Free Republic

No deal. That's the decision from the state Department of Transportation, which notified BNSF Railway Co. this week that the state was terminating an agreement to buy 182 miles of unneeded northern New Mexico train track. And Gov. Susana Martinez wants a $2.35 million refund. In 2008, the administration of former Gov. Bill Richardson paid nearly $5 million for the track from Lamy, N.M., to the Colorado border. The segment is used only by Amtrak for twice-daily passenger service. BNSF stopped its freight service there several years ago. The unneeded segment was part of a package deal that enabled the...

QUINCY, Ill. — The Illinois Zephyr — a workaday locomotive and four cars sitting in the predawn darkness in Quincy, Ill. — isn’t the sleek, futuristic image of high-speed travel, but it’s what some Eastern Iowans have worked toward for years. While the effort to bring passenger service to Iowa City by 2015 still faces some political and financial obstacles, trains sponsored by Iowa’s would-be operating partners Amtrak and the state of Illinois continue to draw travelers — 1.6 million in 2010 — from the highways and airways. “It’s pretty convenient,” said Don Huechteman, a Quincy retiree seeing his wife...

Back in June and July of 2009, I spotlighted the Obama corruptocrats’ unceremonious removal of respected veteran Amtrak watchdog Fred Weiderhold (see here and here). Flashback: Who railroaded the Amtrak inspector general? by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2009 Watchdogs are an endangered species in the Age of Obama. The latest government ombudsman to get the muzzle: Amtrak inspector general Fred Weiderhold. The longtime veteran employee was abruptly “retired” last month –just as the government-subsidized rail service faces mounting complaints about its meddling in financial audits and probes. Question the timing? Hell, yes. On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak...

Today’s the big day for Amtrak’s Wilmington train station. It is being renamed in honor of Vice President and former Delaware Senator Joe Biden following major renovations made possible with stimulus funds. One problem: the CEO of Amtrak got stuck on the train. ABC News Deputy Political Director & Political Reporter Michael Falcone tweeted at approximately 10 a.m. that the Acela train he was riding had been “delayed” in Baltimore and that he was sitting next to Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman. Falcone tweeted, “Acela to NY delayed for ‘unknown period’ Should I feel better that the Amtrak CEO is sitting...

IOWA CITY – Elected officials in Iowa City, Coralville and Johnson County say they are willing to spend local tax dollars to help support Iowa City-to-Chicago passenger rail service. The communities had recently indicated they’d be willing to put local funds toward Amtrak service in Iowa City, but they formalized that in a March 11 letter to Nancy Richardson, director of the Iowa Department of Transportation. In the letter, released Thursday, Iowa City Mayor Matt Hayek, Coralville Mayor Jim Fausett and Johnson County Board of Supervisors Chairman Pat Harney listed a variety of potential sources for the local money. Those...

As a thank-you to its most famous customer, Amtrak is renaming the train station in Wilmington, Del., after stimulus “sheriff” Vice President Joseph R. Biden - after the project received $20 million in stimulus money and came in $5.7 million over the initial announced budget. Spokesmen for Mr. Biden, who said he personally fought for stimulus money for Amtrak, didn’t respond to messages Wednesday or Thursday.

A Chicago-bound businessman traveling in an Amtrak sleeping car didn't expect to wake up in Omaha. That's where plain clothes Nebraska State Patrol Investigators boarded and knocked on the doors of four first-class passengers. Greg Travis of Bloomington, Indiana said, "It was a loud knock followed by questions. 'Where are you going! Who did you visit!' They shined a flashlight and I was in my pajamas." Travis said he saw two other groggy passengers in his sleeping car also talking to the investigators. "If I had my wits about me, I might have said, 'No I don't want you looking...

WASHINGTON — In late February, the Transportation Security Administration took over the Amtrak station in Savannah, Ga., and thoroughly searched every person who entered. None of the passengers got into trouble, but the TSA certainly did — big time. Amtrak Police Chief John O’Connor said he first thought a blog posting about the incident was a joke. When he discovered that the TSA’s VIPR team did at least some of what the blog said, he was livid. He ordered the VIPR teams off Amtrak property, at least until a firm agreement can be drawn up to prevent the TSA from...

This has been mentioned in other threads, but deserves its own. Here is a video from 2/13/11 showing a mother and two young children being searched AFTER they got off the train at the Savannah train depot. From the YouTube poster's account: Quote: The only bad thing on our trip was TSA was at the Savannah train station. There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area AFTER you got OFF THE TRAIN! This made no sense!!! Poor family in front of us! 9 year old getting patted down and wanded. They...

HELENA, Mont. -- An unruly passenger who was removed from an Amtrak train later made a threat that led to the train’s evacuation, an Amtrak official said Tuesday. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Hussein Abdi Hassan, 24, was removed from the train in Browning shortly before 8:30 p.m. Monday. While being interviewed by authorities, the Minnesota man “somehow threatened the safety of the train," he said. Nothing dangerous was found. The train was stopped between Browning and East Glacier. Passengers were taken to a middle school in Browning, where they were set up with sleeping bags and air mattresses.

An intoxicated Burnsville man was pulled by law enforcement from an Amtrak train in western Montana and then said with a laugh that a bag he left behind held something dangerous, according to charges. The alleged threat by Hussein Abdi Hassan, 24, prompted evacuation of the 140 or so passengers Monday night from the westbound train amid snow that was blowing and drifting from winds topping out at 90 miles per hour, according to charges filed Tuesday in Glacier County. No bomb was found, but abandoning the train in a treacherous swath of territory was difficult for older passengers and...

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...