On April 5th, eleven members of the United States Senate from both parties signed a letter that was sent, just a few hours later, to Amtrak’s president, Richard Anderson. The phrasing of the letter was such that there could not possibly have been any misunderstanding as to where these senators were coming from. For example,…
I had an interesting conversation the other day with someone who has been around the intelligentsia, the rich, and the powerful throughout his professional career. Furthermore, he’s familiar with and sympathetic to what RPA is trying to accomplish: more trains, better trains, faster trains. Early in our conversation, I was complaining about the loss…
As far as I know, there is no hard evidence—no professionally done survey, for instance—to support a gut feeling that on the subject of long-distance trains, a significant slice of public opinion has moved from unaware to interested to concerned. Can it be that people are finally beginning to get the message that the future…
Watching Amtrak struggle against the odds year after year, it’s been hard not to become pessimistic about the railroad’s long term viability. They’ve managed to stay afloat thanks to a miserly annual subsidy from Congress, despite an alarming number of members being uninformed and hostile. Then there’s Amtrak’s management team, divided into two camps:…