A flight from Atlanta to Lancaster on September 11th would cost $230.69 one way according to the listings on Travelocity. A flight from Atlanta to Harrisburg, PA would cost $136.30. From there one could take a short train ride to Lancaster for $6.50 or rent a car and drive there quickly.
When I was in Middleton a couple of years ago, walking from the Harrisburg airport, which is in Middleton, to the Amtrak station in Middleton was not recommended. Google maps shows that the walk would be doable; it is 1.8 miles, but it would be along a Blvd. that does not appear to have sidewalks. If I remember correctly, there is a shuttle vehicle that will take a passenger to the Amtrak station.
BART goes right into SFO International. However, from the BART stop in Oakland, it is necessary to catch a connecting bus to the Oakland Airport. Or at least it was last November when I took BART to Oakland and flew to Portland, Oregon.
Next year it will be possible to take a DART Orange line light rail train into DFW International Airport. In the meantime, one can take the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) from Fort Worth or Dallas to CentrePort and catch a connecting bus to DFW. It is convenient; I have done it many times.
One of the arguments for routing the Texas Eagle over the TRE between Dallas and Fort Worth is that it could stop at Centreport for passenger desiring to connect with a flight. It would make it possible for people in Mineola, Longview, etc., to take the train to the DFW Metroplex and transfer to a flight for the longer leg of their journey. But with only one train a day the convenience factor is not there.
Sam1 When I was in Middleton a couple of years ago, walking from the Harrisburg airport, which is in Middleton, to the Amtrak station in Middleton was not recommended.
When I was in Middleton a couple of years ago, walking from the Harrisburg airport, which is in Middleton, to the Amtrak station in Middleton was not recommended.
SAM1: My bad. For some reason I thought the new Middleton airport station was open ? ?
John WR oltmannd Say, I want to go from ATL to Lancaster PA. Don, You might also want to consider flying from Atlanta to Dulles Airport in Virginia, changing planes and flying from Dulles to Lancaster. John
oltmannd Say, I want to go from ATL to Lancaster PA.
Don,
You might also want to consider flying from Atlanta to Dulles Airport in Virginia, changing planes and flying from Dulles to Lancaster.
John
Cost!
I recently spent a weekend in South Jersey. It was cheaper (by over $100) to fly to BWI from ATL and take Amtrak to Phila than it was to fly direct. This included paying for a room at the BWI airport on the way home. I also checked Reagan, Newark, AC and Harrisburg. The trouble was, I had to piece the trip together myself - and I had to know that it was doable. The avg. traveler in the US wouldn't have a clue.
We need a multi-modal intercity trip planner.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
OK Don. You're a frugal traveler. I am too although I do ride Amtrak and not the discount buses.
And when I go north I don't get on Amtrak at Newark which is the closest station. I take NJT to New York Pennsylvania Station. Even when I lived in central Jersey I did that. Avoiding passing through New York on Amtrak makes the fare significantly cheaper.
Going north from BWI you might want to check the SEPTA fares from Wilmington. It might be cheaper. Then again it might not; using local commuter rail is not always cheaper than taking Amtrak all the way.
John WR OK Don. You're a frugal traveler. Going north from BWI you might want to check the SEPTA fares from Wilmington. It might be cheaper. Then again it might not; using local commuter rail is not always cheaper than taking Amtrak all the way. John
OK Don. You're a frugal traveler.
...if my end destination was Ridley Park, PA, I would have.
BTW fare differential on Amtrak $5. SEPTA off peak fare $6.50
I happen to have been born and live in the same state, which certainly does pay in far more than it gets back. But passenger rail as a public service means serving a large number of people. West of the Mississippi, with the exception of the West Coast and within TX (if they choose to pay), passenger rail makes little sense because of the distance. Because it serves so few people at such a high subsidy per PM, i would prefer my dollars to be spent sensibly in short to medium corridors, to serve the most people..
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
To All:
Just curious;
1. How do you know if the subsidy rate per Passenger Mile is high or low if you don't compare it to a highway benchmark? Seems like some have suggested that highway spending is not relevant but I can't figure out a way to benchmark it otherwise.
2. How do you know that the Long-Term Avoidable subsidy for Short corridors is less that the Long Distance trains? I mean all we are talking about is semantics. They both compete for trips with automobiles up to a certain length until air becomes more competitive, and short corridors trains really aren't any faster than long corridors over the same tracks.
