AMTRAK

[Anonymous]

Amtrak: What a topic. I really enjoyed the article in the Oct or Nov 2002 issue duscussing the true costs of the operations. It is true that the long distance trains and the NE corrider do subsidize each other. Both are needed for the system to continue. When you look at the big picture of public travel here and abroad, no form of transportaion that carries people makes a profit on its own. Even the airlines when they did make a profit ( and I mean an operating profit) the margin was very low. Carrying freight was the real money maker.The problem is made worse when the costs of the infrastructure are figured in.To make things worse, the government has never been able to do anything at an operating profit. Why would runnning a railroad be different. The service just has to be looked at as a public service. There are a few routes that might come close to covering themseleves if marketed properly. IT was demonstrated before Amtrak when the private carriers made money on a few special trains, but the allocation of costs is critical in this business. One thing that is a fact of life is that if private industry has a chance to rip off the government in anything, it will. So they rip off Amtrak for handling their trains. What else is new. The only solution even close to working would be to nationalize all of the tracks just as the highways are and lease their time and usage to the freight companies and any carrier that might want to operate a passanger train on them. Short of some changes, nothing will change.

[Modelcar]

....Boy that paragraph says a lot and makes sense.

QM

[Anonymous]

Amtrak's future is cloudy indeed. The freight railroads tried for decades to run passenger trains profitably. Look what the end result is! Passenger rail in the USA will NEVER work unless the government finally realizes it cannot be self-supporting. We are the only industrialized nation on the planet with a joke of a passenger rail "system". The current administration in Washington has no clue about passenger rail either, their viewpoint is to privatize it. That would be like committing corporate suicide. If our government finally figures out they need to subsidize all forms of people transport, then Amtrak has a future. Until that day arrives, we can forget about Amtrak ever being a success.

[edblysard]

You'd never get support to nationalize the freight roads, the stockholders in most class 1s are at last getting a profit from their investment. The railroads themselves would form such a lobby group as you have never seen before. And I doubt very seriously the goverment could affored to buy all the tracks in the first place. While roadways, streets and the interstate system do need maintainance, you would not belive the amount needed for a railroad track. Just keeping all the switches greased would require a small army. But making a nationalized passanger system out of amtrak make sense, and paying freight roads a flat fee for every usage of their tracks, along with some incentive to expedite amtrak trains across their system would work. Heck, we taxpayers have subsidised airlines with free property for airports, no taxes on said land, financial aid/bailouts for years, and outside the rail industry, no one seems to balk. The cost of the land for a airport must far exceed any depot built, and when it wants to, the goverment can sell almost anything to the public. We sure didnt seem to care when the feds handed billions over to the airlines after 9/11, why should we mind the goverment paying for and running our passanger trains? And with the goverment running it, the cost to the rider would at some point come down, if only to make sure there were enought passengers to justify the trains in the first place. Trust me on this, the one thing goverment employees are really really good at is keeping and protecting their jobs.
Ed

[Anonymous]

You must have read the information the Texas Department of Transportation has on its Trans Texas Corridors web site.

http://www.dot.state.tx.us/ttc/ttc_home.htm

To sum it all up, Texas is expecting to double its population in 30 years or so, and the current rail infrastructure won't handle twice the traffic. After the Southern Pacific merged with Union Pacific, most Texans think the railroads have already reached capacity. Therefore the state is interested in building double tracks for freight, commuter, and high speed trains along the same corridors allowing any railroad to use them for a fee (toll).

[Anonymous]

Americans want what the Europeans have: fast trains, fast railroad tracks, and great roads. Of course, the Europeans pay taxes to get them. It seems they prefer to spend their tax dollars on more infrastructure than for more bombs. They also pay more taxes.

We need to get on track! A good place to start is to build a parralegram I have mentioned before of high speed rail from New York (Northeast) to Chicago (Midwest) to Dallas (Texas) and to Atlanta (Southeast) with a leg down to Miami (Florida). This would connect the four major population centers east of the Rockies, and slice through 90 percent of the states east of the Rockies. Most of the area east of the Mississippi River would be within a 200 mile trip of this high speed rail network (backbone). The distance is around 4,000 miles, times around $20 million per mile, would equal $80 billion.

Of course, I would not end there. I would continue to build another 4,000 miles of high speed rail after this starter network was built. By then everyone east of the Mississippi River would be within 100 miles of high speed rail. More than likely 90 pecent of the population would be within 50 miles.

