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I think the battle over funding for Amtrak could best be resolved by allotting a penny a gallon of the gasoline tax that we pay annually into what should be a transportation trust fund that covers all modes; highway, rail, air, and water. For far too long Amtrak has had to allow equipment that could be repaired and returned to service sit idle at its Beech Grove shops while the Bush Administration and the Republicans try to find ways to screw the railroad over every which way but loose, such as by allotting them less funding than what David Gunn himself feels is needed to operate the railroad and get the equipment back into good working order. Some of the trains that run chronically late would not be doing so if the freight railroads over which most of these trains operate were held to a reasonable standard in expediting Amtrak trains over the road. Such trains as the Sunset Limited, Lakeshore Limited, Capitol Limited, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, Empire Builder and others are frequently delayed by interference from manifest freights and are frequently stuck in sidings to let freights go by. The freight railroads should start treating Amtrak like a valued customer, which the passenger railroad is just as they would any shipper, regardless of what he has to ship. The timekeeping needs to be better enforced. Late trains do not encourage repeat business and I think David Gunn would do well to hold a summit with each of the freight railroad's top executives to try to work something out where the railroads can keep both passenger and freight trains on time. If the Chicago and North Western Railroad could do it with its Falcon pig trains and commuter trains, so can the rest of them. All they have to do is try. It can be done. We need more passenger trains to more places, not fewer. As for the airlines, I think those now in bankruptcy do deserve to go out of business since the airlines, by the shoddy treatment of their passengers brought their troubles on themselves and do NOT deserve to be bailed out. If the administration can bail out the airlines, why not Amtrak. It is time to treat Amtrak as a vital part of our transportation network, not like the parasite George W. Bush and his bunch think it is. The true parasites are the airlines, none of which could make it without the subsidies they have been handed hand over fist for the past 50 years.
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