For years now there has been an effort to discredit and subsequently eliminate Amtrak’s long-distance trains. Most of it is based on a false premise: that the long-distance trains are losing millions of dollars a year and there is little if any economic benefit to justify the cost of any subsidy by taxpayers. Those who…
ST. PAUL, MN-The two-day retreat for the NARP board of directors has just concluded, leaving me in a kind of never-never land. I checked out of my hotel room at noon today, but I’m not actually leaving until 10:00 tonight when the westbound Empire Builder pulls into the St. Paul station. Several of us will…
In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina hammered the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1800 people and causing $108 billion in damage. Included in that mess were many miles of track belonging to the CSX railroad that were washed out along the coast. That, of course, meant the cancellation of the New Orleans-to-Orlando segment of Amtrak’s…
We keep hearing it and reading it and, no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to correct the misinformation coming from columnists and reporters and politicians about Amtrak’s long-distance trains. There’s a lot they get wrong, but basically it boils down to these two fundamental errors of fact: The Northeast Corridor is…