If electrifying the track is too expensive, I would settle for something less, but for nothing less than the Jet train of 150 mph. Just this alone could cut the price in half.

Some say it won't happen. Maybe not today, but in twenty years the private railroad companies tracks won't handle the increased traffic. They are near capacity already. Obviously, since they can't afford to maintain the tracks they have today, it will be up to the government to fund new tracks, for both passenger and freight.

Well, at least that is the opinion of the Texas Department of Transportation. Check out their web site of the Trans Texas Corridors (eye opening to say the least)
http://www.dot.state.tx.us/ttc/ttc_home.htm

[edblysard]

Hi Don,
Heres a bit from someone who works here. It wasnt so much a lack of capicity, as a lack of planning. What happened was culture shock. I know a lot of oldhead from SP will jump on this with both feet, but, well lets say SP manangment was not the most efficient. Their idea of a good management style was to hand the conductor his paperwork, tell him to "let me know" and walk away. So if you made it out of the yard, great, if you didnt, great. So long as you didnt bother anyone, great. And SP's idea of maintainance for the track can be summed up by what I was told when I complained once, when we had to go onto a siding of theirs. I was informed that, "as long as the track didnt lay down, nothing is wrong with it". Well, I guess so, except that every time you hit a joint, the end of the track section ahead of you raised up in the air about ten inches. Then along comes Uncle Pete, who has trainmasters that not only wanted to know when their crews farted, but how long and how loud. Surprise, they didnt have a clue why nothing was getting done, old SP crews would dissappear for twelve hours, then call for a cab, whole trains vanished because hog lawed crews wouldnt call in feedback, and no one knew where they hid the train, and when they did find it, well, the engine had run out of fuel. And on top of all that, add into the mix the bright idea that they would get the two computer systems to "talk" to each other after they took over the physical plant. By the time they realized the two systems would never work together, and all the data had to be input new into their system, well, you can guess what it was like. We had a coal train, parked in our receiving tracks for over two months, hidden there by a crew who needed a place to park it when they hogged out. We told UP more times than I can remember where it was, and they could never get it crewed. We ended up using the motor as a crew shanty for the top end switching crews, who used the icebox in the cab to store their lunch. Our GM finally got so POed, he had 500 gallons of fuel added, then told us to take it, call the dispatcher for a signal to englewood yard. We took it up to the yard throat, where it shut down , out of fuel, and tied it down on their main, with the months old paperwork stuck in the front drawbar. We notified the dispatcher it had run out of fuel, and left it there. It was gone that evening. All the oldheads at SP, who were used to getting 12 hours everyday, and never getting any work done were weeded out by UPs trainmasters, harrassed until they took their early and left. Uncle Pete brought in directional running, got the computers fixed, invested millions in track work, or closed those tracks beyond repair, and things are running pretty smooth now. We got the tracks, we got the yards and we got the customers, what we really need now is crews. I am going check out the site mentioned, the scuttle butt here is its mostly for commuter trains, and the cost to freight trains is going to be kinda high..but the concept sounds good, get em off the freeway and into a train always sounds good to me.
Ed

[Anonymous]

I have a business trip to Europe next month, and I intend to spend some times on some fast trains. I have plans to spend a weekend in Innsburck, and on to Munich and Frankfurt. Can't wait to ride the ICE from Frankfurt to Bonn, the newest stretch of high speed rails that just opened. When I return I'll post some pictures on my homepage, and you will see a Europe of old houses and modern trains. Something quite different from America, new houses and ancient trains.

[RudyRockvilleMD]

Some high speed trains make sense, but high speed trains are limited by distance and population density so your proposed routes are too long to be competitive with air travel. The whole idea behind high speed trains is to compete with air travel so you need average speeds that are high enough, on the order of 150 mph, so that a door-to-door trip by high speed train will be competitive in time with or faster than flying.

[edblysard]

Would like to see them, I got to ride the bullet train in japan, siskusan? I know I spelled that wrong...And frances tgv, thats a rush. Be ready for your train to be on time, these guys take the idea of schedules beyond anything Americans ever dreamed of. Not early, rarely late, on station and on time. What the address for your page?
Have a great trip.
Stay safe
Ed

[Anonymous]

Then why are the Europeans expanding their high speed rail networks? I have heard 300 miles tops, but the northeast corridor is 450 miles from Boston to DC.

