Hotline #841 - September 2, 1994

The White House ordered Soo Line workers back to work on August 29. Over the previous weekend, the United Transportation Union had threatened to spread its strike against the Soo Line to other railroads. The apparent reason was that the UTU was in danger of seeing its Soo Line strike collapse since the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers began allowing its members to cross picket lines last week. The strike, which began on July 14, is now on hold for 60 days while a Presidential Emergency Board studies the dispute and makes recommendations. At the end of that period, October 28, labor and management may resort to self-help measures once again, and the strike may resume.

Normal Amtrak service did not resume immediately due to the need for Soo Line to inspect its tracks. Hiawatha trains are still running only 60 mph north of Rondout, Ill., and suffering delays of between five and 15 minutes. But that is better than the 40 mph limit during the strike and all seven round trips are running. The Empire Builder is still on the Burlington Northern. All service should be back to normal September 6.

The date of the Rail Safety Summit to be conducted by DOT Secretary Federico Pena is September 30.

The Administration is already working on its budget for 1996, to be released around February 1. Because of a prior five-year budget agreement, we will be working under the same tight budget caps in 1996 as we were in 1995.

The latest deadline for Amtrak to issue its request for proposals for the high-speed train sets was yesterday, and apparently it has passed undone. Amtrak says it will still happen during September.

Amtrak and the San Diego Northern Railway on August 18 signed an agreement making Amtrak the operator of commuter trains between San Diego and Oceanside. Service will begin February 27.

The CalTrans Rail Division will unveil the first California locomotive at Los Angeles Union Station on September 15 at 10:30 am. Governor Wilson will dedicate the locomotive in a public ceremony and it will be on display the rest of the day. The locomotive will then be moved to Oakland for another display at the Jack London Square site on September 20. Another display will be September 23 in Sacramento at the California State Railroad Museum, along with a prototype California Car. Finally, the locomotive officially will enter regular service with a ceremony at the Sacramento Amtrak station just prior to the departure of train 723 for San Jose.

Amtrak has announced that the Capitol Limited will be converted to Superliners beginning October 30. There will be on-line displays in the days before that and on that weekend in Washington.

A conference committee of the upper and lower houses of the German parliament on August 31 approved maglev projects in principle. The whole matter must go back to both houses for a vote. It is unclear what effect this has on the Berlin-Hamburg project. That project was rejected by the upper house on July 8. The committee's findings appear to be broad standards not specific to routes, standards that the Hamburg project may or may not satisfy.

The tremendously expensive, $3.7-billion, new airport at Denver still has not opened, after about a year of delays. The baggage circulation problem still has not been resolved. Now a federal grand jury is investigating allegations of shoddy construction of the runways themselves.