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House committee approves passenger rail bill
Amtrak is a Republican program, one of the only decent things Nixon did (besides ending the draft). But the present GOP would rather forget about that.
Let the states run Amtrak in their states, We all know guvmnt is a ball of wax, waste and redtape, states are the same but to a MUCH smaller degree (except California) of course.
Glad to see Rep. Mica got a slapdown!!!
More of the same here…
Stay classy John Mica…
Wonder if it’s time Amtrak ended the completely unnecessary stop at Winter Park for their Silver service trains. The only reason it’s there is to win Mica’s vote, it’s only a few miles from their Orlando stop, and it’s served by SunRail now anyway. Removing it should cut 10 minutes from the affected train’s schedules.
I’m surprised someone didn’t offer an amendment to govern what sort of condiments can be offered in the dining cars.
NARP remains unhelpful.
Story entirely misses bit about tens of billions in low cost government loans now available to Amtrak.
Mica is irrelevant.
The bad: This funding is far short of what is needed.
The good: They aren’t proposing to zero out funding completely this year. Also, more transparency in accounting is a good thing.
This is just the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee . Changes, good or bad, could be made in the full House, or it could fail to pass in the full House. Then it will probably have to be reconciled with a Senate bill into a final version that can pass both houses and get the President’s signature. The final outcome could be much better, or worse, than what is in this bill.
It is my understanding that Nixon actually created Amtrak in hopes of killing passenger service once and for all but that is just something that I had read. I don’t really know if it is true or not.
@Alan Miller. Shhh. Don’t give them any Ideas!
It’s incredible! We go to Europe or Asia and marvel at their trains. And wonder why we don’t have these trains. It’s because we don’t want to give the railroads the money that’s needed. We worship at the feet of the Koch brothers and big oil. So, while we ooh and ah about the high speed trains in other parts of the world, we’re ok with most of our trains go at 79 miles an hour or less.
Great comment! It gets to the Congressional micromanagement that has hamstrung Amtrak.
Bob Koch…you are correct. If you do any research, Nixon and those around him expected Amtrak to go away in say 5-7 years after it was formed. For a civilized nation (one could joke about that) our passenger rail network is horrible. If our government’s mindset only changed and we made consistent investment into infrastructure and equipment a whole lot more people would ride Amtrak.
@BOB KOCH - There was an outright conspiracy amongst those proposing Amtrak’s creation though it’s unknown as to what politicians knew of the scheme. In 1974 Fortune Magazine exposed it, and Louis W. Menk, a railroad chairman who was heavily involved in Amtrak’s formation, unwittingly confirmed the story was true. The assumption was that a government run Amtrak would be so woefully mismanaged that, combined with the same hostile anti-rail environment that had caused the crisis to begin with, it would fall apart in around two years, leaving railroads free to reorganize themselves as freight only.
The three major problems with the plan: it was revealed in public, early execs did a moderately good job considering the circumstances, and the same public support for passenger rail that forced Amtrak’s existence to begin with never disappeared.
The public needs to realize that even if they do not use passenger rail, it helps to alleviate the dysfunctional, overcrowded, dangerous highway system by taking cars off the road, maybe with their support legislators would behave more responsibily
This bill just kicks the can down the road; keeps Amtrak on starvation rations and assures that it does not expand to meet customer demand. The last thing our bought-and-paid-for politicians want is a truly viable passenger rail network, but they don’t want responsibility for killing it.
Mica’s motion shows how much more he is interested in micromanaging Amtrak to its death.