I look at the map of the United States and I see 57+ million living in the northeast, another 42+ million living in the states in and around Illinois, 46+ million living in the states inand around Georgia, and 33+ million living in and around Texas in the USA alone. States not included in these geographical areas are West Virginia, Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Mississippi and Minnesota.Total population of the included states is 178 million. Total population of the states not included is 30+ million. Notice that Ohio and Virginia would have high speed rail going thru these states to reach Illinois and Georgia. These two states add up to 18+ million, leaviing only 12 million left out in the cold. And more than likely Minnesota's 4.9 million is almost half of what's left, and it will probably get a high speed rail branch eventually from the Twin cities to Chicago.

So 57 million is condensed enough over 450 miles, but 178+18+5 (201) million is not condensed enough for 4,000 miles of high speed rail? Think of it in terms of four 900 mile lines of the parralegram, which when divided by four equal 50 million, very close to the 450 mile northeast corridor....

There are plans to build high speed rail in California from the Bay area to the Los Angeles basin, some 380 miles. California's population is 33.8 million.

So is a starter system of 5000 miles of high speed rail is or is not condensed enough for 235 million people. Notice that this fifth line does not average 50 million, it is only 34 million, but at least it is only 380 miles. That is if you follow I-5, if you follow H-99 the distance is 500 miles in California.

So we have gone from 300 miles, to 450 miles, to 500 miles, and for some reason 900 miles is too far. Depends on the population of the route, you don't say?


A train averaging 150 mph from Dallas to Chicago, some 900 miles or so, will take 6 hours to reach its destination. The airlines want you to arrive at least 2 hours before the flight, it takes 1 hour to find to drive and park at the airport, and it takes 2 hours or so to fly the distance, that is if the jet ain't delayed. Once you get to the destination's airport there is at least a half hour delay grabbing your luggage and another half hour delay before you can rent a car, plus the 1 hour to get to downtown Chicago. Add it up: Yep, 7 hours to fly from Dallas to Chicago, I could have taken a fast train and done it in 6 hours, with no need to park or rent a car! SO MUCH FOR DISTANCES!

You will never explain to me how high speed rail works so well in countries in Europe whose populations are not even 60 million, and how it can't work here in America for 235 million!

[Anonymous]

http://homepage.mac.com/donclark

I have a friend who recently went to Europe during the Christmas holidays. He has posted some pictures at his homepage too.

http://homepage.mac.com/bliemel/PhotoAlbum19.html

I hope to repeat posting pictures of fast modern trains with old buildings in the background instead of slow obsolete trains with modern buildings in the background. Hee, hee!

[Anonymous]

Everybody I know, even the company I work for, consider flying a full day! So is a 6 hour or even a 12 hour high speed fast train trip all that long?

[Supermicha]

Hi.

I think the problem is, that the passenger trains are to slow. I can see it here in germany. I live in Dresden, Saxony. We have the biggest railway system in europe, but the german railway looses money evertime. They close small lines, and concentrade itself to the main lines, but there, the trains are to slow. For the 180 Kilometers to Berlin, the Intercity needs with one stop nearly two hours, the top speed should be 160 km/h. You are faster with your car, because the highway has no speedlimit. The succesful trains in germany and at Amtrak, i think, are the highspeed trains (here max speed 330 km/h between Frankfurt and Cologne) and the commuters around the citys. And the commuter lines in many german citys are very big, with trains sometimes every 3 minutes.

Micha

[Anonymous]

Too bad Dresden is not near Frankfurt or Cologne. But I do agree with your conclusion: the successful passenger trains are the high speed trains and the commuters (light rail) in the cities.

Some say light rail commuter rail systems only steal riders from busses, not necessarily from the automobiles. However, DART recently opened its red line to Plano and its blue line to Garland in the Dallas metropolitan area. No one rode the busses much in either suburb, yet it is standing room only on the DART light rail trains all of the way!

At first everyone attempted to use the park and rides, but found out soon enough they were filled. Well, they weren't filled when express busses used the parking lot. Since the parking lots are full, many riders are learning their bus routes so that they can catch the train to get to their destinatiion. In both suburbs bus ridership went up too.

So the skeptics don't believe me. I suggest you surf over to DART web site: http://www.dart.org or better yet, come to Dallas and ride DART's commuter light rail systems and see for yourselves.

