This Week at Amtrak; June 9, 2008

A weekly digest of events, opinions, and forecasts from
United Rail Passenger Alliance, Inc.
1526 University Boulevard, West, PMB 203
Jacksonville, Florida 32217-2006 USA
Telephone 904-636-7739, Electronic Mail info@unitedrail.org
http://www.unitedrail.org



Volume 5, Number 17



Founded over three decades ago in 1976, URPA is a nationally known policy institute that focuses on solutions and plans for passenger rail systems in North America. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, URPA has professional associates in Minnesota, California, Arizona, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Texas, and New York. For more detailed information, along with a variety of position papers and other documents, visit the URPA web site at http://www.unitedrail.org.


URPA is not a membership organization, and does not accept funding from any outside sources.


1) When the telephone rings here at URPA World Headquarters, one never knows who could be on the other end of the line. These days, it’s often a reporter, looking for a quote about the correlation between high gas prices and Amtrak ridership. (If you believe all reporters call with an open mind about a story, and are not looking for a specific quote to back up what they believe, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you while the price is still cheap.)

Other telephone calls received here at World Headquarters (that sounds so much better than just saying “our office in Jacksonville”) come from excited Greens, all agog and smug over how they LOVE to ride the train because it’s so very good for the environment, and don’t we think so, too? (The answer to that is an emphatic “no,” because we believe passenger rail makes more sense from a true business perspective than from a current environmental fad.)

Other communiques arrive on a myriad of topics, from praising Amtrak to damning Amtrak, but most hoping for a successful passenger rail system in our country.

Oops! Amtrak has been caught with its corporate pants down this time. For whatever reason potential riders are looking at Amtrak, or the media is finally realizing there is something of a skeletal passenger rail system in North America (VIA Rail Canada, on a percentage basis, isn’t much better than Amtrak when it comes to serving Canada’s population base.), Amtrak has no prayer in being able to meet demand. There is too much equipment sitting idle and unloved in coach yards, too much motive power that’s been leased to other railroads, and too few frequencies to make people truly interested in riding a train for a convenient schedule.

Yes, every star in the passenger travel sky has aligned in Amtrak’s favor, including the implosion of good customer service and convenience in the airline industry, and Amtrak is still focusing on non-profitable and expensive to operate short corridors, while its long distance national system languishes with few frequencies, short train consists, a complete lack of onboard staff, and a willingness to continue as America’s best kept secret outside of the Northeast Corridor.

Here’s a recent communique which recently flew over the URPA e-mail transom.

[Begin quote]

For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would want to use AMTRAK. Commuter lines, yes, but national, I can't see it. I live near an AMTRAK station. I work near an AMTRAK station. I should be a prime candidate for a user. However, I can't even commute because the fares are so high, the scheduling is so sparse and inconvenient. So I drive instead. I live near Detroit. If I want to go anywhere in the country, I can fly and it's a lot cheaper and faster. What is the rationale? I don't get it. Even if were to do a short trip i.e. 100 miles or less, I can drive it for less than half the cost and it's more convenient. The only people AMTRAK is good for are those who live in central cities and don't have cars, and are doing short trips that make the hassle of going to the airport not worthwhile. The only others would be people who live in rural areas who aren't served by nearby airports, those who for some reason actually have a preference for train travel despite the higher cost and inconvenience, or those on vacation. Otherwise, I just don't see it and I'll actually go out of my way to use public transportation e.g. bus or rail even if I could drive myself, and more cheaply, as long as it's not a major inconvenience. It is not worth the federal subsidies. Get rid of it, once and forever.

Sincerely

David Muscat
Troy, Michigan

[End quote]

Do you think is an unusual attitude? Think, again. This is a result of Amtrak’s corporate lifelong policies resulting from continuing mismanagement and Amtrak’s refusal to make its case to the American public and owners in Congress and whatever White House administration is in power at the moment.

Amtrak does have the ability to be useful and beneficial as part of our domestic transportation network. But, as long as Amtrak primarily operates trains for the benefit of its operating department and not the passengers it’s supposed to serve, this type of attitude displayed above will constantly have to be dealt with by anyone supporting Amtrak.

