Free Republic

When the Pioneer Zephyr — better known as the Silver Streak — made its historic run from Denver to Chicago in 1934, the diesel-powered passenger train now on display at the Museum of Science and Industry topped out at 112.5 miles per hour, which at the time was only slightly off the world land speed record. What then are we to make of Wednesday’s official Amtrak kickoff for its first “high speed rail” corridor outside the Northeast — on which trains traveling between Chicago and Kalamazoo, Mich., will now reach top speeds of 110 miles per hour? Bring back the...

n March of 2005, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and its Pennsylvania counterpart (PPTA) honored Senator Rick Santorum for his dedication to public transportation. APTA president William W. Millar noted Santorum’s “tireless advocacy” and contributions on “both the national and local level.” This recognition came shortly after Santorum appeared on Meet the Press with Joe Biden and vowed to oppose President Bush in his efforts to cut Amtrak funding. “Without substantial government funds or other intervening action, Amtrak would quickly enter bankruptcy and shut down all of its services, leaving millions of riders and thousands of communities without access...

Ruling in what it called a "tragically bizarre" case, an appeals court found that the estate of a man killed by a train while crossing the Edgebrook [Illinois] Metra station tracks can be held liable after a part of his body sent airborne by the collision struck and injured a bystander. In 2008, Hiroyuki Joho, 18, was hurrying in pouring rain with an umbrella over his head, trying to catch an inbound Metra train due to arrive in about five minutes when he was struck by a southbound Amtrak train traveling more than 70 mph. A large portion of his...

An off-duty police officer is among the injured and one person is dead after a shooting at Union Station in Dallas. Charles Bassett is at the live crime scene at the corner of Houston & Wood with these details so far: Dallas police are investigating the shooting which occurred between 3:30 and 4:00 pm at Union station. The shooting happened on board an Amtrak train stopped at the station. DART officials are on the scene as well, along with a lot of stranded passengers still trying to get to their destinations. Trains are once again running at the station. DART...

President Barack Obama wants to "stimulate" the economy through infrastructure spending. High on his list is "high speed rail." (HSR) He has even compared this country to China regarding lack of high speed rail. So, with Obama's desire in mind, I thought a look at AMTRAK and the subsidies it receives might be in order. It can be argued that AMTRAK was not designed to be high speed rail, and that is true. However, I think that it can serve as a good model of how the government will manage high speed rail. HSR and Stimulus Spending Obama's first...

Beijing - A passenger was beaten to death by staff on a train in eastern China, state media reported, dealing a fresh blow to the rail industry's reputation following a fatal crash in July. Three train staff seized the middle-aged man by the throat and savagely beat him after he intervened in an argument involving another passenger, Jiangxi Television, a local station, reported on Monday. Doctors were summoned from an emergency centre near the station in Jiangxi province where the train stopped, but the man died before they arrived, the report said, citing witnesses and the hospital. The television report...

In the Beginning“While the mighty Pennsylvania boasted of having pushed its steel tentacles into some of the nation’s most populous cities, it could not make that claim with regard to New York City. Throughout the last years of the nineteenth century, the PRR struggled in vain to conquer the great natural barrier – the Hudson River – which lay between it and America’s largest metropolis.” – Michael Bezilla, Electric Traction on the Pennsylvania Railroad 1895-1968, Pennsylvania State University Press To understand the United States, one must contemplate the challenges of those earliest days of the Republic. The two largest cities...

After the July 23rd train crash in Wenzhou China, where over 40 people were killed, safety isn’t the only thing that has come under the spotlight. China’s railway ministry is saddled with debt. A debt of over 320 billion US dollars, or five percent of China’s GDP. This debt has built up through the rapid expansion of the railway network. Several railway ministry officials have also been charged with corruption for siphoning off money for themselves. The railway ministry has been criticized for calling off the rescue efforts early in order to get trains running again. Some analysts believe this...