And I will say again, Amtrak needs to lose its huge money losing transcontinentals. Amtrak should only maintain and eventually upgrade its routes that will convert to high speed 150-186 mph trains. And the sooner the better!

[Anonymous]

Some say high speed trains will compete with the airlines. Yes, up to a point, but the real competition is with our automobiles and the speed of busses.

If Amtrak can build high speed rail and trains that can go 150-186 mph, people will leave their cars behind. We can build a 5,000 mile high speed rail network east of the Rockies for less than building 5,000 miles of more interstates. We could save a lot of money using the middle median of most interstates by not buying new real estate right of way. When we reach a major city the rail network could divert to the old tracks, although these tracks should be improved to reach their depots and stations.

Once people realize that the high speed trains leave them in their cars IN THE DUST along I-55, or I-44, or I-20, it won't be long before they ride the fast trains.

[edblysard]

Hi Micha,
Your right, when you have a dense population in several cities close together, in a smaller geographical area, high speed passenger trains will make money. But keep in mind most of the railways in europe were built by the goverments of each nation, as a part of the planned infrastructure of that nation. In America, most railroads were built as private enterprise, with profit as the guiding design. They laid tracks to where the money was. Have you been to America? If so, you already know this. If not, then you will be amazed by the amount of streets/roads here as compaired to most of europe. Most of our major cities have two, three or more highways into or out of them, almost every major city is connected by the interstate highway. And the density of our population varies greatly, almost 75% of the entire nation lives in major cities or their suburbs. Out of the cities and suburbs, population in Texas drops to less that 10 people per square mile.
So high speed trains have to run 200, 300 our 400 miles or more here to connect major cities. In eastern states, with its denser population, and cities closer together, commuting from one city to another to go to work is common, here in Texas, most people live within 10 miles of where they work. So for us, short, fast commuter trains from the suburbs to the city will be the answer.
Stay frosty,
Ed

[Supermicha]

Hi Ed.

Yes, you are right. I have never been in USa, but i have some friends there, and so i might know the problem. I didn´t mean, that Amtrak should build highspeed lines all over the country, a village in texas with 300 inhabitants doesn´t need a station for 140 mph trains. But for example, between New York and Chigago, a high speed train on seperate tracks, like the new german ICE 3 with 180 mph max speed, could be a good force against the airplanes. And todays long distance trains like the California Zypher can not make money. Its just a train for tourists, to see the landscape. And in germany, also every main city has connection to highways. Dresden, where i live, has only 500.000 inhabitants, but is conected to 3 highways which are going in 4 directions, two of them are international to czech republik and poland. The problem is oftenly the connections of the commuters with streetcar and bus. I could go by streetcar and commuter to work at the airport, but i would need nearly two hours for 20 kilometers. with my car, i need 25 minutes. So many people uses the car, because the connections are bad. But that will be better in future, a big modernization wave runs threw my city at the moment, because of the dammage which the century flood made here in august. and german railway loses much money with passenger trains. they will concentrate itself to the mainlines, and sells the narrow lines to private firms. the funny is, the new private firms make money with these lines they got from DB, but DB loosed money with them. Freight is also here the big moneybringer, but with a good net, you can also make money with passenger trains. But only, if the people want that, and let there car at home.

[Supermicha]

I can´t understand why so many people use there car in usa. the car is slow. what is the maximum allowed speed there? i think 70 miles per hour. whats that? snake speed? a normal amtrak train shoul have 100 miles per hour, so its much faster. in germany, many people use the car, because you are really faster. when i go to munich (450 kilometers from here) the train needs nearly 7 hours, with my car, i can go 130 miles per hour and i´m much faster then the train. Germany is the onliest country in europe with no speedlimit on the highways, so if you have a 250 km/h car, you use it. So i can´t understand the americans. It would be hard for me, to go to munich with 70 miles per hour. :-))))

[Anonymous]

Other than the Boston to Washington DC northeast corridor, and possibly the Buffalo to Albany to New York City empire corridor most trains in America run at best at 79 mph, and usually average around 50 mph (and that figure is positive). Therefore in most of America it is faster to drive a car at 70 mph than to ride the train at 50 mph.

However, if we built more high speed train tracks of 150-189 mph around the country, we would see more people riding the trains. Amtrak has put in place fast trains on the northeast corridor, the problem still lies in slow track. What good is a fast train in western Connecticut when the train has to travel across an old bridge at 30 mph, or even slower?

