Free Republic

Vice President Biden, an avowed friend of good government, is giving it a bad name. With great fanfare, he went to Philadelphia last week to announce that the Obama administration proposes spending $53 billion over six years to construct a "national high-speed rail system." Translation: The administration would pay states $53 billion to build rail networks that would then lose money - lots - thereby aggravating the budget squeezes of the states or federal government, depending on which covered the deficits. There's something wildly irresponsible about the national government undermining states' already poor long-term budget prospects by plying them with...

TAMPA - Luis Mercado was on his way from Tampa International Airport to Miami International Airport last week. Instead of heading to an American or Continental Airlines flight, he rode an elevator downstairs to board a RedCoach luxury bus. The half-million dollar coach is equipped with 27 individual leather seats in a bus designed to accommodate twice as many seats, a spacious arrangement with WiFi connections, LCD movie screens and a GPS tracking system. The amenities primarily target business travelers on intrastate trips to compete with air service bedeviled by baggage fees, security line waits and crowded airliners. "I have...

You are our Ruler. An entrepreneur tells you he wants to create something he calls a "skating rink." Young and old will strap blades to their feet and speed through an oval arena, weaving patterns as moods strike them. You'd probably say, "We need regulation -- skating stoplights, speed limits, turn signals -- and a rink director to police the skaters. You can't expect skaters to navigate the rink on their own." And yet they do. They spontaneously create their own order. At last month's State of the Union, President Obama said America needs more passenger trains. How does he...

Amtrak is about to announce a new New Jersey - New York tunnel that will replace the project Governor Chris Christie killed just months ago, according to NJ.com. The tunnel will be exactly the same as the previously proposed tunnel, except that it will end at Penn Station instead of Manhattan's shores. New Jersey Democratic Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez are pushing the project. The tunnel has yet to be funded, and will likely cost $10 billion.

A bald eagle was killed by a train Thursday morning while enjoying breakfast on a stretch of tracks near Abderdeen, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Craig Koppie, an eagle coordinator with the federal agency, said the rare encounter happened in a flash. The bird was eating a deer carcass about 8:30 a.m. as an Amtrak train headed to Washington approached. An engineer spotted the bird and blasted his horn, but the eagle took off too slowly and was hit.

Key Republicans are embracing a major spending initiative outlined in President Obama's State of the Union address. Two top members of the House Transportation Committee said they will push the president's initiative seeking to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail over te course of the next 25 years. "I believe it's good for America to develop a high-speed rail corridor in the Northeast corridor," Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), the chairman of the railroad subcommittee, said according to the Connecticut Post. "It's a place we have to start, we have to accomplish it, because then I believe all...

A powerful House Republican wants Amtrak's chairman and top lawyer fired. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a recent letter to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV that both Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper and General Counsel Eleanor Acheson "unlawfully interfered" with the independence of the rail agency's Office of Inspector General.

California's hugely ambitious and futuristic high-speed rail project will be front and center of the coming showdown between President Obama and House Republicans who are hell-bent on cutting domestic spending. Obama's State of the Union address tomorrow, 6 p.m. PST, will lay out his plan to protect "investment" spending from the GOP axe: specifically infrastructure, energy, education and R&D... .. The conservative Republican Study Committee proposed a list of $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. Rail projects are near the top: the RSC would eliminate Amtrak subsidies and all inter-city and high-speed rail grants. Bankrupt California has already...

40 Years in the Wilderness- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -Since 1971, the federal government has invested a total of $32.4 billion into the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (a.k.a. “Amtrak”). In return for this lucrative investment of taxpayer's dollars, Amtrak has accumulated total net losses of $27.1 billion. If we were to average our investment over the last 40 years, it would equal approximately $810 million per year, yet in 2009 and 2010 U.S. taxpayers have pumped in an additional $1.6 billion and $2.4 billion, respectively. Thus it appears that Amtrak’s drain on our collective pocketbook is increasing. Likewise, if we...

With deer season in full swing, many Mississippians will participate in a time honored tradition of hunting.  This time outdoors allows our people to develop important life skills at an early age and gain a love of nature, which can last a lifetime.  As a sportsman, I know the benefits of hunting firsthand, and as a member of Congress, I remain committed to preserving our Second Amendment rights.Our children and grandchildren should be able to enjoy the same experiences with firearms we have had all of our lives.  Responsible exercise of Second Amendment rights is part of Mississippi’s way of...

