GERALD L MCFARLANE JRExcept in this case it's not a preservation/excursion operator complaining,
I doubt they are trying to collect an amusement tax on the anthracite end of the business..
Just reviewing their wikipedia page, the bulk of passenger services are branded as "excursions", scheduled around weekends, holidays, and seasonal sightseeing (fall colors etc).
Sounds pretty touristy to me.
Convicted OneJust reviewing their wikipedia page, the bulk of passenger services are branded as "excursions", scheduled around weekends, holidays, and seasonal sightseeing (fall colors etc). Sounds pretty touristy to me.
Going to be interesting if the back taxes lawsuit is reactivated and we get a subsequent ruling on whether it is an amusment or not. May have implications for other tourist RRs in the state.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
GERALD L MCFARLANE JR If I lived there I'd start a recall petition for the entire council and the city attorney(if he's elected and not hired) and start over with an entirely new council...one that at least might have some intelligence on it.
As convicted one pointed out, don't assume all the people up there are railfans or love the railroad. And if the RR keeps crying wolf and threatening to leave, they may lose more support. And while the RR helps the town, I'm sure many people ride the Lehigh Gorge Ry because it is in Jim Thorpe - a town more tourity-orientated than many others in the area.
I think both sides need to grow up and sit down again.
EuclidSo that is what the railroad was asking for as an ammendment to the town's offer.
For someone as concerned as you are with nuances of semantics, you are using legal terms broadly in what may not be an applicable sense.
"Amendment" means a change to a formal agreement of some kind, or to a presumably-enacted ordinance. Part of the current argument is that things that apply to ordinances wouldn't apply to contracted agreements, and perhaps vice versa.
The railroad posed three conditions, which the town apparently agreed to (according to the news coverage at the time). Even if the offer was only made orally but publicized there might be a case for enforceable oral contract -- that is a matter for town and railroad counsel to discuss under applicable Pennsylvania law.
Two of the three conditions -- the ones originally applying to the amusement tax -- would have been initially addressed by amendment (to the formal ordinance that should be on eCode360). For the town to 'agree' means revising the ordinance along the lines I have indicated, exempting the railroad from the 'scope' of the ordinance (which other Pennsylvania towns with these ordinances have explicit language for) and also providing these trips specific and nonambiguous exemption (probably as 'transportation').
One of the current 'catches' is, apparently, that the railroad wants a *permanent* ban or injunction on ever having amusement or other 1983-law revenue-generating measures applied to it -- and that is what the Borough says is not possible. It would set a poor precedent at best for a government to write binding ordinances; the ability to change them being one of the statutory powers given to local administrations.
Likewise the first condition (that the Borough or its agent never, ever take up a prosecution for 'owed' amusement tax) is not something that the Borough could do either by binding ordinance of any kind or by proclamation -- the railroad would need a signed agreement from the city attorney, similar in language for applicable contracts, which would NOT state 'the suit could never be reinstated' but that, if it were, the railroad shall be entitled for penalties for breach that exceed any prospectively-demanded tax principal or supposedly-accrued interest.
Merely providing passenger carriage over a state- or Federally-regulated railroad may not be applicable 'transportation', which requires separate ticketing for the two halves of a 'round trip' and some kind of destination -- one 'test' was that both ends of a transportation link had to sell tickets, and round trips without a purposeful detraining were presumed 'excursions' instead. I may be mistaken, but I believe there are still common-carrier and other regulations in Pennsylvania that apply to passenger-rail 'transportation'; I would certainly presume Andy Muller and his staff have done their homework on what these might be and have secured the necessary operating permissions to establish what they think needful.
The problem at present is that neither side can 'blink' on its perception of how to resolve this situation in terms satisfactory to the other. And the 'default' until they do is that "no ships go", as Cordwainer Smith put it. What there is no question at all about is that excursions or passenger trains that pass through Jim Thorpe completely aren't subject to the tax, if they don't have any boardings there. (Alightings are not yet taxed.) Even the current ordinance is very clear on that. So the 'alternate arrangement' for starting point is still fully workable for trains going up the Gorge... and the railroad has little reason to budge from its position, unworkable in law as parts of it may be.
zugmannMay have implications for other tourist RRs in the state.
There is already some established precedent for what 'is' and 'isn't' a tourist railroad. See this extended thread on RyPN for some of the arguments made before the Borough 'conceded' initially (including some Euclidean comments.
The Stone Consulting report on options for the Colebrookdale (in 2013) specifically mentions "Taxes/Licenses & Credit Card Fees" (p.75) but I can see no detail breakdown whether that includes applicable amusement tax.
A recent reply to my address was that the railroad and city are talking to each other, and there are hopes that differences will be overcome, and the passenger service restored.
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