#3 on July 15 and #4 on July 17 both cancelled because there was no equipment available due to late arrivals of replacement equipment in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Starvation funding will do that.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
There are many reports of many Superliners parked at both CHI & LAX. Is that due to a lack of spare parts? Just looking at the OIG's spare parts report.
Quote BAL. Starvation funding will do that.
They couldn't use an old Talgo? Just kidding.
BaltACDStarvation funding will do that.
More to come, the 2025 budget for Amtrak looks to be far less than what they asked for or need. So once again we get back to the root cause of Amtraks failure. Lack of a dedicated funding source and resulting underfunding. Congress not willing to fix it because basically the voter constituency views Amtrak as a nice to have but also a luxury item they can do without.
I think Amtrak still has not dug itself out of the accumulated lack of capital funds hole it finds itself in but that started at it's formation in 1971. I would hardly call the Northeast Corridor even remotely modern across the board for starters, it has a huge capital investment deficit to catch up on that started in 1971 just by itself.
I still feel Long Distance trains have their place and should be retained if possible. Would be sad to see the last one run. In a lot of cases it was a Long Distance train that made a state corridor start-up cheap and possible.
blue streak 1There are many reports of many Superliners parked at both CHI & LAX. Is that due to a lack of spare parts? Just looking at the OIG's spare parts report. Quote BAL. Starvation funding will do that.
I suspect that cars that are out of service are being canabalized of parts to keep the in service cars in operation. If you can't purchase 'new' parts, the next place to look is for cars with 'major' defects to use their 'minor' parts as spare parts for the rest of the fleet.
If an when suitable funding is secured to really maintain the fleet, the 'major' defect cars will require even more parts to fix than they did when the first went into the out of service condition.
Reports are that in the near future, The Silver Star and the Capitol Limited are going to be combined into a 'new' train called the Floridian. In doing this, the high level cars that the Capitol currently uses will be freed up as they will not fit through the tunnel at Washington Union Station that is the gateway to the routes to the South.
This is just another example of starvation of Amtrak. Eating itself.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.