2) Here is how Amtrak can make some “quick fixes” to meet the challenge of becoming relevant in today’s travel climate.

– Understand that equipment running on trains equals revenue. Many pieces of equipment are sitting on sidings and in yards because of out of date inspections or the need for minor repairs. Make those fixes now, and put that equipment to immediate use, which equals generating revenue to cover the cost of the fixes.

– Stop putting all of Amtrak’s advertising budget into the Northeast Corridor and splash a little money around the rest of the country. It won’t take much to tell a hungry traveling public passenger train service is available.

– Start using smart and proven public relations techniques to drum up more business. Instead of putting press releases on its web site and issuing them to just a few paid business wires, actually send press releases about train travel to large and small media outlets, generating interest in stories. Reestablish route promotional offices, which operated inexpensively, but concentrated on building specific routes through a variety of public relations techniques and personalized, regional service for media, groups, and local events.

– Establish a schedule of equipment displays at any station around the country which has a house track. The weak efforts around the country outside of the major metropolitan areas on National Train Day last month demonstrated a desire by the public to view and visit Amtrak equipment to have a better understanding of riding the train.

– Stop the “woe is me” attitude that so often pervades Amtrak and everything it touches, and offer a positive image to the traveling public. Another round of alleged “crisis” stories in the news media about Amtrak’s annual beg-fest on Capitol Hill will continue to drive passengers away instead of attracting them to the railroad.

– Announce to the world, “we are here, we are ready” to move America’s passengers. Maybe some passengers will actually believe the highly inadequate Amtrak skeletal system may be beneficial for their travel plans.

– Train the reservations agents in the national res centers to actually tell the truth when passengers ask questions Amtrak doesn’t want to answer. TWA has been collecting bogus answers to questions asked res agents about the missing Sunset Limited east of New Orleans. So far, answers include “CSX won’t let us have the track,” to “bridges are still out from Hurricane Katrina, and we can’t run trains there.” For the record, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August of 2005, and CSX had its mainline between New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida reopened in short order, and was able to release the track to Amtrak for use by the Sunset Limited on April 1, 2006, over two years and two months ago. The Sunset Limited is not running solely because of decisions made by Amtrak, not any other factor.

3) Speaking of the late, lamented Sunset Limited on the east end, between New Orleans and Jacksonville, two rather interesting events have taken place, both pretty absurd.

First, the latest issue of Passenger Train Journal, No. 2008:2, Issue 235, hit mailboxes and newsstands in the last few days. This superb magazine features a long and inquiring interview by journalist Karl Zimmerman with Amtrak President and CEO Alex Kummant, which took place in April. Mr. Zimmerman and Mr. Kummant covered a number of interesting topics, and there are a number of positive aspects of the interview. However, this exchange took place.

[Begin quote]

Karl Zimmerman: Probably the most contentious issue around is the restoration of the Sunset Limited [After the loss of the service due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.]. Is there anything you could say about this?

Alex Kummant: The east (end) can’t really come back. We have to finish the final accounting there, but the resources are gone, the funding is gone, and it was never very good service, though people have very rosy memories. It came through three times a week, at night in many cases, with horrible on-time performance. It’s just time for everyone to get over it.

Karl Zimmerman: Is there any part of the route that might be viable?

Alex Kummant: Yes, we’ve had a lot of robust discussions with Florida on corridors, and I think we have to look at Mobile to New Orleans.

[End quote]

(Harrumph) Okay, that’s it. Mr. Kummant is either badly misinformed by his staff of “yes men” minions, or he just chooses not to tell the truth.

Resources gone? What resources? CSX released a fully rehabilitated and shiny new mainline track to Amtrak on April 1, 2006 for passenger service use. At this moment, there is no better maintained and serviceable mainline track in America.