Remember, all that is being reported right now is Total Cost, and that has a very high degree of cost assignment I am about to discuss in an upcoming post.
Long corridors should mathematically have better revenue and density of service (volume) possibilities due to the greater number of overlapping origin and destination pairs that are not interrupted with a transfer. There is of course an upward limit for schedule reliability and equipment turns but it was recognized to be about 1000 miles or less (for the route not the trip) by the last investor owned railroads running passenger service.
Beyond that distance, or maybe 750 miles, have the individual travelers pay their full incremental cost and provide through cars between routes. But I can see it not being much more than current fares as most of the cost is still there to just run any size train.
V.Payne1. How do you know if the subsidy rate per Passenger Mile is high or low if you don't compare it to a highway benchmark? Seems like some have suggested that highway spending is not relevant but I can't figure out a way to benchmark it otherwise.
I think it's a good, relevant benchmark, but I think there is a zero chance that it'll "win the day" as rationale for more (or less) service. That argument has already been won (or lost) in Congress for a whole bunch of other "reasons". So, it's a great benchmark, but it's irrelevant (unless you can find a champion for it).
V.Payne2. How do you know that the Long-Term Avoidable subsidy for Short corridors is less that the Long Distance trains?
Off the top of my head, equipment costs. For trains of the same capacity, the LD trains have more cars and locomotives per "seat".
V.PayneLong corridors should mathematically have better revenue and density of service (volume) possibilities due to the greater number of overlapping origin and destination pairs that are not interrupted with a transfer.
Only if all O's and D's are created equally....or if the longer corridors are bridging two, short corridors - which may be the rationale for keeping LD trains.
V.PayneBeyond that distance, or maybe 750 miles, have the individual travelers pay their full incremental cost and provide through cars between routes. But I can see it not being much more than current fares as most of the cost is still there to just run any size train.
So, the train is already running, what's another locomotive, a couple of cars and an attendant? A sizable chunk of change. Another way to think of it would be, "what else could that equipment be doing? Could it be turned back for another trip on the short corridor?"
It think you are working extremely hard to figure out what the balance between modes should be - what mix provides the best use of tax money - which is what our government should be doing! But, I think we have a more basic problem to fix first. That is to get our passenger train company to perform better with what it has. As long as they are viewed as dysfunctional by a noisy few (e.g. Mica circus) and they are armed with facts (albiet cherry picked) that show that Amtrak really IS dysfunctional at many levels, how much service Amtrak should provide is a moot point. Amtrak needs to get their act together first.
Amtrak treats their existing station stops and schedules as if they were chiseled in stone by Moses. It's not trivial to change schedules and station stops, but it's much easier than amending routes. Amtrak seems to lack the interest and/or will to make any changes.
...and as long as the NARP et. al. keep harping on the restoration of NOL to Jax, or the Pioneer, or a second route through Montana, or "Grid and Gateway" lines on a map, will the cause be advanced? I doubt it. They should focus on getting Chicago to Detroit going, for example. It took far too long to get the ITCS section up to 110 mph. NARP should have been pushing Amtrak/FRA to move faster. Michigan likely overpaid NS for the Michigan Central. Where was the NARP? A cheaper price would have left money for ROW improvement.
NARP and some other groups seem to be stuck in the belief that Amtrak should restore some "golden era" of passenger operations that occurred in the 1945-1960 period. They also tend to discount the introduction of jet airliners in 1958 as a major factor in the corresponding decline of long-haul passenger service. It's hard to accept, but these groups need to realize that the future of passenger services lies in the shorter hauls with more frequent service. If the service is frequent, even 90-110 MPH service will attract riders.
There was a study a few years back to move the Middletown Station to the HIA site. The folks in Middletown did not want to lose "their" station, and HIA really had no reason to support loss of parking revenues, one of their main sources of income. It is not likely HIA will have rail service anytime soon.
CSSHEGEWISCH NARP and some other groups seem to be stuck in the belief that Amtrak should restore some "golden era" of passenger operations that occurred in the 1945-1960 period. They also tend to discount the introduction of jet airliners in 1958 as a major factor in the corresponding decline of long-haul passenger service. It's hard to accept, but these groups need to realize that the future of passenger services lies in the shorter hauls with more frequent service. If the service is frequent, even 90-110 MPH service will attract riders.
Yes! ...and even to connect passengers to those jet airliners for the long haul portion of their trip.
