The most frustrating aspect of this whole passenger rail advocacy gig is the vast amount of misinformation out there about train travel—especially about who rides trains and why. It’s particularly maddening that the media gets it wrong over and over again, which just perpetuates all the bad information and eventually turns it into “fact”. …
A few years back, the U.S. Congress passed a law that said individual states had to step up and provide the money to keep Amtrak trains running on routes under 750 miles … routes in or passing through their states. It was another slippery and craven act by that slippery and craven bunch. …
The Southwest Chief, as most of you probably know, could be rerouted or even discontinued because there are more than 600 miles of track in parts of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico that need repairing and upgrading. And there’s no doubt that those repairs are needed: having done it just a few days ago, I…
Many Amtrak passengers are surprised to learn that almost all the track actually owned by Amtrak is along the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington. Anywhere else across the U.S., their train is traveling on track owned by one of the major freight railroads. There are ongoing and inherent problems from this arrangement, mostly passenger…