While a few stations west of Pensacola were damaged by Hurricane Katrina, none of them were owned by Amtrak, and, with the exception of Mobile, Alabama, every necessary train platform at stations is still in place and ready for use. The Mobile station was damaged so badly the building was torn down and owner CSX sold the building for commercial development. Since Mr. Kummant says there is interest in New Orleans-Mobile service, one can only surmise there must be some sort of plan for a station platform and parking in that area. The Pensacola station, also not owned by Amtrak, was damaged, too, but, again, the platform is still there.

Most of the Sunset Limited train and engine crews are still with the company, and requalifying them on this route is really nothing more than a couple of refamiliarization trips and paperwork shuffling. Those who have left due to retirement or other jobs can be replaced.

Fueling of locomotives on the east end was done by contractors backing up fuel trucks to thirsty locomotives at small town stops in Florida’s panhandle because the fuel was cheaper there.

The funding is gone? Why? The simple answer is because Amtrak apparently chose to not include a funding request for the route on its own volition. That is a problem which can quickly be fixed almost immediately (See below).

“[A]nd it was never very good service, though people have very rosy memories. It came through three times a week, at night in many cases, with horrible on-time performance.” That statement by Mr. Kummant is simply an ignorant lie, and eagerly makes some of us question why he is attempting to lead Amtrak as its president and CEO.

If you were to ask someone who was intimately involved with marketing this service and worked on improving onboard service – Wait! That was Me! This writer was paid by Amtrak to do that on the east end of the Sunset Limited by operating under contract to Amtrak the Sunset Limited and City of New Orleans Promotional Office! – the answer would be that the service was, indeed, good service, and in the years before the train was handed over from the intensely caring Gulf Coast Business Group in New Orleans to the hacks at the Southwest Business Group in Texas, everything possible was done to operate this train in as much of a professional manner as possible. Yes, the train did often run horribly late due to the many problems of the Union Pacific’s indigestion of the purchase of the Southern Pacific. However, the lateness on the east end was no worse than the lateness on the west end. Why mention this? Also, the Sunset operated on a number of different schedules to accommodate the problems of first the Southern Pacific Railroad and then its successor Union Pacific Railroad. When CSX originated the west bound train from Orlando to New Orleans, with the exception of times when track maintenance was being done, the service usually ran close to, if not exactly, on time. When CSX was handed the train from Union Pacific in New Orleans headed eastbound, it was often so late CSX had difficulty working it into its dispatching matrix. However, CSX did everything it could to run this train on time.

The onboard service was often better than on any of the other trains in and out of Florida – again, because of the difference between the business groups which operated the trains. Once the equipment got out of the horrors of the Los Angeles equipment maintenance yards and into the caring hands of the Auto Train folks’ maintenance base in Sanford, the SuperLiners on the Sunset were as good as any in the fleet.

As to the fact this train operated only three times a week, we can’t help but notice the same train on the west end STILL operates three times a week, and the other train with huge, unrealized potential – the Cardinal – also only operates three times a week. The obvious answer is to take these trains daily, like a normal passenger railroad.

From the marketing perspective, as long as we had some meager resources (and, in the grand scheme of things, that’s being optimistic calling those resources even meager, they were so very small) to work with, revenue passenger miles were nearly always increasing on the Sunset Limited. Only when Amtrak completely slashed – by its own decision – any type of specific route marketing or promotion, did the revenue passenger miles remain stagnant.

Since the ill-informed Mr. Kummant wants to talk about finances on the route, how about the fact the east end generated 46% of the revenue for the Sunset Limited’s overall route? In most cases, that’s close to half, for anyone keeping score. Did Amtrak’s Board of Directors under the departed Chairman David Laney, which did so many things so very good to stabilize the company, make such an unforgivable, horrible mistake when it hired Alex Kummant to take Amtrak into the future? Did it hire someone who is an empty suit, apparently unable to capably think for himself and make rational decisions? Did the board hire someone who is just putting another notch on the bedpost of his resume so he can move along to another company and make continuing bad decisions for more monetary compensation? If this type of statement and sentiment remains coming from Mr. Kummant, apparently so.