That "golden era" was when the trains died, despite heroic efforts by the RRs to keep them going. They bought a small mountain of streamlined equipment, tried to add as much speed and comfort as possible...just check out some of the RR promo films out there on YouTube. And, it all just collapsed.
Now, if the public wants to keep some remnant of LD train service alive with a subsidy, so be it. But, ask any of your "normal" (that is, non-railfan) friends and neighbors if they are interested in having more train service available, and they likely tell you "yes". (You get "yes" more often out of people who've live along the NEC or around Chicago...) But, then get more specific. Describe a sleeping car and explain the typical fare and you'll get "Wow, that's really expensive! I think I'd just fly". Then tell them Amtrak loses quite a bit of money doing it and you'll get a look of incomprehension. No one "normal" would consider overnight train travel as a useful. Some would consider it an interesting adventure, but not a regular thing.
If you pitch a western LD train as part of a scenic vacation, you'll get a more favorable response - but, then, should we subsidize citizen's vacations? Maybe Rocky Mountaineer should be the business model - scenery by day, hotel by night.
Personally, I find LD trains fascinating. I like the idea of 'go to sleep here - wake up there'. I like everything about traveling overnight in a sleeper (except the price!). But, I'm not "normal"....
An inconsistency in the argument by the LD folks is the claim that the LD routes can act as segmented or overlapping short corridors. That may well be so, but then you surely do not need all those sleepers and full services diners [with all their high labor and equipment costs] for folks riding only 200-500 miles.
oltmannd Off the top of my head, equipment costs. For trains of the same capacity, the LD trains have more cars and locomotives per "seat".
Amtrak's largest single expense is labor. In FY12 salaries, wages, and benefits gobbled up 50.4 per cent of its operating expenses and 70.7 per cent of its revenues. Depreciation was 16.4 per cent of operating expenses..
The labor expense associated with the long distance trains probably is higher than the average system labor expense, whereas the long distance depreciation expense probably is much lower than the system depreciation expense. Most of it is in the NEC and the other on the ground properties owned by Amtrak. A key point, however, is to realize that without access to Amtrak's books outsiders don't know how labor and depreciation impacts Amtrak's expense structure per business line.
The standard crew for the Texas Eagle, as an example, consists of an engineer, conductor, assistant conductor, sleeping car attendant, coach car attendant, lounge car attendant, and three dining car employees. The on-board staff run end point to end point, but the "operating personnel" change at least four times between San Antonio and Chicago. The engineers add another change in Austin.
Most of the Eagle's operating crew members are on the train for less than eight hours, but their benefit costs probably are annualized. These benefits get charged to train operations. In addition, most of long distance train crews (operating as well as on-board service crew members) are away from home at least one or more nights, which means substantial overnight accommodation charges to train expenses.
By contrast the Pennsylvania has an engineer, conductor, assistant conductor and a cafe car attendant. The operating crew makes one change in Harrisburg. There is some overnight expense associated with the train, but it is less than a comparable long distance train.
What is the labor cost per passenger mile for the Texas Eagle and the Pennsylvanian? Don't know for sure, but Amtrak's Monthly Operating Report for September 2012 contains a hint. The cost of the OPEBS per passenger mile for the Eagle was .0082 cents whereas the cost for the Pennsylvanian was .0062 cents. OPEB is the accrued expense for future liability of health care for pensioned employees. It probably is comparable when spread over common units, i.e. train miles, seat miles, passenger miles, etc.
How difficult would it be to determine the assignable crew costs for the Texas Eagle, Pennsylvanian or any of Amtrak's trains. Send a junior accountant to the payroll department and pull the payroll records for the regular and temporary crew members. Get their time cards. Plug the information into a spreadsheet. Then go to the benefits administrator and get the data for each employee. Plug it into the spreadsheet. That would be most of the avoidable labor cost for the Texas Eagle. The same thing could be done for the entire business line. And for many of the other costs (expenses).
The time required to realize the labor savings from discontinuance would depend on the severance terms of the labor contracts and the re-assignable residuals from any management and supervisory personnel that wold be retained because they supervise more than one train or business line.
It might take a reasonably smart junior accountant a day to get the information, put it into the spreadsheet, and have the results ready for the boss in the morning. At least in a competitive business where one is expected to hustle and get it correct.
The fact that Amtrak has not optimized its SAP installation or its Route Performance Tracking System does not mean that it does not have the information to determine its costs. Because it blew the installation of SAP, which is another story, means that it just takes a lot longer to get the information. But its there. Has to be to comply with IRS as well as other interested party requirements.