The railroads cannot afford to keep all of their tracks fast, nor can they afford to even keep the tracks Amtrak runs on fast. Therefore, the simple solution is for the government to take charge, to build the fast tracks needed. Who else?

[Anonymous]

Here is a map of EasyJet routes in Europe, currently one of their profitable airlines. The link is

http://www.easyjet.com/en/where/

You will notice that EasyJet does not fly Paris to Lille, or Paris to Lyons. The reason, France's TGV won that battle. Other than the in country English hops, EasyJet does not fly short hops at all. This map says it all....

[edblysard]

Hi Micha and Don,
Micha, part of the reason we use our cars all the time is population density vs goods and services availably. You live in a city where I would bet there is a butcher shop, a baker and a small store selling general goods in your neighborhood. I would also bet each neighorborhood in the city has the same collection of stores. So you dont have to drive anywhere to go to the market. In fact, due to the age of your city, its designed for people to walk to most destinations. Remember, when most european citys were build, the automobile didnt exsist. Yet most American cities were designed around the automobile. The majority of cities outside of the northeast didnt even exsist untill this century. Most of the northeast cities, like european cities, were designed in a time where people walked to wherever they needed to go. People lived in neighorborhoods that were self contained, everything you needed could be purchased at a store that was within walking distance. Outside of the northern part of our country, the cities were designed with large sections desingnated for homes, and most of the goods and services are concentrated in one place, ie shopping malls or shopping centers.
Look at it this way, most of your cities started out as groups of small villiages, located near each other. As the population grew, they filled in the area between the villiages, taking their butcher/baker and candlestick maker with them. The goods and services needed for everyday life were available near the population, each neighborhood had their own. Here, unless you live in the heart of a city, you would have to go several miles in most cases to buy everyday goods. Our society is based upon the ability of each person to be mobile in any derection at any time, designed for people to live in large groups in the suburbs, with goods located at a central shopping area. Part of the reason too, is our railroads found that freight pays more, cost less to move. Most freight cars cant travel at speeds above 70mph, due in large part to their age and maintinance, or lack of. Dedicated passenger only tracks dont exsist outside of the northeast. If they did, then cross country high speed passenger train could make money, if it was marketed correctly. But outside of a few adds in railfan magazines, you almost never see a add for amtrak. The idea to ride the train isnt sold to the public. But I bet you see airline adds on your popular tv programs, both here and in europe. Ever see a amtrak add? I havnt seen one since the 70s. As to the us goverment running amtrak, its isnt simple at all. The only way to run highspeed trains is to seperate them from freight trains, on seperate track or corridors. So to run high speed intracity trains outside of the northeast corridor would require a tremendous capital investment, beyond what a private company could afford. The only way for this to happen is for the federal goverment to do it, using the right of emminent domain, its huge budget, and designing the system not so much as a profit based system, but as a public utility.
Stay frosty guys..
Ed

[Anonymous]

Micha, What I liked about the trains in Europe was the service that was provided. I found the rail workers over there to be very helpful and courteous. The train station's over there were also much better then what we have here. In Europe the stations usually had a desent restaurant and a Bar (Pub). Here in America you get vending machines and rail employee's with a bad attitude. You can build the fastest train in the world but with out good service and curtesy toward the customers, it will fail.
TIM A

[Supermicha]

Hi Ed.

I agree with you. Your last sentences were the important. A succesful big passenger railway, like amtrak or german railways, cannot life without the help of the governments. That was like that everytime and will be like this in future. German railways tried to privatisate the company, now we have 4 german railways: 1 each for commuters, for long distance trains, for freight and for "MOW" aka the net. And all of these companys looses money, only the freight devision wins some. The government must give millions of Euros every year. I think thats the same as Amtrak. And german railway will go to the stock exchange in a few years, but then, it must make money. So that will never happen. A big passenger railway can only be a state railway, and then, you have the money to build highspeed lines all over the country. And Ed, we have not many airline ads in the tv, more from the german railway, how good it is, and so on. Amtrak should make it like our railways, and paint there locos with ads for big companys. We have locos here, with full "Aspirine" painting, they look very nice. Our railway make a lot of money with that. Can anyone tell me the actual situation of amtrak? Its hard for me to get understandable news from the situation, my english is not so well, to understand the american newspaper articles. Is it already bankrupcy?

