Free Republic

During the 2004 campaign our Executive Director contacted the candidates running for Congress from the 5th and 8th Districts to ask about their support for passenger rail. When he reached an aide to the Republican candidate for the 5th District seat, he received the answer, "We support passenger rail only if it pays for itself." Our Executive Director works with political figures day in and day out, so he's something of a diplomat. Had I been on the phone, I would have shot back, "When did I-90 ever pay for itself?" Hanging around conservative Republicans like I do, time and...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The newly reauthorized federal transportation bill allocates $45 million for a super high-speed train connecting Las Vegas to Anaheim, a project that was first proposed over 17 years ago. "I believe the Maglev train will be the future of travel between places like Southern Nevada and Southern California," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who helped secure funding. "Airports are overburdened with the amount of short-haul flights and we must start reinvesting in train travel." Maglev (magnetic levitation) uses high-powered magnets to propel trains above an elevated track. Since there is no...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. A 300MPH super-train connecting Liverpool to London in only 58 minutes is being planned. The Maglev train - which uses magnetic power to support carriages on a guide track and propel them up to speeds of 311mph - would connect London with Glasgow, via Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh, over a 500 mile route. The UK Ultraspeed consortium behind bringing the train to Britain says Liverpool could be the first link to be established. Business leaders including the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and North West Development Agency believe the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Good grief! Automobile travelers are routinely delayed as the result of chronic highway congestion, and air travelers face chronic delays, security concerns and long lines. Who gets punished for all this mayhem in transportation? The traveler who opts for the convenience and efficiency of passenger rail – Amtrak What could be more anti-American then the United States government cutting out or reducing the nation´s passenger rail system. It boggles the mind that the administration of President George W. Bush and the legislators of the United States Congress can't see the tremendous...

Traveling by rail is fast, comfortable and efficient. Well, maybe it was in some bygone era. Today, Amtrak almost isn't even worth traveling by. Back in September, I took a train from San Francisco to Eugene, Ore., and I was appalled at how terrible it was. The train was three hours late, apparently because it was caught behind slow-moving freight trains somewhere near L.A. On the way up through northern California and southern Oregon, there were stretches when the train was moving so slowly I literally could have reached Eugene faster on foot. Later on, I took another train from...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, is waiting for the day when there are four daily passenger train routes between Quincy and Chicago. Before that happens, Harnish said Congress must fully fund Amtrak. In fact, he hopes the United States makes high-speed passenger rail a priority. "We could be done with a high-speed route between Chicago and St. Louis in two or three years once we get the funding," said Harnish, who spoke at a joint meeting of the Quincy Area Chamber of Commerce and the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. It's a standard Washington story of clashing forces. The president threatens a veto if Congress passes a new multibillion-dollar transportation bill costing more than his budget allows. The House goes along with the $283.9 billion he recommends, but the Senate adds an extra $11 billion. The measure heads for conference. Will Congress dare defy the president? If it does, will the president veto — or flinch? But don't be fooled. Veto or not, there will be a final surface transportation bill, a little short of $300 billion for the next five...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Study shows new £16bn line could relieve transport chaos Described as "flying on the ground", Shanghai's 270mph magnetic floating railway has impressed British ministers. But plans to build a London to Scotland line would cost at least £16bn, according to feasibility studies sanctioned by Downing Street. Known as the Maglev (magnetic levitation) train, China's flagship transport system takes eight minutes to hurtle along a 19-mile track through the paddy fields surrounding Shanghai airport - a journey which takes up to an hour by car. The sleek white carriages, first of their kind...

OP-ED COLUMNIST Nearly five years ago, as Amtrak officials were hailing their new Acela train as "a giant step forward" for America and "the kind of rail system we've all been dreaming about for decades," a former Amtrak official named Joseph Vranich offered another perspective. "I say without equivocation," he told The Hartford Courant, "that the Acela program is turning into the world's worst high-speed program." I quote him now not merely because he was right, but because he offers a useful model for coping with the latest Acela fiasco, the shutdown of service because of faulty brakes. The passengers...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Those who spoke during the East Texas Corridor Council's inaugural meeting Friday delivered a unified message to the more than 100 people who attended the meeting. The partnerships exemplified by the crowd who attended the meeting at the Longview Public Library will be necessary to bring higher-speed rail to this area, many of the speakers said. Former Marshall mayor and rail advocate Audrey Kariel kicked off the meeting Friday, noting the presence of representatives of Union Pacific, Amtrak and the Texas Department of Transportation. A number of elected officials and other...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Securing higher-speed rail service through East Texas is the focus of a group that will hold its inaugural meeting Friday in Longview. The East Texas Corridor Council will meet at 10 a.m. Friday in the Longview Public Library. Griff Hubbard, the Longview Amtrak station manager, said that between 125 to 150 people are expected to attend. Hubbard has been working with the group's steering committee, which has been meeting regularly since September. "(Higher-speed rail) is extremely important," Hubbard said. "Higher-speed rail is going to be a necessity for our children and...