The data in the B-1 Table, which is found at the Federal Railroad Administration web site, is at least six years old. That is ancient history in the world of cost accounting.
Without access to Amtrak's books, assumptions, estimates, and conclusions about its current cost structure are speculative. For example, if we don't know how Amtrak allocates or assigns costs for the long distance trains operating in the NEC, it is impossible to know how much of that cost, if any, would go away if the long distance trains were discontinued. If anyone has a verifiable source for the costs assigned to the long distance trains in the NEC, I would like to learn about it.
Most of the costs, especially the fixed costs, associated with the NEC don't fall on the long distance trains. Most of the long distance train mileage occurs outside of the NEC. Even the long distance trains that run in the NEC probably get little of the allocated costs. And they surely don't fall on the Empire Builder.
The NEC wears a high percentage of Amtrak's fixed costs. Amtrak's financials make this clear. Its because Amtrak owns most of the NEC track, etc.
If the long distance trains were discontinued, little if any of the costs associated with the NEC would go away. Nor would the costs associated with the State Supported and Other Short Corridor Trains. That's not the issue.
The key question is how much of the direct and allocated costs driven by the long distance trains would go away if these trains were discontinued? Amtrak probably could come up with a good number through boots on the ground accountants, as per my previous post. It would take a lot of digging, but it could be done. Been there; done that in another environment.
As per my post, the direct labor costs associated with the long distance trains could be determined relatively easily, and they would go away in time. What are these labor costs? Which ones are direct; which ones are allocated? Again, without access to Amtrak's books, there is no way to tell. Models based on 1968 or 2007 data are not timely.
Some of the shared management and supervisory labor costs could also go away, although not on a one to one basis as per the direct labor cost. What is the percentage of shared labor costs attributable to the long distance trains? Again, to reinforce a point, without access to Amtrak's books, it is not possible to know.
The depreciation expense associated with the long distance equipment would go away if the equipment was retired and either scrapped or sold. How much of Amtrak's depreciation is worn by the long distance trains? Without access to Amtrak's property records, we cannot know.
Maintenance is a mixed cost. To the extent it is driven by an activity, i.e. a car runs so many miles and has to come in for maintenance, the maintenance performed on the car is a variable cost. Most of it is avoidable if the car is retired and sold. On the other hand, the costs associated with the maintenance facility, including the management and supervisory costs, behave like fixed costs.
If Amtrak discontinued all the long distance trains, it would not need the Haleigh, Florida, maintenance facility, as an example, and it could be sold. Or it could be used to provide contract maintenance to another carrier. Thus, what appears to be a fixed cost becomes a variable or avoidable cost if management decides to close and/or sell the facility. Without access to Amtrak's books, including the work orders, the maintenance costs associated with the long distance trains is not knowable.
An accounting team could go through every one of Amtrak's costs, as shown on its books, and come up with a reasonable estimate of the avoidable costs associated with the long distance trains. The costs that I referenced above are just a few examples. The trick, however, would be to get Amtrak's management team to make the hard decisions to shed the direct costs and move aggressively to slim down the shared mixed and fixed costs.
It appears we have come full circle on this matter of passenger trains costs. In the 1960's, the railroads were falling over themselves rushing for the exits of the business of passenger service, and the same arguments regarding fixed costs and allocated costs and direct costs came up.
The railroads were more heavily regulated pre-Staggers act, and they had to get ICC approval (remember the ICC?) to discontinue trains. There were the passenger train enthusiasts who were an interested party in the trains not being discontinue -- the Anthony Haswell pre-Amtrak NARP. So you had the usual suspects of the anti-train people, but in those days, they were largely railroad employees.
A railroad would petition for a "train-off" by telling the ICC how much money it lost, using fully-allocated formulas, often sanctioned by the ICC. The for-keeping-the-trains people would say, "This is not 'fair', the railroad company is 'allocating' the full cost of the railroad line to the passenger train when many freight trains use that line. The railroad would not stop losing nearly as much money as they claim they would."
Now that is an interesting argument. You (Mr. Railroad President) need to keep operating this passenger train in the public interest because the money you are losing is much less than the exagerated losses you are claiming. There was also this belief that the railroads were highly profitable on their freight operations, which didn't seem to hold up either as many (Eastern) railroads teetered into bankruptcy in the 1970s.
