The other day I saw a rail train dropping new welded rail near Truesdel (MP51) on the CP line between Milwaukee and Chicago (C&M sub). The CP still has quite a few miles of stick rail in Wisconsin south of Milwaukee.
Years ago, the CP (or was it before the CP?) had plans to single-track a large portion of the line between Rondout and Milwaukee; thus they laid welded rail on the segments they were going to keep (track 2), and left the stick rail for the sidings they were going to create out of track 1. There was even talk of combining the C&M traffic and the (then CNW) New Line traffic, with one line for northbound traffic and the other line for southbound. Of course, that never transpired. Also what never transpired was the replacing of the stick rail of track 1.
I wonder if this rail project is part of the new funding that Amtrak just received.
Unlikely, if by “new funding that Amtrak just received” you’re referring to the $3 billion or so that was included with the rail safety improvement act in October 2008 that also included the Positive Train Control (“PTC”) mandate.
Why do I write that ? Welcome to the “Alice-in-Wonderland” world of Federal / Congressional funding. It is unlike the rest of the civilized world, where all that’s normally necessary is for the specific funds to be “authorized” or approved. Whether in corporations, small businesses, municipal or county governments and authorities, or even state governments, once the governing board or management says “Approved” or “Authorized for Expenditure” (“AFE” - an old railroad term, which may bring back nostalgia for some here) that’s it - all that is needed for the purchasing agent to get the bids, or for the treasurer to cut the checks for the controller to review, etc. The board or management doesn’t hear or see about it again, unless there’s a problem of some kind.
So here’s a very short course in “U.S. Government Budgeting & Finance Procedures 101 for non-majors” (light version):
But the U.S. Federal government, in its “infinite wisdom” [insert heavy sarcasm here] long ago decided to bifurcate this process, i.e., split it into 2 parts or steps. Those steps are known as, 1st “authorization”, and 2) “expenditure”. In brief, the first is the legal authority and OK for the money to be spent; the second then actually provides the money needed to fund the expenditure. Inspired analogy: It’s kind of like the first step gives you a money bag of a certain size, but it’s empty; the second actually fills the bag with some money, but cannot and does not exceed its capacity, and mostly not even that much.
So it is here, I suspect - all that’s happened so far is that the increased Amtrak funding has been “authorized”, but has not y