Last Updated: Thu, 08/04/2011 - 12:54pm Despite getting more than $1 billion from the U.S. government to bolster security, the nation’s passenger train system—known as Amtrak—remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack because the money wasn’t spent efficiently to adequately protect the most vulnerable stations. It’s the last thing Americans need to hear in the tumult of an epic budget crisis and record-high unemployment, that tax dollars were wasted by yet another incompetent government agency with a bloated budget. It’s an old, worn out story that gets repeated way too often. In this case the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed...

Maybe Chinese trains don't go as fast as promised, but they still cost quite a lot. China's Railway Ministry is 1.98 trillion yuan ($294.87 billion) in debt after the first quarter of this year, and its asset-liability ratio has reached 58.24 percent. To continue financing projects (they still have trains to buy and roads to build), the Ministry will issue bonds on July 21st. This is the third time they've had to issue bonds this year- the first time it raised 20 billion yuan, the second time it raised 15 billion yuan. That's aside from what China Daily calls "super-short-term...

RENO, Nev. (CBS/AP) — Authorities plan to look into the driving and medical records of the semitrailer driver who died when the truck slammed into an Amtrak train, killing a train crew member and injuring dozens of passengers. Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said they also will look at autopsy results to determine whether the driver had consumed any drugs around the time of the collision Friday. The big rig plowed into the California-bound train at a crossing in a rural area about 70 miles east of Reno. Knudson said federal investigators would make sure...

CHURCHILL COUNTY, Nev. -- At least two people were killed and about 20 others were injured in a fiery collision between a Sacramento-bound Amtrak train and a semitrailer on a rural northern Nevada highway. Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Lopez said the truck driver and one person on the train were killed in the 11:25 a.m. Friday accident about 70 miles east of Reno. He says an unknown number of other people on the train were injured and are being taken by ambulances to the hospital.

Amtrak blames the red ink on rising compensation costs for union workers and increased costs for fuel, materials and other expenses. Amtrak is making money on its heavily traveled Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, serving mostly commuters, executives said. But money-losing, long-distance routes are a drag on the bottom line, Amtrak say. Amtrak officials project an operating loss of $506 million in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, up from a loss of $419.9 million last year. Officials have projected a loss of $616 million next year. Federal subsidies cover about 16% of Amtrak's operating expenses, which are projected...

As if it isn't hard enough to get to sleep on overnight journeys, one group of unlucky passengers shared a carriage with a woman who talked loudly on her mobile phone for 16 hours. In the end she was arrested. Lakeysha Beard of Tigard, Oregon, was charged with disorderly conduct after police were called by Amtrak staff following continued complaints from passengers. Police said the 39-year-old became aggressive and was involved in a 'verbal altercation' when asked to be quiet during the journey from Oakland, California to Salem, Oregon. Fellow travellers said Ms Beard refused to put the phone down...

One of the projects to be funded with the money Florida rejected will be to transform 135 miles of Amtrak’s Wolverine route, which runs between Chicago and Detroit, into a higher-speed rail line, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. This improvement, which will cost $196.5 million, will be paid for by the federal government. Trains will be able to reach speeds up to 110 mph, compared with their current top speed of 79 mph. The trip, which currently takes more than 5 hours, is expected to be more than 30 minutes shorter. “This is not true high-speed rail by...

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley is calling on Iowa lawmakers and Gov. Terry Branstad to fund the state’s share of the cost of developing a high-speed rail connection between Iowa City through the Quad Cities to Chicago. Iowa and Illinois have secured $230 million in federal funding for an Amtrak route between Chicago and Iowa City. The project now depends on Branstad and the Legislature fulfilling Iowa’s $20 million commitment to the project, according to Braley, whose district includes the Quad Cities. He has written to Branstad as well as House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal,...