Then came Amtrak. The first thing Amtrak did was cut half the existing passenger trains, something the now host/freight railroads had been trying to push through for years, and something that had NARP yelling "Foul!", NARP being the organization that had lobbied for some kind of "government takeover" of the passenger trains. The second thing was that Amtrak was given public money to make good the financial losses, and it was even given some capital money to buy new trains to replace the breaking-down trains then in service, where the fresh coat of bright red-white-and-blue paint didn't do much to change the mechanical condition of the Heritage Fleet.
The third thing is that the freight railroads were "made an offer they could not refuse" of either keeping their passenger trains going or making a non-trivial one-time financial contribution to Amtrak, even if it was in the form of run-down cars and locomotives. The other part of this offer was that they would "host" the Amtrak trains in exchange for payment, they would do this without complaining about whether this was "fair" and covered their costs, and this would discharge their public and common carrier responsibilities "free and clear."
There is some complainin' that the current low fees for Amtrak to use the tracks constitutes another subsidy, and there is some suggestion of "passive resistance" on the part of host railroads with respect to the complaint of "freight train interference" in schedules along with counter claims of once-daily passenger trains gumming up freight ops on the now common single-track lines, and there is that threat to the Southwest Chief of BNSF wanting to abandon critical segments of the line used by that service and the supposed extortion to allow daily service on the Sunset, but by and large the freight railroads are resigned to this arrangement, again, in discharge of their corporate good-citizen duties, and railroads are even prepared to haggle over allocating costs of major passenger service additions, although they get bad-mouthed by many for their troubles just as in the Anthony Haswell NARP days.
But by and large, the allocation of track costs to trains is "off the table" (except, I guess, where it is not, with the Great Northeast Railroad Collapse leading to Amtrak itself becoming a railroad and taking on the role of Bad Guy of figuring out how to parcel out the expenses).
The difference, however, is that "we" (those of us passenger advocates and enthusiasts) have Amtrak. We complain and complain and complain that "we" only "get" 1.5 billion/year in support whereas the airways get 10 times as much and highways get 20-30 times as much (direct Federal support). And even that "pittance" of a "mere 1.5 billion" is like the Perils of Pauline of being tied to the tracks in front of an advancing Transportation Committee Chair in the House of Representatives. On the other hand, there is that 1.5 billion/year to square the circle that the freight operators could never keep passenger trains profitable.
Not only that, Amtrak for all its warts is an organization dedicated to operating passenger trains. You have the bright red-white-and-blue paint even if the mechanicals of the coach are still in question. The 1960s railroads were really trying to kill passenger trains -- Anthony Haswell opined that if the railroads would answer the (fine) telephone to take reservations rather than letting it ring "passenger trains would make money" (or maybe lose less than claimed in the train-off petition). Well, Amtrak answers the phone -- they even have a fine, fine reservation Web site.
I'll tell ya how I think people fer-the-trains are gumming up the works. Let Amtrak be Amtrak. They get their 1.5 billion/year, let Amtrak make decisions within that framework to add service where there is public demand, drop service where things just aren't working out.
"But Congress dictates to Amtrak what trains they should run." But who is Congress, anyway, but some political people with their wetted finger in the air to test the wind, as it should be if we are to have Democracy and Representative Government. The only people who even care enough about trains to be influencing Congress is us, who are going "Oh noes, Amtrak is discontinuing the (Desert Wind/Three Rivers/Western Pennsylvania train)!"
Instead of looking at the glass as 1.5 billion/year full,we look at the glass as 1.5 billion/year mostly empty, and there is constant and chronic and endless complaining and criticizing and scolding, of "Amtrak is underfunded", "look much more money goes to airways, highways, the military, doctors who treat older persons", "Switzerland/France/Taiwan/Brazil is getting much nicer trains."
And best (worst) of all (doing my best Winston Churchill) "From Hudson near the Mississippi River to Milwaukee on Lake Michigan, a great "Cheese Curtain" has descended of curtailed funding of passenger trains. Behind this wall lies a whole lot of towns no one from Chicago or Minneapolis much cares about about from a few roadstops on the Interstate that advertise cheese and maple syrup."
Let's advocate for the money that is spent to support trains goes to the best effect, let's cut out some of the complainin' and scoldin' and tellin' everyone they are doing everything wrong.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
oltmanndThey should focus on getting Chicago to Detroit going, for example.