A train from Baltimore to Philadelphia stalled on the tracks for ten hours last night. With doors locked and electricity waning, passengers cried and fought for emergency rations. A local news reporter happened to be on board, and tweeted it. D.C. reporter Stephen Tschida, of ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, was on the train as rations fell short, cold set in, and passengers swelled into an anarchic mob. As @ABC7Stephen, he chronicled it all, 140 characters at a time. Here is our brave correspondent's story, unabridged and arranged chronologically:

Just as state officials grapple with a huge budget shortfall, here comes a multimillion-dollar bill for 200 miles of railroad track the state of New Mexico has no plans to use. Records show that the state Transportation Commission voted in August to set aside $2 million in next year's budget for capital improvements along the stretch of train track from Lamy to the Colorado border. That's on top of the $5 million the state promised to pay BNSF Railway Co. to purchase that same stretch of track. State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Megan Arredondo told the Journal that the additional...

Perhaps there is nothing quite so satisfying as seeing someone else “call B.S.” on the gun prohibition crowd, and it happened today courtesy of KOMO’s never-meek Ken Schram, a guy with whom I often disagree, but he's still a pal. Reacting to the hand-wringing from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence over the new Amtrak rules that take effect next month, allowing firearms to be carried in locked, checked baggage, "Schrambo" took off the gloves, and it was the right thing to do. A spokesman for the Brady camp had contended this will “make it easier” for terrorists to...

Amtrak is adding more cars to its trains to accommodate passengers next week, the busiest week of the year for the state’s three passenger train routes, including the “San Joaquin” through much of the Central Valley. On what is anticipated to be the heaviest single travel day of the year for Amtrak — the Wednesday before Thanksgiving – Amtrak expects ridership to reach as many as 127,000 passengers system-wide. Last year, Amtrak carried nearly 686,000 passengers for the holiday week setting a new Thanksgiving ridership record. To accommodate more passengers traveling during this holiday week, more capacity will be added...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. (Jacksonville-AP) -- A Jordanian air marshal, reported missing when he failed to show up for a Royal Jordanian Airways flight, was found yesterday on an Amtrak train in Jacksonville. Drug Enforcement Administration agents conducting a routine drug sweep of the train spotted Ali Ahmad Al-Omari who had been sought since failing to show up Saturday for a Royal Jordanian Airways flight in Chicago. Airline officials, fearing foul play, contacted Chicago authorities, who contacted the FBI. Al-Omari told authorities he was traveling to Miami to visit friends. Bill Hurlburt, a spokesman for...

While officials from Iowa City to Washington, D.C., have lauded a proposed rail from Iowa City to Chicago as a way to boost a struggling economy, some argue the rail simply will not work. "I think there are a number of demographic and economic hurdles to overcome before [the rail] would be viable," said Sam Staley, the director of urban and land-use policy at Reason Foundation in Los Angeles, Calif. Staley was part of a 2006 study on the economic effects of numerous rail lines, including the Hiawatha line between Chicago and Milwaukee, which found that rails might not result...

Illinois officials said Wednesday that Amtrak’s passenger rail link between the Quad-Cities and Chicago will be operational in 2013. Scores of people gathered at Centre Station in Moline to celebrate the Obama administration’s announcement Monday that it would spend $230 million for an Amtrak link between Chicago and Iowa City. The 2013 date is two years earlier than the target U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had announced earlier this week. The Iowa City-to-Quad-Cities connection won’t be operational until 2015, officials say. But Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn told people Wednesday that it will be only three years...

While I was getting ready for work this morning, I noticed an email from MTA that MARC Penn Line trains were experiencing delays. The message, sent at 6:04 a.m. said: Penn Line: Due to police activity near Bowie station and New Carrollton trains in both direction may take a delay of 10 to 15 minutes. I took my usual train, the 513 (which expresses from BWI to DC) and noticed things were going a lot slower than usual for parts of the trip prior to that area. Things got really slow as we got near Bowie including a couple of...

More than 572,000 passengers took Amtrak between St. Louis and Chicago in the just-completed federal fiscal year, a 13.1 percent increase that made the route one of the fastest growing in the country. Springfield is among the stops on the route. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Monday some of the increase — including a record 28.7 million passengers nationwide — resulted from the addition of refurbished cars as the carrier tries to accommodate a steady increase in demand. “It’s certainly notable that, despite gasoline prices that were significantly lower than in 2008, and an economy that is in recession or...

Amtrak set fiscal 2010 records for both ridership and ticket revenue. The rail carrier reports systemwide annual ridership of 28,716,857 passengers in its fiscal year ended Sept. 30 and $1.74 billion in ticket sales. Overall ridership was up 5.7 percent from fiscal 2009, while ticket revenue rose 9 percent. Amtrak, whose ridership has grown by 37 percent since 2000, is using its rising ridership to lobby for more federal funding to update its aging fleet.