintain all British Rail infrastructure. The private-sector party, called Central Railway Group, has expressed interest in rail corridors from the Midlands to the Channel Tunnel for its piggyback operations -- of course, much of them also are passenger routes.