Traffic: Can't live with it; can't live without it. That's the dilemma Dallas leaders face as they survey the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's plan for a new network of highways crisscrossing the state to be built as toll roads by private companies. Dallas' interstates are choked with traffic, but if Mr. Perry diverts that traffic – especially the long-haul commercial trucks – beyond the city limits, he will siphon off the city's economic lifeblood. No wonder city leaders are squawking over preliminary maps that show the new corridor being located as far as 50 miles from Dallas' doorstep....

Union Pacific plans signal, yard changes; more diversions possible The nation's largest railroad moved to help relieve a nagging rail bottleneck in Chicago, promising to centralize signals in Iowa and improve rail yards in Chicago. But the extensive--and expensive--plan by Omaha-based Union Pacific Railroad to upgrade its system might derail further rail traffic diversions around Chicago only temporarily. Union Pacific executives said Monday that without congressional approval of a federal transportation program to fund a $1.5 billion upgrade of the Chicago freight system endorsed by Mayor Daley and state officials, more railroads are likely to bypass Chicago altogether. "We have...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Midwest group points to holiday travel problems SOUTH BEND -- On Monday, airlines were trying to comfort angry passengers. Drivers were digging their cars out of snow-covered ditches in the Midwest. And the Indiana High Speed Rail Association made its customary appeal to the federal government -- develop high-speed rail, sooner than later. The association sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta on Tuesday, suggesting the department make high-speed rail development in the Midwest "the centerpiece" of its transportation policy. Speedy trains could have lessened the blow to air...

After nine days, Scott MacLeod was ready to believe his missing luggage could be anywhere. "Oh, they could be in Atlanta. Or Costa Rica. Or Russia. Or . . ," the good-humored MacLeod said with a shrug while waiting outside Delta's baggage claim office in Buffalo Niagara International Airport. MacLeod and his wife, Rebecca, had flown into Buffalo from a business trip to Costa Rica via Houston and Atlanta, respectively, to spend the holidays with Rebecca's family in northeastern Pennsylvania. After a half-hour, the Tallahassee, Fla., couple pulled a dark green suitcase from among the several hundred unclaimed bags in...

DES MOINES -- A high-speed rail network radiating from Chicago's Union Station through nine Midwestern states could carry 13.6 million passengers annually by 2025, according to a new report. The Midwest Regional Rail System report released Tuesday confirms the viability of a 3,000-mile rail network stretching through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin, said Mark Wandro, Iowa's transportation director. Trains would travel at speeds of up to 110 m.p.h., cutting hours off trips between major cities. The study, led by Transportation Economics & Management Systems Inc., a Frederick, Md.-based consulting firm, said significantly reduced travel times,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. So you decide with the family that a weekend trip up north in the state would be a fine idea. You pack out that night and then log on to Yahoo! Maps and find out, in ghastly horror, that two hours of your trip takes you onto the death highway: the dreaded Interstate 81. Great. This is where they drive too slow for you in the right lane, so you move to the left and get blown out of the way by a truck going 80 miles per hour, or you...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. A vote in Florida next week over whether to invest public money in high speed train transportation could reverberate in Tennessee in the coming years. In Florida, voters will decide whether to move forward with a $40 billion high-speed rail system that would connect the state's largest cities. A similar system is in the planning stages in California, where high-speed trains will connect San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The cost is an estimated $37 billion. Voters were to decide next week whether to fund the first leg of the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. EDMONTON (CP) - Rapid population and economic growth in Alberta over the last 10 years has made a high-speed rail link between Edmonton and Calgary feasible, says a new study by a transportation group. "The corridor now has the critical mass to support a high-speed rail system," Art Smith, chairman of the Van Horne Institute which conducted the study, said in a news release Tuesday. The study says the rail line could be established in two ways: by using the existing Canadian Pacific Railway freight corridor (at an estimated cost of...

Wordy but worth it for FR's rail fans...TRAINS News Wire for September 3, 2004 [snip] Amtrak drops the mail, will eliminate some trains and routes, and lay off 300 employees WASHINGTON, D.C. - Amtrak announced today it will discontinue hauling mail for the U.S. Postal Service in order to concentrate on its core business of transporting passengers. As a result, some Amtrak services that were scheduled primarily to accommodate mail and express business are being reduced or eliminated. "Mail and express no longer makes business sense for Amtrak and has negatively impacted the quality of our passenger service, so the...