4) Here’s the other shoe dropping about the Sunset Limited. In the last few weeks, the Democrats in Congress, with the blessing of many minority Republicans, have introduced an Amtrak reauthorization bill in the House of Representatives. Instead of taking up the Lautenberg-Lott Senate version of Amtrak’s reauthorization, the House came up with its own proposals.

Part of the reauthorization package is the commitment by Congress to Amtrak to provide $1 million for a study to restore the Sunset Limited between New Orleans and Sanford (Orlando), Florida, it’s previous east-end terminal.

Hoo-boy! A million bucks! Just for Amtrak to delve into its file cabinets to pull up existing information and put it into a nice format for Congress to look at and approve more money than is probably necessary to restore the service Amtrak never should have suspended in the first place. What will this fabled million bucks pay for? How many pictures need to be taken of existing platforms next to tracks? How many building contractors need to be contacted for providing quotes to fix up buildings? HOW MUCH OF THIS MILLION BUCKS WILL AMTRAK TAKE AND USE FOR SOMETHING ELSE AND NOT TELL ANYONE?

For all of the absurd things about Amtrak through the years, to commit $1 million dollars to study restoring an existing route is probably about the most absurd notion ever put forth. If it’s the “cost of doing business,” well, it’s beginning to look like some of Al Capone’s business practices were pretty reasonable, too.

Here’s the Capitol Hill press release telling the story.

[Begin quote]

Press Release

Opening comments of Chairman Oberstar and Chairwoman Brown from today’s Markup for the “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008"

Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, And Hazardous Materials

May 22, 2008


By Mary Kerr (202) 225-6260



Statement of The Honorable James L. Oberstar
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, And Hazardous Materials
Markup For “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008”



I am pleased that we are marking up H.R. 6003, the “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008”. This bill will reauthorize Amtrak and improve intercity passenger rail.

This legislation is long overdue. Amtrak’s last reauthorization, the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997, expired in 2002. Since 1997, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has held 17 hearings on Amtrak and intercity passenger rail. The Committee has reported two reauthorization proposals in the 108th and 109th Congresses. However, the Republican leadership would never allow the Committee to bring these bills to the House Floor. Following four hearings in the 110th Congress, we are ready to move forward with this legislation. I am confident that our leadership will be eager to have this legislation considered on the Floor.

Today, we are in the midst of a national “renaissance” for intercity passenger rail. Amtrak’s FY2007 ridership was at record levels for the fifth year in a row, exceeding 25.8 million passengers. Ticket revenues rose 11% to more than $1.5 billion, the third straight year of revenue growth. This record of achievement is even more impressive considering that for the past eight years Amtrak has contended with an Administration committed to its bankruptcy and Congressional action that has been inconsistent, largely keeping it on life support.

Yet, there is a greater need than ever for intercity passenger rail. The Department of Transportation states that congestion on our highways and in the air is “chronic,” while the Texas Transportation Institute reports that each year we waste 3.5 billion hours of extra travel time due to traffic congestion. The total annual cost of congestion has risen to nearly $70 billion, a rise of $4.5 billion more than the previous year. Improving our intercity passenger rail system is an important tool to address these problems. For example, Amtrak removes almost eight million cars from the road annually. Amtrak also eases air congestion by eliminating the need for 50,000 fully loaded airplanes each year.

However, we must provide Amtrak and the States with the opportunity and ability to grow their passenger rail services if we want to supplant “vehicle miles traveled” on our highways and give Americans more affordable, sustainable choices in light of higher fuel prices, growing transportation congestion and related environmental concerns. That is why Ranking Member Mica, Chairwoman Brown, Ranking Member Shuster, and I introduced the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act to reauthorize Amtrak. This legislation provides a total of $14.4 billion for Amtrak and for States to develop intercity passenger rail systems and high speed rail systems. It will go a long way to meet growing demand for intercity passenger rail and help address concerns due to the growth of ridership on our rail network.