It's A Dead Heat, Lunacy And Hypocrisy Are Dueling For The Lead, At The Head Of The StretchSen. Charles Schumer, NY, is calling for increased security on trains; since, Osama's computer files have included vague plans for attacking rail systems to celebrate the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Schumer is suggesting an ever larger increase in America's security forces that have largely been shown to be ineffective and incompetent in the past. Schumer is also suggesting a fool proof, no-ride list, so that terrorists who are known to be terrorists cannot ride, but will be free to find another opportunity...

Subsidies: This week, Amtrak marks its 40th anniversary, which means that for decades it's wasted tens of billions of tax dollars. Naturally, Washington wants to reward this with billions more under the guise of "high-speed" rail. To say that Amtrak is a failed business is to be unkind to failure. Consider: • A Pew study found that all but three of Amtrak's 44 lines lost money in 2008, with an average loss of $32 per passenger. Even the heavily used Northeast Regional line was a money-loser. • Each year, Amtrak relies on more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies —...

— Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for better rail security now that the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound has turned up plans to attack trains in the U.S. “Anyone, even a member of al-Qaida could purchase a train ticket and board an Amtrak train without so much as a question asked,” Schumer said. “So that’s why I’m calling for the creation of an Amtrak no ride list. That would take the secure flight program and apply it to Amtrak trains.”

After lobbying federal officials hard and long for $270 million for the Springfield-to-New Haven high-speed rail project, Connecticut landed just $30 million Monday. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the distribution of $2 billion for fast train projects, and Connecticut was counting on a hefty share. Despite earlier signals from LaHood that Connecticut and the rest of the Northeast stood a solid chance, he ended up giving more than half the money to projects in the Midwest and California. Despite heavy traffic congestion and dense population, Connecticut got less than 2 percent of the funding. "Any money for high-speed rail...

A senator on Sunday called for a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains after intelligence gleaned from the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound pointed to potential attacks on the nation's train system. Sen. Charles Schumer said he would push as well for added funding for rail security and commuter and passenger train track inspections and more monitoring of stations nationwide. "Circumstances demand we make adjustments by increasing funding to enhance rail safety and monitoring on commuter rail transit and screening who gets on Amtrak passenger trains, so that we can provide a greater level of security to the public," the...

This week kicks off the 40th Anniversary of the money-sucking, inefficient, outmoded national rail system we call Amtrak. Let’s start with money. Amtrak loses bucketloads of money every day. The national rail system operates in the red, generating huge losses and has done so each and every year of its existence. And they are not shy about it. That’s over $1.2 billion in losses for the most recent year, putting the overall tab for this antiquated, bloated and inefficient system around $50 billion dollars of taxpayer money. The embarrassment of Amtrak has even struck a chord with someone who rallied...

SNIPPET: "CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) – Chester police are urging vigilance after they found an improvised explosive device, this afternoon, near Amtrak and Septa railroad tracks and the Commodore Barry Bridge. 

 Police say the device consisted of two bottles with a yellow liquid inside. They say one had a timer and wires attached by duct tape."

No deal. That's the decision from the state Department of Transportation, which notified BNSF Railway Co. this week that the state was terminating an agreement to buy 182 miles of unneeded northern New Mexico train track. And Gov. Susana Martinez wants a $2.35 million refund. In 2008, the administration of former Gov. Bill Richardson paid nearly $5 million for the track from Lamy, N.M., to the Colorado border. The segment is used only by Amtrak for twice-daily passenger service. BNSF stopped its freight service there several years ago. The unneeded segment was part of a package deal that enabled the...

QUINCY, Ill. — The Illinois Zephyr — a workaday locomotive and four cars sitting in the predawn darkness in Quincy, Ill. — isn’t the sleek, futuristic image of high-speed travel, but it’s what some Eastern Iowans have worked toward for years. While the effort to bring passenger service to Iowa City by 2015 still faces some political and financial obstacles, trains sponsored by Iowa’s would-be operating partners Amtrak and the state of Illinois continue to draw travelers — 1.6 million in 2010 — from the highways and airways. “It’s pretty convenient,” said Don Huechteman, a Quincy retiree seeing his wife...