MINNEAPOLIS - On Saturday, June 26, the quality of Andrew Brantingham's life took a sudden - and rather dramatic - turn for the better. On that day, the first segment of Minneapolis' long-awaited, much ballyhooed - and still controversial - Hiawatha high-speed light-rail line opened. For now, it stretches from the funky Warehouse District in downtown Minneapolis to Fort Snelling, a historic site and state park in southeast Minneapolis. But in December, the remainder of the 12-mile system will open, linking the downtown with Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington. And Brantingham, 23, is so...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. It´s not a very fashionable idea, but we suspect that railroads are both the past and the future. A few years ago rail service was added back to Oklahoma with a route between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth. The traffic on that route has continued to build (up 18 percent in just the past year) and the train now runs almost full. We continue to hope that rail service will be expanded from Oklahoma City to Kansas City some day, and that when it is, that lawmakers will notice how much...

Freight railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. said Tuesday that profit rose nearly 25 percent in the April-June period on record shipments and higher prices. Revenue rose to $2.69 billion from $2.29 billion a year earlier, topping analysts' forecast of $2.61 billion in sales. excerpt

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Support for train station renovations, commuter rail line at top of list as Amtrak CEO visits Lancaster today. LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - We won't be able to build ourselves out of our future travel needs by simply adding more roads. So rail service, already "of vital significance" to Lancaster County, will be getting even more important in years to come. That's what Lancaster-area leaders were planning to tell David Gunn, the president and chief executive officer of Amtrak, during his visit here today. "I think we have a strong case to...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Oklahoma transportation officials today plan to review the possibility of working with Texas on the Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive interstate transportation plan. The corridor, a 4,000-mile network, would tie central roads, high-speed roads and utility lines across Texas and its neighboring states. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the plan provides a 50-year vision for transportation, and its final cost is estimated at $183 billion. Plan presentation Team members from Chiang, Patel, Yerby Inc., a Dallas-based company that is one of the finalists for the project, will present the plan...

(Associated Press) ORLANDO, Fla. - A road builders' lobbying organization gave $330,000 of the $1.3 million collected for a petition drive aimed at derailing Florida's bullet train project, according to a campaign finance report filed Monday. Moving Florida, a political action committee established by the Florida Transportation Builders Association, was the largest contributor to DErail the Bullet Train (DEBT) during the year's second quarter. "We're the same people that would probably build the bullet train if it were built," FTBA president Bob Burleson said. "Believe it or not, sometimes we try to think of the greater good. If there were...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- According to a new study, the idea of a commuter train service connecting Raleigh to Wilson and Goldsboro is feasible and affordable. The study, commissioned by officials in the Wake County town of Knightdale, concludes that building the 100-mile rail system would cost about $125 million. That is less than the typical cost of eight miles of urban freeway.

DALLAS - Greyhound Lines Inc. will stop bus service to many small towns between Chicago and Seattle to cut costs and focus on its most profitable routes. The company announced Friday that it would close 260 stops, leaving 99 in its 13-state northern region effective Aug. 18. Greyhound will make similar changes in other regions of the country over the next two to three years, said chief executive Stephen E. Gorman.

Fox News reporting train (possibly Amtrak) being evacuated near Cumberland, MD, west of Washington, D.C.

Fox News reporting that an Amtrak Train has been evacuated near Cumberland, Maryland. There appearently were concerns about the route earlier. Updates will follow when available.

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. TEMECULA ---- The number of Southern Californians crossing the region by rail soared 12-fold over the last quarter century, and trains will be more important in the future, regional planners said Thursday. But first, measures are needed to boost passenger capacity of commuter and inter-city rail systems. Rail's rapid rise in the transportation arena was highlighted at the semi-annual meeting of a pair of regional planning agencies: the San Diego Association of Governments of San Diego County, and Southern California Association of Governments, which covers Riverside, Imperial, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura...

(Penn Station-WABC, May 21, 2004) — There are new concerns about rail security after a surge of suspicious activity in the Northeast. The new FBI warning has law enforcement agencies again tightening security on trains. Eyewitness News has learned that just last night, three Amtrak trains were stopped and searched after unspecific, anonymous threats were called in. Two of those three trains were from Baltimore just outside Philadelphia. But this still raises concern here in the NY area. Investigators have focused on the New York-Washington D.C. rail service, which is the busiest commuter rail network in America. The FBI is...