This bill provides $4.2 billion to Amtrak in capital grants. Inconsistent Federal support has forced Amtrak to delay many important maintenance and legacy projects. This bill provides Amtrak with the funding necessary to end these delays and bring its infrastructure to a state-of-good-repair in 15 years. It enables Amtrak to replace the catenary on the Northeast Corridor, complete its replacement of the Thames River Bridge in Connecticut, and replace wood ties with concrete ties on its track. This bill also allows Amtrak to begin a much needed equipment procurement process to replace much of its aging rolling stock. This will mean better service reliability and on-time performance for Amtrak, reduced trip times, added capacity and lower maintenance costs, which will allow Amtrak to better attract and retain ridership.

Further, this bill provides Amtrak with $3 billion in operating grants, which will help Amtrak pay salaries, health care costs, overtime pay, fuel costs, facilities, and train maintenance and operations.

In addition, this bill creates a new State Capital Grant program for intercity passenger rail capital projects to encourage State investment. States are uniquely qualified to understand their own mobility needs and connectivity requirements through statewide and metropolitan area intermodal and multimodal transportation planning. Indeed, over the past 10 years, ridership on intercity passenger rail routes that benefitted from State support grew by 73 percent. California has invested $1.9 billion since 1991 and has seen its Amtrak ridership increase 128 percent since that time.

However, over the past ten years, ridership on Amtrak routes without state support increased only seven percent. The Department of Transportation reports that the greatest single impediment to encouraging State support is the lack of a Federal/State partnership – similar to what exists for highways and transit – for investing in the capital needs of intercity passenger rail. This bill creates that partnership and provides $500 million per year through FY 2013 in grants to a state, or a group of states, to pay for the capital costs of facilities and equipment necessary to provide new or improved intercity passenger rail at an up to 80 percent Federal match, the same as for highways and for transit.

This legislation also demonstrates Congress’ commitment to high-speed rail in this country. The bill provides $350 million per year in grants to States and to Amtrak to fund high speed rail projects that will operate at speeds of at least 110 mph along federally-designated high-speed rail corridors. In the Midwest, this funding will help finance the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, a nine-state compact to design, engineer, and construct a “hub-and-spoke” system of intercity passenger rail service connecting Chicago, Illinois, and surrounding metropolitan and regional communities, including St. Paul, Minnesota, Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, and Cincinnati, Ohio, among other cities. This system will provide train service at speeds up to 110 mph, utilize multi-modal connections to improve interconnectivity across the region, and improve Amtrak’s reliability and on-time performance. These States have already invested more than $100 million to this project, and funding from the high-speed rail grants of this bill will help jump-start these efforts. This funding will also help California develop a Shinkansen-style high-speed rail system running from Sacramento to San Diego, and the Southeast develop high-speed rail from Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, North Carolina.

This bipartisan legislation will address the nation’s pent up demand for intercity passenger rail by providing the capital and resources necessary to bring our system into the 21st Century. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House to move this legislation forward, and I look forward to conferencing with the Senate to pass the first Amtrak reauthorization in almost 11 years.

-end-

Statement of The Honorable Corrine Brown
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
Markup for “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008”


I am pleased that the Subcommittee is meeting today to mark up H.R. 6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member Mica, Subcommittee Ranking Member Shuster, and I introduced this legislation to bring our nation’s intercity passenger rail system into the 21st Century.

H.R. 6003 makes many important contributions to expand intercity passenger rail’s viability in this country. It authorizes a total of $14.4 billion for Amtrak and for intercity passenger rail. This legislation will increase capital and operating grants to Amtrak to help bring its infrastructure and equipment to a state of good repair and expand its services to meet growing demand. It provides $2.5 billion in grants to help States develop intercity passenger rail corridors through an 80-20 federal partnership, which will help States plan intercity passenger rail to meet their needs. It also provides $1.725 billion to help States develop high-speed rail corridors, which will help bring the level of rail service enjoyed by Europe and Asia to this country. Finally, it requires Amtrak to report on how to restore service to the Sunset Limited line from New Orleans to Sanford, Florida.

