As Willie Nelson would say, I’m …
. . . On the Road Again. Actually, I’m on the way to San Diego to meet with three NARP colleagues to begin planning for a meeting of the National Association of Railroad Passengers that will take place in Chicago around the middle of October, 2017. But this is not just another NARP gathering. The occasion is—believe it or not—a 50th Anniversary celebration!
These days, our headquarters are in Washington, DC, but NARP was organized and first located in Chicago and was headquartered there for the first few years of its existence. And that made a lot of sense, because Chicago has always been America’s rail hub. That’s true even today, with eight of Amtrak’s long-distance trains terminating there.
At any rate, I’m leaving here this afternoon and will be in San Diego over the weekend, returning to Maui on Tuesday. I will try to post here along the way, assuming there will be something of interest to pass along.
I certainly remember those beginning years in Chicago with NARP, with Tony Haswell fighting the train-off petitions for “The Georgian,” “CZ,” and many others in line to disappear. Ironically, NARP came about just months before we lost NYC’s “20th Century Limited.”
With Amtrak, the abandonment of IC’s Central Station was fought by NARP, as it would add more than 20 minutes to the timecard, making the train less competitive with auto on the new I-57. I even prepared for NARP in 1972 a detailed analysis and proposal of the IC’s Chicago-Champaign-Carbondale corridor to provide faster schedules and improved asset utilization.
Chicago was the logical Operational HQ for Amtrak; however, as Amtrak was created by politics, its home base was naturally to be in Washington, D.C., where NARP moved to as well, to be readily available for congressional testimony. I might also point out that under Mr. Claytor and Mr. Gunn, Amtrak was well served by very sharp VPs for congressional relations and public relations–a lesson for the new management team in 2016 to embrace.