From NYTIMES

[clearfork]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/opinion/...tml?ref=opinion

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Excellent editorial. They ought to put that Amtrak funding appropriation inside the next Iraq funding bill with the comment: "The requested additional "emergency" Iraq funding alone would have funded Amtrak at it's annual funding level (for recent years) for over 100 years".

 

[RailFanLNK]

That was a great article. I had my annual "ride" yesterday with a supervisor. He wants to take his wife on Amtrak and take her from LNK to GSC as a "weekend getaway" from the stress of work/kids etc. I'm going to print that article out and give it to him. I really liked the whole article.

Al

 

[had8ley]

Now that the monies in the funnel will we get service restored to the Sunset or are they having a hard time finding a PR person who will stand up and admit they have, in effect, abandoned service between New Orleans and Jacksonville?

 

[AmtrakWPK]

I suspect that for Amtrak HQ the appropriation is irrelevant on Sunset - they apparently intend to hold that Southern Transcontinental Route hostage until FL, MS, AL, and LA collectively come up with whatever Amtrak considers sufficient ransom. Personally I think we need to move Amtrak HQ to Tallahassee, Pensacola, or someplace on the rail path between the two. That should do the trick to restore service on Sunset. Why is it that so much of this company's official behavior makes it look like the south end of a northbound horse?

 

[George Harris]

I suspect that for Amtrak HQ the appropriation is irrelevant on Sunset - they apparently intend to hold that Southern Transcontinental Route hostage until FL, MS, AL, and LA collectively come up with whatever Amtrak considers sufficient ransom. Personally I think we need to move Amtrak HQ to Tallahassee, Pensacola, or someplace on the rail path between the two. That should do the trick to restore service on Sunset. Why is it that so much of this company's official behavior makes it look like the south end of a northbound horse?

Because they are sitting up in the northeast where the normal concept of geography is unrealistic. I had a conversation in the office yesterday - in San Francisco - with at guy that spent most of his life in the New York to Boston area that had as part of it that he viewed Chicago as in the west and that Salt Lake City could be regarded as a west coast region city.

Yes, Amtrak HQ should be place somewhere much further west that Washington DC or Philadelphia. Preferably in a city that is not a major hub for any airline. If nothing else, their headquarters operating expenses should go down dratically.

 

[Penn Central]

Maybe Wyoming or South Dakota ? They couldn't favor any particular Amtrak route, and would DRASTICALLY reduce operating costs of their HQ .

 

[frj1983]

Maybe Wyoming or South Dakota ? They couldn't favor any particular Amtrak route, and would DRASTICALLY reduce operating costs of their HQ .

Ahh,

But then they would have to be flying back and forth to DC all the time and some where along the way, some congresscritter is going to ask "How come you're not taking your own trains?"

Personally, I'd like to see them settle in Chicago! Sort of half-way between East and West...perhaps it might improve communications through all parts of the company!

 

[AmtrakWPK]

None of those would force a return of Sunset. Move HQ to Tallahassee or Pensacola. That would shame them into restarting Sunset between NOL and Florida. And if it didn't shame them into it, all those folks down there that are REAL HOT about the discontinuance of their one and only train would probably make HQ sufficiently miserable with the continuing complaints that they'd give up and restart it. As it is, they are sitting there on the NEC doing their best to ignore the rest of the network, and pretty successfully. It would also get Amtrak HQ and CSX HQ BOTH into North Florida (CSX is in Jacksonville) and maybe they'd talk once in awhile and improve the AMTRAK-OTP-on-CSX-tracks issue.