Back in June and July of 2009, I spotlighted the Obama corruptocrats’ unceremonious removal of respected veteran Amtrak watchdog Fred Weiderhold (see here and here). Flashback: Who railroaded the Amtrak inspector general? by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2009 Watchdogs are an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak inspector general Fred Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly “retired” last month –just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes. Question the timing? Hell, yes. On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak...

Today’s the big day for Amtrak’s Wilmington train station. It is being renamed in honor of Vice President and former Delaware Senator Joe Biden following major renovations made possible with stimulus funds. One problem: the CEO of Amtrak got stuck on the train. ABC News Deputy Political Director & Political Reporter Michael Falcone tweeted at approximately 10 a.m. that the Acela train he was riding had been “delayed” in Baltimore and that he was sitting next to Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman. Falcone tweeted, “Acela to NY delayed for ‘unknown period’ Should I feel better that the Amtrak CEO is sitting...

IOWA CITY – Elected officials in Iowa City, Coralville and Johnson County say they are willing to spend local tax dollars to help support Iowa City-to-Chicago passenger rail service. The communities had recently indicated they’d be willing to put local funds toward Amtrak service in Iowa City, but they formalized that in a March 11 letter to Nancy Richardson, director of the Iowa Department of Transportation. In the letter, released Thursday, Iowa City Mayor Matt Hayek, Coralville Mayor Jim Fausett and Johnson County Board of Supervisors Chairman Pat Harney listed a variety of potential sources for the local money. Those...

As a thank-you to its most famous customer, Amtrak is renaming the train station in Wilmington, Del., after stimulus “sheriff” Vice President Joseph R. Biden - after the project received $20 million in stimulus money and came in $5.7 million over the initial announced budget. Spokesmen for Mr. Biden, who said he personally fought for stimulus money for Amtrak, didn’t respond to messages Wednesday or Thursday.

A Chicago-bound businessman traveling in an Amtrak sleeping car didn't expect to wake up in Omaha. That's where plain clothes Nebraska State Patrol Investigators boarded and knocked on the doors of four first-class passengers. Greg Travis of Bloomington, Indiana said, "It was a loud knock followed by questions. 'Where are you going! Who did you visit!' They shined a flashlight and I was in my pajamas." Travis said he saw two other groggy passengers in his sleeping car also talking to the investigators. "If I had my wits about me, I might have said, 'No I don't want you looking...

WASHINGTON — In late February, the Transportation Security Administration took over the Amtrak station in Savannah, Ga., and thoroughly searched every person who entered. None of the passengers got into trouble, but the TSA certainly did — big time. Amtrak Police Chief John O’Connor said he first thought a blog posting about the incident was a joke. When he discovered that the TSA’s VIPR team did at least some of what the blog said, he was livid. He ordered the VIPR teams off Amtrak property, at least until a firm agreement can be drawn up to prevent the TSA from...

This has been mentioned in other threads, but deserves its own. Here is a video from 2/13/11 showing a mother and two young children being searched AFTER they got off the train at the Savannah train depot. From the YouTube poster's account: Quote: The only bad thing on our trip was TSA was at the Savannah train station. There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area AFTER you got OFF THE TRAIN! This made no sense!!! Poor family in front of us! 9 year old getting patted down and wanded. They...

HELENA, Mont. -- An unruly passenger who was removed from an Amtrak train later made a threat that led to the train’s evacuation, an Amtrak official said Tuesday. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Hussein Abdi Hassan, 24, was removed from the train in Browning shortly before 8:30 p.m. Monday. While being interviewed by authorities, the Minnesota man “somehow threatened the safety of the train," he said. Nothing dangerous was found. The train was stopped between Browning and East Glacier. Passengers were taken to a middle school in Browning, where they were set up with sleeping bags and air mattresses.

