Why Are We Still Arguing About High-Speed Rail?
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Why Are We Still Arguing About High-Speed Rail?

ByJim Loomis

Every April, the National Association of Railroad Passengers meets in Washington for three days, one of which is our “Day on the Hill”. That’s when we visit members of our various congressional delegations and either thank them for their support of passenger rail or urge them to begin doing so. A couple of years ago,…

Amtrak Goes Up to The Hill … and Gets Beat Up. Again.
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Amtrak Goes Up to The Hill … and Gets Beat Up. Again.

ByJim Loomis

You can’t imagine how it pains me to say this: John Mica is back. This guy – a member of Congress from Florida – has discovered that he can make the papers by bashing Amtrak. And so he does … again and again. For John Mica, Amtrak is the Mother Lode. There was yet another…

Hello, Congress? Is Anyone Listening? Hello? Hello??
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Hello, Congress? Is Anyone Listening? Hello? Hello??

ByJim Loomis

I really don’t know what it takes to penetrate some of the haze surrounding a lot of Congressional offices when it comes to the question of passenger rail and how to pay for it. Some of that haze comes from conservative ideology, of course, and certainly a lot of it is cynical political pandering.  But,…

Congress Should Stop Picking on Amtrak’s Long-Distance Trains.
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Congress Should Stop Picking on Amtrak’s Long-Distance Trains.

ByJim Loomis

For years, Amtrak’s long-distance trains have constantly come under fire from people in Congress whose objections are based on a conservative ideology that opposes almost any government subsidy as a matter of principle. The rejoinder to that is, I think, pretty simple: why pick only on Amtrak when all other forms of public transportation are…