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…
Garden City is a small Kansas community of some 25,000 people, a little over 200 miles west of Wichita. It’s also a stop on the schedule of the Southwest Chief, Amtrak’s daily train running between Chicago and Los Angeles. Several hundred miles of track on the Chief’s route have deteriorated over the years and, of…
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…