In fiscal year 2007, Amtrak carried more than 25.8 million passengers, the fifth straight fiscal year of record ridership. Like its ridership gains, Amtrak’s financial performance has improved in recent years as the railroad improves its service operations. In 2007, the railroad posted approximately $1.5 billion in ticket revenue, a gain of 10.8 percent over 2006 ticket revenues and the third consecutive year that ticket revenues increased.

Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower created the National Highway System, which drastically changed the way we travel in this country. Today we need to do the same thing with passenger rail, and make the level of investment necessary for it to become even more successful in the future. Passage of H.R. 6003 will be the first major step in this direction and I encourage all my colleagues to support this legislation.

-end-

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Republicans John L. Mica, Ranking Republican

Committee Approves Historic High Speed Rail Initiative
May 22, 2008

Washington, D.C. – The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure today approved a proposal by the Committee’s Republican Leader John L. Mica (R-FL) that will revolutionize passenger rail transportation in the United States by taking the first real steps towards bringing true high speed rail to the nation.

The Committee considered and unanimously approved the bipartisan “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008” (H.R. 6003). The bill includes Mica’s initiative to require the U.S. Department of Transportation to solicit proposals for developing high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor, with a maximum trip time of two hours between Washington, D.C. to New York City, followed by development of similar high speed projects across the United States.

“This bill represents the first step towards a new era in transportation,” said Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Republican Leader John L. Mica (R-FL).

“With gas prices reaching $4 per gallon, passage of legislation to bring high speed rail and a viable transportation alternative to this country is a historic occasion. High speed rail can reduce our growing highway and aviation congestion and lessen transportation’s impact on the environment. This bill will also provide jobs and guarantee labor protections.

This proposal will unleash the investment potential of the private sector, essential to addressing how this nation is going to finance our tremendous infrastructure needs.

“The Northeast Corridor is a tremendous but underutilized property,” Mica continued. “We’ve got to stop sitting on our assets, and this legislation can help us make the most of that corridor. But this proposal isn’t just for the Northeast Corridor, it’s for the entire country. If we can get this working in one or two models, we can replicate it throughout the nation.”

“Traffic on our nation’s roads has grown exponentially worse in the past decade,” said U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee Ranking Member. “Road congestion is not only an aggravation to commuters, it is a drag on the entire economy. One study cited in a recent Washington Post article estimates that traffic jams in New York City alone cost $13 billion in lost productivity annually. One way to address road and air congestion is by expanding our passenger rail system – especially high speed rail.”

In addition to approving the “Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008”, the Committee also passed the “Pre-Disaster Mitigation Act of 2008” (H.R. 6109) and the “Old Post Office Building Redevelopment Act of 2008” (H.R. 5001).

Next week, Mica will travel throughout the Northeast Corridor to meet with other federal and local transportation leaders, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to discuss the benefits of a world-class high speed passenger rail system.

[End quotes]

5) Here’s the latest silliness here in Florida about the coming commuter rail in Central Florida. Republican State Senator Paula Dockery of Lakeland, who led the charge against her neighbors to the Northeast in Orlando and surrounding communities having commuter rail because she was annoyed her husband’s fantasy about high speed rail in Florida was thankfully destroyed, now has a group saying – of all the bad choices that could have been made – that Amtrak should be brought into the picture to make a proposal to create and operate commuter rail in all of Central Florida, starting in Tampa on the West Coast, extending northeast to Lakeland, and continuing northeast to encompass the original plan of the Orlando area and continuing northeast to Daytona Beach, where no tracks exist to connect the city with the CSX mainline from Tampa to Orlando and DeLand.

And, people wonder why so many have no confidence in the ability of government to get in out of the pouring rain.

– Rational minds will tell you in every other instance in the country, Amtrak is the most expensive operator of regional service. Amtrak also has the greatest reputation of any commuter or regional service operators for providing poor levels of service with badly maintained equipment.

– The thinking of Mrs. Dockery and cronies is that since Amtrak has the right to operate over all freight tracks in America, that a new regional service in Florida can be created without doing anything to help infrastructure owner CSX accommodate any new trains. CSX may have something else to say about that.

