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Amtrak posts record year for ridership, ticket revenue
And yet Mitt Romney thinks we should do away with this vitally important national resource…
And Rocks for Brains Mitt Romney wants to kill Amtrak!
Leave it to Joe Boardman to turn Amtrak around! The guy is amazing,
This confirms the good news that was anticipated all year. All train geeks know Amtrak is performing well, if only that information was known to certain individuals in the GOP using Amtrak as a rhetorical talking point. I’m proud to say I contributed 12 rides to Amtrak’s FY2012 totals, 7 of which were long distance rides. I’m taking my first long distance ride for FY2013 tomorrow night; and btw, the Capitol Limited train leaving Chicago on the 14th sold out 3 days in advance! We need more service to supplement the demand, not less.
On a per passenger basis, the subsidy for car and air is tiny compared to Amtrak. For every one of those 31 million passengers, the govt gave Amtrak $47.60. So Shawn - that means your 12 rides cost us taxpayers $571.20.
As retired military, riding AMTRAK means a lot to me. I spent most of my years overseas and missed riding the trains in the 60’s before they went away. I sure hope Romney does not take the one thing I really enjoy in life after serving 20 years in the military.
Andrew Dickey, you are absolutely full of it. The airline industry gets fifteen BILLION dollars EVERY year Also didyou know the One billion dollars Amtrak recieve would pay for about TEN to FIFTEEN miles of Interstate Highway? You and Jeffery Guse are two of a kind, Dittoheads. Quit watching Faux Noise!!!
Congrats, Amtrak! I agree with all the favorable comments I read, and would like to add that my wife and I prefer taking Amtrack’s California Zephyr from Denver to Worcester, MA. It’s expensive, but us driving 2000 miles is expensive, too, when you consider food and lodging on the road. I hope that more sleepers can be renovated. Folks like us love them!
Expanding Amtrak, public transit, bike paths, and pedestrian projects are the answer to solve our transportation adn employment woes. Most privatized toll roads have been a failure from the start. Who wants to pay more to drive? Who likes to pay for tolls or pay for parking? Most toll roads were built with money that was borrowed, punching a bigger hole in our debt crisis, and sucking money away from much needed safety improvements and repairs needed for the exisiting infrastructure. Soem toll roads aren’t even collecting enough money to pay the interest due on the debt owed for having it built.
Andrew Dickey, I’d like to see your basis for the assertion that the government subsidy to commercial air is so small. Did you factor in the FAA?
This article just proves how unnecessary Amtrak really is. Even if the NE Corridor is marginally necessary and the state supported trains are kept because the people in those states are paying for them (and I’m not) then the remaing 4.7 million passengers on the long distance trains need to find a different mode of transportation for their vacations or pay the full cost of their tickets. One poster here said he took 12 trips this year on Amtrak so, how many people actually rode Amtrak as opposed to how many rides were there? There were 31.2 million passengers but how many people. Probably alot less and for these few we subsidize with more than a billion dollars. Amtrak is a poster child for what is wrong with our government. Hopefully Romney will win this election and as his legacy be the first president to rid the taxpayers of, at the very least, Amtrak’s long distance trains. Time to shut this government scam down. And to the Millers from CA, you people are just jerks. There, now I’ve called you names.
I hope that Candidate Romney reads this
Smoke that, Mica and Romney. Remember, those 30+million
passengers pay taxes and vote.
Allright! Amtrak needs to spread this news far and wide. Especially in light of the recent crummy performance of the airlines. If any subsidy is cut it needs to aviation.
And if the GOP had their way, they would eliminate Amtrak. As if the airlines are not subsidized, or the highways for that matter.
Congratulations Amtrak 
Keep up the great work Amtrak. With the out of this world gas prices here in California the train is looking better each day. I hope this means more jobs for vets with Amtrak, I hope to get a call soon from them.
. . . and I hope Canadian government bureaucrats who are out to kill VIA will read this too!
Romney needs to remember his roots in Massachusetts where his supporters heavily favor supporting Amtrak