An intoxicated Burnsville man was pulled by law enforcement from an Amtrak train in western Montana and then said with a laugh that a bag he left behind held something dangerous, according to charges. The alleged threat by Hussein Abdi Hassan, 24, prompted evacuation of the 140 or so passengers Monday night from the westbound train amid snow that was blowing and drifting from winds topping out at 90 miles per hour, according to charges filed Tuesday in Glacier County. No bomb was found, but abandoning the train in a treacherous swath of territory was difficult for older passengers and...

Vice President Biden, an avowed friend of good government, is giving it a bad name. With great fanfare, he went to Philadelphia last week to announce that the Obama administration proposes spending $53 billion over six years to construct a "national high-speed rail system." Translation: The administration would pay states $53 billion to build rail networks that would then lose money - lots - thereby aggravating the budget squeezes of the states or federal government, depending on which covered the deficits. There's something wildly irresponsible about the national government undermining states' already poor long-term budget prospects by plying them with...

TAMPA - Luis Mercado was on his way from Tampa International Airport to Miami International Airport last week. Instead of heading to an American or Continental Airlines flight, he rode an elevator downstairs to board a RedCoach luxury bus. The half-million dollar coach is equipped with 27 individual leather seats in a bus designed to accommodate twice as many seats, a spacious arrangement with WiFi connections, LCD movie screens and a GPS tracking system. The amenities primarily target business travelers on intrastate trips to compete with air service bedeviled by baggage fees, security line waits and crowded airliners. "I have...

You are our Ruler. An entrepreneur tells you he wants to create something he calls a "skating rink." Young and old will strap blades to their feet and speed through an oval arena, weaving patterns as moods strike them. You'd probably say, "We need regulation -- skating stoplights, speed limits, turn signals -- and a rink director to police the skaters. You can't expect skaters to navigate the rink on their own." And yet they do. They spontaneously create their own order. At last month's State of the Union, President Obama said America needs more passenger trains. How does he...

Amtrak is about to announce a new New Jersey - New York tunnel that will replace the project Governor Chris Christie killed just months ago, according to NJ.com. The tunnel will be exactly the same as the previously proposed tunnel, except that it will end at Penn Station instead of Manhattan's shores. New Jersey Democratic Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez are pushing the project. The tunnel has yet to be funded, and will likely cost $10 billion.

A bald eagle was killed by a train Thursday morning while enjoying breakfast on a stretch of tracks near Abderdeen, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Craig Koppie, an eagle coordinator with the federal agency, said the rare encounter happened in a flash. The bird was eating a deer carcass about 8:30 a.m. as an Amtrak train headed to Washington approached. An engineer spotted the bird and blasted his horn, but the eagle took off too slowly and was hit.

Key Republicans are embracing a major spending initiative outlined in President Obama's State of the Union address. Two top members of the House Transportation Committee said they will push the president's initiative seeking to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail over te course of the next 25 years. "I believe it's good for America to develop a high-speed rail corridor in the Northeast corridor," Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), the chairman of the railroad subcommittee, said according to the Connecticut Post. "It's a place we have to start, we have to accomplish it, because then I believe all...

A powerful House Republican wants Amtrak's chairman and top lawyer fired. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a recent letter to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV that both Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper and General Counsel Eleanor Acheson "unlawfully interfered" with the independence of the rail agency's Office of Inspector General.

California's hugely ambitious and futuristic high-speed rail project will be front and center of the coming showdown between President Obama and House Republicans who are hell-bent on cutting domestic spending. Obama's State of the Union address tomorrow, 6 p.m. PST, will lay out his plan to protect "investment" spending from the GOP axe: specifically infrastructure, energy, education and R&D... .. The conservative Republican Study Committee proposed a list of $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. Rail projects are near the top: the RSC would eliminate Amtrak subsidies and all inter-city and high-speed rail grants. Bankrupt California has already...