Greetings from Germany, Micha

[Supermicha]

Yes, you are right, buut in the last years, the situation became very sad in germany. German Railway sold most of there smaller stations, now, there are appartments in it, so on 80 percent of the stations, are no railway employees, only ticket automats. Thats no good service. And the bars and shops at the central stations are very expensive, 2 euros for a package of chewing gum, which costs only 50 cents outside is too much. but some day, they will learn it.

Micha

[Anonymous]

Hi guys.

Separating ownership of the infrastructure (rails) and trains has not proven effective. Look at the UK. Interaction between trains and rails is a lot more complex problem than cars/trucks and roads, so it is better to have both in a single owner, in otder to coordinate a proper evolution for the system.

It is perfectly possible to build a dual freight/passenger line, as long as it meets standards for both and extensive separation is procured (passenger trains in the day, freight at night). The Hannover-Würzburg line in Germany is for dual service. And in most cases there's no reason to run freight trains faster; in Europe many freight trains don't run faster than 100km/h (62 mph) or 120 km/h (75 mph) at most.

I don't know who had the great idea of reducing train subsidies to make it "efficient". That's nosense, although it may sound politically great for some.

The low gasoline prices don't help either since they make driving cars very cheap.

In the end, the US government will have to finance the big bucks needed for high speed rail. The government will save a lot in highway and airport investments (even more than spent on rail) if it decides to support good passenger service. If it does not, big spendings will have to be made in other transportation modes. But I guess Amtrak will have to be re-invented to deliver good service and customer care.

Cheers.

[edblysard]

Hi Micha,
How much do you know about the American form of democracy? Thats not meant to be a put down. If you know how our system work, then this might make sense. In simple terms, amtrak is a goverment subsidised private company, or a legal monopoply, about the same thing. Every couple of years, our congress gives the corporation just enough money to keep operating, but thats about all. Killing it outright would be politicaly unwise for a lot of congressmen, and keeping it alive is politicaly unwise for about the same number of congressmen. So it just goes on, year after year, not getting any bigger, or better, not really getting smaller or worse either. Keep in mind that it has been over 30 years since any private company really ran passenger trains in America. With that long a time gone by, most of the personnel who knew how to do so at a profit have either retired or died, so the knowledge is going away. Add to all of that, you have 30+ years of mergers, and almost every railroad left has no facilities to accomadate passenger trains, nor the desire to do so. Theie tracks are not designed for passenger trains, they cause problems for the dispatchers and the freight crews, but, in spite of all of that, most Americans, if you asked them, still think we have a need for cross county trains, and most are slowly waking up to the fact that innercity and intercity,(between cities) railroads make sense now days. Our population is growing faster than we can build roads for them to drive on, and those roads that exsist are almost allways clogged, to the point that any speed is almost impossible. It takes at least 2 to 3 hours after you get to the airport to pass security and board yuor plane, in that time you could have driven to the train station, and most likley gotten to your destination via train, before most airlines have gotten you in the air. But your right, only if the goverment decides to fully subsidise it will Amtrak ever become a success. It was never designed to make money, it was meant as a way for the major railroads here to get out of the passenger business, and then to allow the passenger train to slowly dissappear. But no one counted on the number of people who like to ride trains. And those were diffrent economic times, American was in a recession, our dollar was losing value, we were at war in vietnam, everybody had a car, and gas was relatively cheap, for a while still. Population had yet to explode to todays size, so why take the train when you could drive there faster and cheaper? Well today, its not as cheap, and nowhere as fast. Most people live far enough away from where they work that light commuter rail is becoming a option a lot of american cities are looking at. Lets keep our fingers crossed, we may get lucky after all.
Ed

[Supermicha]

Hi Ed.

I can agree with you in all things you said, the problem is nearly the same here in germany. Before 1994, when the two german state railways merged, both didn´t exist for making money, just for the people, that they can ride trains instead of cars. Today, as a private rail, the german railroad must make money to stay alive, but needs millions of dollars from the government to be alive. But what you said means, that amtrak will exist one more year, like the last 30, with money from the government?

Micha

[edblysard]

Not a absolute thing, but yes, our congress will give amtrak just enough money to stay in business, no more, no less.
Ed

[Anonymous]

I am not so sure. Looks as if the Republicans are going to kill Amtrak once and for all. After the dust settles, about the only thing Amtrak can afford to subsidize will be the northeast corridor. California and Illinois will have to run their short distance trains themselves.