In an ideal world or even with a reasonably rational Congress what you say is right on target. However, Congress simply will not fund the kind of intercity service that we all agree works best. That funding has been turned over to the states. And of course some states do it while other states do not. And of course if Wisconsin declines to do it then Minnesota does not get the service to Chicago that it needs. But that is where we are today.
On the other hand, Congress is willing to fund at least most of the long distance service. So perhaps NARP is simply adjusting to this current reality.
Of course we should never say never. Congress waxes and wanes and no doubt they will again. Perhaps when we have somehow come to terms with paying for our recent wars.
John WR oltmanndThey should focus on getting Chicago to Detroit going, for example. Don, In an ideal world or even with a reasonably rational Congress what you say is right on target. However, Congress simply will not fund the kind of intercity service that we all agree works best. That funding has been turned over to the states. And of course some states do it while other states do not. And of course if Wisconsin declines to do it then Minnesota does not get the service to Chicago that it needs. But that is where we are today. On the other hand, Congress is willing to fund at least most of the long distance service. So perhaps NARP is simply adjusting to this current reality. Of course we should never say never. Congress waxes and wanes and no doubt they will again. Perhaps when we have somehow come to terms with paying for our recent wars. John
Because most of the funding for this route will come from Michigan, it can happen much faster. It's also much easier to show positive cost/benefit results, so it's an easier sales job.
They need to stop spending time on things that will go nowhere, like NOL to Jax and white papers like "Grid and Gateway" and concentrate on things that can happen - like Chicago to Detroit.
If they had been paying attention, perhaps they could have helped lobby for a lower purchase price from NS.
I agree with you Don. Right now services like Chicago and Detroit are what is doable for Amtrak. Basic to any organization is the fact that you build with what you have. If Amtrak has a commitment from Michigan they should go with that. They certainly have no commitment from the Congress; only roads are going to that.
But whether we like it or not both Amtrak and NARP remain committed to long distance routes. The Brookings Institution Report calls that equity. And I just don't see that the commitment to long distance is a mistake. Yes, we are not going to get them from the current Congress. But the House of Representatives changes every 2 years and the change can be substantial in a relatively short time. When it come to the House the only constant is change. And when that change happens NARP will be there with its white papers.
John WRBut whether we like it or not both Amtrak and NARP remain committed to long distance routes. The Brookings Institution Report calls that equity. And I just don't see that the commitment to long distance is a mistake. Yes, we are not going to get them from the current Congress. But the House of Representatives changes every 2 years and the change can be substantial in a relatively short time. When it come to the House the only constant is change. And when that change happens NARP will be there with its white papers.
So, perhaps Amtrak should try to squeeze as much as they can from those routes. That's ROUTES. Not routes + existing schedules + existing station stops.
And, perhaps NARP et. al. should help with this and stop trying to draw new lines on the map.
If the governors of OH and WI were not so anti-rail, the route from CHI to MSP would be an even better candidate than CHI-DET. And OH made a serious mistake in not proceeding with the CLE-COL-CIN route.
Pardon my geography lesson, but what exactly does OH have to do with Chi-Msp?
Goevernor of WI anti rail? anti HS and LD passenger rail but not freight rail.
daveklepper Pardon my geography lesson, but what exactly does OH have to do with Chi-Msp? Goevernor of WI anti rail? anti HS and LD passenger rail but not freight rail.
oltmanndAnd, perhaps NARP et. al. should help with this and stop trying to draw new lines on the map.
I don't want to be untactful, Don, but NARP has been going on for a lot of years without my advice and without your advice. I trust NARP to continue being the organization it has always been.
John WR oltmanndAnd, perhaps NARP et. al. should help with this and stop trying to draw new lines on the map. I don't want to be untactful, Don, but NARP has been going on for a lot of years without my advice and without your advice. I trust NARP to continue being the organization it has always been. John
The Wisconsin Governor is supportive of passenger rail, as long as the Wisconsin BUSINESS COMMUNITY is thoroughly supportive, of which they are in respect to Milwaukee - Chicago via Hiawatha Service. Of course a good business case could be made for Milwaukee - Madison, without any reference to the Twin Cities or high-speed rail. But no one has really tried to do so.
Wrong.
The proposed passenger rail improvement in WI was MKE-MAD using Talgo equipment built in MKE. Walker rejected $810 million in federal stimulus money aimed at creating a high-speed train system for the 80-mile corridor between Milwaukee and Madison. The line was not true high speed and it did not include services to MSP.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.