Possible North Coast Hiawatha Revival!

[amtrakadirondack]

The Helena MT newspaper reported yesterday (Back On April 8th, 2003) that the state's transportation officials are interested in reviving a southern Amtrak route through Montana, one that would include Billings and Missoula (i.e., the return of the North Coast Hiawatha).

However, the officials are alarmed by the Amtrak Reform Council's call to restructure Amtrak and feel they must hold off on any plans until they know whether they will even keep the present Empire Builder route.

Cool!!!!!!!!

I Hope This Happens!

 

[Amfleet]

Don't get your hopes up. Amtrak president David Gunn has put many route expanding projects on hold. Some of these include Silver Service down the Florida East Coast and Talgo Service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

 

[AlanB]

However, the officials are alarmed by the Amtrak Reform Council's call to restructure Amtrak and feel they must hold off on any plans until they know whether they will even keep the present Empire Builder route.

Those officials need to actually pick up a newspaper once and a while and read it. The Amtrak Reform Council (ARC) is dead. They've delivered their report, Congress largely ignored it, and the group has been disbanded. Their funding is also gone.

Now a few of the more vocal and anti-Amtrak members are still running around using their own monies and pretending like they actually still have some say. The simple truth however is, that the ARC is history.

We still need to worry about Congress and especially our President, but the ARC is no longer a threat.

Amtrak president David Gunn has put many route expanding projects on hold.

You can take out the word many and change it to all. Between David simply exercising common sense, along with the various conditions imposed by Congress and the DOT, there will be no network expansion for at least a year. It may be even longer than that before we see something new.

The only exception would be where a state or other entity was willing to guarantee that Amtrak would incur no losses running the service. Even then it will be very hard to get a new service running.