and every other station on the Amtrak system… This will provide billions of dollars in just sales alone. Then the Feds would have to upgrade those stations, and the track, as that is infastructure. I am sure that we could get some freight companies to start running passengers if they can get a whole bunch of subsidies from the feds to build more track. If Bush wants to play hardball, fine, then he should treat Amtrak like the airplanes, and won the airports. Since Amtrak owns most of the stations they would have plenty of money to last a while!
Brad
…I believe a massive loan was taken out on Penn Station some years ago…
Yes, in order to meet payroll and other needs, Amtrak’s last president mortgaged off Penn Station in New York. And, this was all done under the guise of trying to reach that “unobtainable” self sufficiency goal.
Amtrak has almost no equity in Penn Sta. It was mortgaged to maintain Amtrak’s glide-slope to profitability myth.
BUT, why not demand that any location wanting service should own, maintain, and STAFF their own facilities, meeting requirements set forth by Amtrak?
Would it make sense for Amtrak to run past a large city that has an extremely fiscal conservative population that won’t pay for the upkeep and then stop at a small town that is willing?
The Government can’t sell something to itself.
Drat - I was just getting reved up to go down and lay claim to our Amtrak Depot!
Mook
Amtrak could print their own money and…
oh well, it was a hope. Do they own any of their other stations, or are those mortgaged to the hilt as well?
Brad
I believe I read recently that Amtrak owns about 1/3 of its stations, that local or state governments own about 1/3 and the private railroads or other private individuals own about 1/3. As the man said above, you cant buy them from yourself, and you can’t condemn property owned by the states or local govts, leaving only thr private ones.
Here in NC the state has been upgrading them all, including those planned for future service. For info and pictures see www.byrailorg
[?][8][:o)] The Amtrak station in Mattoon Illinois is located in the old ICRR Depot, which is owned by the City of Mattoon. Amtrak paid Mattoon $1.00 per year for the use of the depot. Two years ago we recieved a multi page letter that was sent registered mail asking to be relieved of the rent payment as they were having difficult financial times. For what they spent on lawyers to draft the letter, someone to type it & finally postage to mail it, they could have rented the building for the next several hundered years.