TRAINS magazine reports Amtrak’s Board of Directors will demand full implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) on any route over which an Amtrak train operates by the end of the calendar year or it will cancel those trains. If the board does indeed adopt this position, as a practical matter it would mean at…
Let’s start with the fact that railroad tracks are private property. That’s why people walking on the tracks—ordinary folks, not railroad employees—are invariably referred to as “trespassers” by railroad personnel. Technically, that’s what they are, and by using the term, the railroads emphasize the point that the tracks are private property and “civilians” should stay…
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” – John F. Kennedy Call it what you will—-a myth, a lie, or just bullshit—-but news stories about Amtrak constantly state that the Northeast Corridor (Washington-New York-Boston) is profitable and that is simply…
Most people don’t realize that Amtrak trains run on track owned by the freight railroads everywhere in the country outside of the Northeast Corridor (Washington-New York-Boston). Amtrak pays a fee to those railroads for handling their trains, plus a little something extra for running the Amtrak trains on time. The on-time part of that…