40 Years in the Wilderness- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -Since 1971, the federal government has invested a total of $32.4 billion into the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (a.k.a. “Amtrak”). In return for this lucrative investment of taxpayer's dollars, Amtrak has accumulated total net losses of $27.1 billion. If we were to average our investment over the last 40 years, it would equal approximately $810 million per year, yet in 2009 and 2010 U.S. taxpayers have pumped in an additional $1.6 billion and $2.4 billion, respectively. Thus it appears that Amtrak’s drain on our collective pocketbook is increasing. Likewise, if we...

With deer season in full swing, many Mississippians will participate in a time honored tradition of hunting.  This time outdoors allows our people to develop important life skills at an early age and gain a love of nature, which can last a lifetime.  As a sportsman, I know the benefits of hunting firsthand, and as a member of Congress, I remain committed to preserving our Second Amendment rights.Our children and grandchildren should be able to enjoy the same experiences with firearms we have had all of our lives.  Responsible exercise of Second Amendment rights is part of Mississippi’s way of...

A train from Baltimore to Philadelphia stalled on the tracks for ten hours last night. With doors locked and electricity waning, passengers cried and fought for emergency rations. A local news reporter happened to be on board, and tweeted it. D.C. reporter Stephen Tschida, of ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, was on the train as rations fell short, cold set in, and passengers swelled into an anarchic mob. As @ABC7Stephen, he chronicled it all, 140 characters at a time. Here is our brave correspondent's story, unabridged and arranged chronologically:

Just as state officials grapple with a huge budget shortfall, here comes a multimillion-dollar bill for 200 miles of railroad track the state of New Mexico has no plans to use. Records show that the state Transportation Commission voted in August to set aside $2 million in next year's budget for capital improvements along the stretch of train track from Lamy to the Colorado border. That's on top of the $5 million the state promised to pay BNSF Railway Co. to purchase that same stretch of track. State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Megan Arredondo told the Journal that the additional...

Perhaps there is nothing quite so satisfying as seeing someone else “call B.S.” on the gun prohibition crowd, and it happened today courtesy of KOMO’s never-meek Ken Schram, a guy with whom I often disagree, but he's still a pal. Reacting to the hand-wringing from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence over the new Amtrak rules that take effect next month, allowing firearms to be carried in locked, checked baggage, "Schrambo" took off the gloves, and it was the right thing to do. A spokesman for the Brady camp had contended this will “make it easier” for terrorists to...

Amtrak is adding more cars to its trains to accommodate passengers next week, the busiest week of the year for the state’s three passenger train routes, including the “San Joaquin” through much of the Central Valley. On what is anticipated to be the heaviest single travel day of the year for Amtrak — the Wednesday before Thanksgiving – Amtrak expects ridership to reach as many as 127,000 passengers system-wide. Last year, Amtrak carried nearly 686,000 passengers for the holiday week setting a new Thanksgiving ridership record. To accommodate more passengers traveling during this holiday week, more capacity will be added...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. (Jacksonville-AP) -- A Jordanian air marshal, reported missing when he failed to show up for a Royal Jordanian Airways flight, was found yesterday on an Amtrak train in Jacksonville. Drug Enforcement Administration agents conducting a routine drug sweep of the train spotted Ali Ahmad Al-Omari who had been sought since failing to show up Saturday for a Royal Jordanian Airways flight in Chicago. Airline officials, fearing foul play, contacted Chicago authorities, who contacted the FBI. Al-Omari told authorities he was traveling to Miami to visit friends. Bill Hurlburt, a spokesman for...

While officials from Iowa City to Washington, D.C., have lauded a proposed rail from Iowa City to Chicago as a way to boost a struggling economy, some argue the rail simply will not work. "I think there are a number of demographic and economic hurdles to overcome before [the rail] would be viable," said Sam Staley, the director of urban and land-use policy at Reason Foundation in Los Angeles, Calif. Staley was part of a 2006 study on the economic effects of numerous rail lines, including the Hiawatha line between Chicago and Milwaukee, which found that rails might not result...