Whoever said that must have been the inspiration for CSX and Norfolk Southern. The two freight railroads are bitterly opposing Amtrak’s efforts to run one—yes, that’s right—one round-trip passenger train a day between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama. In lengthy written testimony presented to the Surface Transportation Board in Washington, lawyers for the two railroads…
Airline pilots are only permitted to be work for a specific number of hours. In most instances, a two-person crew can only be on duty for no more than ten hours in a 24-hour period. It’s the same for a railroad engineer—in fact, for the entire operating crew, which includes the engineer, the assistant…
I’ve done it and probably you have, too—sat in a Superliner roomette somewhere in the middle of Montana or Nebraska or Texas watching a 100-car freight go lumbering by while our train waits on a siding and falls farther and farther behind schedule. Toaster ovens from China get priority while we wait on a siding….
I just finished sending some testimony into the Surface Transportation Board. That agency is undertaking a review of regulations regarding Amtrak’s on-time performance … or “OTP” as the insiders say. Most people just shrug when it comes to Amtrak trains running late, as though there’s nothing that can be done about it. Besides, so the…