– Also, these alleged geniuses of modern day passenger rail also point out that since Amtrak can operate over the tracks of freight railroad without any new liability contracts with the host railroads to cover accidents, derailments, or other disasters, the State of Florida will save bundles of money on insurance.

Ignorance is quickly reaching the high tide mark, and may set new records here in Florida.

Hopefully, this really awful and foolish idea will simply go away and become a bad memory, and the original, excellent plans to earnestly begin commuter rail in Central Florida will commence.

Yes, it would be wonderful to have commuter rail in many parts of Florida. URPA published in this space earlier this year a rational blueprint for considering regional rail throughout Florida. However, rational plans to do so do not ignore all of the realities as Mrs. Dockery chooses to do, and do not try and start something that is doomed to failure from the outset.

6) The bananas have hit the fan. A lawsuit has been filed in Cincinnati, Ohio over the value of a class of Amtrak stock still in private hands. Due to the length of this TWA, this topic will be discussed in a future issue.


7) There has been a local tragedy here in Jacksonville, which the daily newspaper, The Florida Times-Union, and local broadcast media have milked for days in the last few weeks. In a neighboring county to Jacksonville, a 17 year old high school junior and football star decided to go fishing with his buddies on a CSX (and Amtrak) mainline trestle one afternoon. This is a typical trestle over a small river; the trestle is only as wide as one railroad track, and has no walkways. There are appropriate side areas with railings for inspectors or maintenance workers to use when a train approaches; these side areas are only large enough for one man each.

The three boys were illegally on the trestle fishing, and a CSX freight train approached. Too late, the boys realized the train, traveling at speed in a thinly populated area, was almost on top of them. The boys ran, but the one football player didn’t make it, and was killed by the impact of the train.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the alleged community sense of loss has been played again and again by the news media. Yes, it was a tragic loss when a promising young man lost his life.

So, where in the coverage was the reality of the situation? Did anyone cover the horror the T&E crew on the train felt when their train, solely under their control, barreled down on this young man and all they could do was helplessly sit in the locomotive cab and watch the young man die? Did anyone cover the fact three boys were trespassing (and breaking the law by doing so) on private property, and not only placing themselves at risk, but all of the equipment of the railroad and the infrastructure of the mainline should a train have derailed in an emergency stop while trying to save these boys?

Has anyone asked why three separate sets of parents were irresponsible enough not to teach their sons to fish from an active railroad trestle (the boys had a history of fishing from the trestle)?

The news media loves this type of “human interest” story and all of the sobbing bystanders which go with it. Someone – anyone – in the news media needs to stop covering these stories from one perspective, and give full coverage of EVERYONE which is part of this tragedy.

8) The month of May also brought the usual coverage of Amtrak trains and motor vehicles colliding at grade crossings with a resulting mess and injuries.

There was a collision is in Mississippi, with Amtrak’s City of New Orleans colliding with a garbage truck, and seven injuries as a result.

And, just last week, the same train, on the same route, had two grade crossing accidents in a single run between Chicago and New Orleans on the same day.

Most of us remember the colossal wreck of the City of New Orleans in Bourbannais, where the train struck a flatbed truck filled with steel.

When is our society going to do two things: First, hold drivers accountable for their actions, especially drivers of trucks and busses. If they caused the accident, they should pay the damages, as well as face huge fines for putting so much at risk to beat a train and not have to stop for a few moments. Second, when is our society going to demand we have better trained drivers of all types of motor vehicles? Applying for a driver’s license is one of the easiest things to do in our society, and the operation of a motor vehicle can usually cause more damage more quickly than just about any other routine activity. Most states take a scant moment to remind drivers that driving is a privilege, not a right as a member of society. More privileges need to be withheld from more people before more lives will be saved.


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J. Bruce Richardson
President
United Rail Passenger Alliance, Inc.
1526 University Boulevard, West, PMB 203
Jacksonville, Florida 32217-2006 USA
Telephone 904-636-7739
brucerichardson@unitedrail.org
http://www.unitedrail.org