Many experts believe fast trains will one day play a prominent role in California transportation. But there is sharp disagreement over which type of high-speed rail system is right for the state. On the one hand, the California High-Speed Rail Authority selected traditional steel-wheel trains running on steel tracks for its proposed $37 billion, 700-mile statewide passenger rail network that would connect San Diego and Riverside counties with Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento. In 2001, the rail authority board rejected the sexier magnetic levitation, or maglev, technology as untested, too costly and impractical for narrow urban corridors. On the...

On May 11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unleashed a new clean-air rule that further cuts diesel emissions from off-road vehicles, generators, locomotives and marine vessels. The new “Tier 4” mandate is EPA’s fourth step since introducing off-road standards in 1996, and it lowers such pollution by 90% (ENR 6/23/03 p. 13). The rule varies across engine sizes, but most producers will reduce nitrogen-oxide levels in new engines to 0.3 grams per brake-horsepower-hour and particulates to 0.01 g/bhp-hr by 2014. Under the new rule, EPA is not requiring pollution controls on existing machines in the field. Off-road fuel also is...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. With services on the high-speed, Taipei-to-Kaohsiung railway set to start in 18 months, the company in charge of the project yesterday revealed preliminary train service plans, ticket pricing and seating arrangements. According to Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) spokesman Edward Lin, when the bullet trains start operating in October next year, the company plans to offer five types of service, ranging from 80 minutes on the express train to 117 minutes with stops at every station between the capital and the nation's second city. Traveling at speeds of up to...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Times reports that the backers of two multibillion-dollar, high-speed rail projects are throwing their support behind a plan crafted by the California High-Speed Rail Authority to bring its San Francisco-to-San Diego maglev rail line through Los Angeles. At the same time, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) hopes for a magnetic-levitation system that would criss-cross Southern California. The California High-Speed Rail Authority recently held a public hearing today in Los Angeles on its draft environmental report. The $37 billion project calls for running electric...

Our position: Gov. Bush's continuing efforts to smother high-speed rail is an affront to voters. Marie Antoinette at least offered cake to the suffering masses. Gov. Jeb Bush would offer little more than noxious exhaust fumes. Despite a voter mandate in 2000 for the state to build a bullet train connecting large metropolitan areas in Florida, Mr. Bush continues to ignore the popular will. Instead of moving forward with tenuous plans to advance the project, he has vetoed nearly every dollar that lawmakers have earmarked over the years. What's more, he has joined a special-interest-laden effort to have voters reconsider...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The British conglomerate Virgin wants to run Florida's proposed bullet train network. Virgin, which operates railroads in the United Kingdom, an airline, a travel company and various entertainment companies, announced Friday it has agreed to drive the trains planned between Tampa and Orlando and eventually Miami. Virgin would fill a critical hole in Florida's private train team. The company picked to design and build the project, the Fluor-Bombardier partnership, has no experience at running a railroad. "We're actually ready to rock and roll on it," said Virgin Group director Will Whitehorn. "We've spent an awful lot of...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. On May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed, thus laying the tracks for a new era in American transportation. Over the past 135 years, the method of traveling by train in the United States has largely been abandoned to give way to travel by air and by car. Now in 2004, there are hopes of resurrecting this great lost method of travel. The April 13 Battalion reported the possibility of completing a high-speed rail from Killeen to Houston approximately 20 years from now. According to the Texas High Speed...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. W. Corridor among six new light-rail lines in FasTracks The federal government has agreed to approve the proposed West Corridor light-rail transit line from Denver to Golden. It is the first of six new rail-transit corridors planned by the Regional Transportation District as part of its $4.7 billion FasTracks plan to get environmental clearance for construction. "We're very excited about this," Lakewood Mayor Steve Burkholder said. "We've spent many years working with the neighborhoods, RTD, CDOT and the people at the Federal Center, a lot of hard work." Lee Waddleton, the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The commuter train plan from Lovejoy to Atlanta is the least expensive transportation program of any solution being proposed. It will cost a little more than $4 million a mile to do everything needed to get trains in operation. Some will tell you that's too expensive. Yet the HOV lanes needed for the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority's Northwest Connectivity bus project on I-75 and I-575 will cost more than $30 million a mile to build, and their Bus Rapid Transit is estimated to cost $20 million a mile. GRTA's Regional Transit...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. FITCHBURG -- Andrea Lally of Fitchburg has found a way to beat the traffic congestion on her way to work every morning. She rides the train. "I don't like the driving," Lally said, sitting alone on a blue and red bench seat on a recent early morning ride into Boston on the commuter rail. "It's too stressful." Lally, 39, depends on the commuter rail every weekday to get to downtown Boston, where she works as an archive specialist at a law firm. She leaves her mid-size Buick at home, choosing instead...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Madison's economic development efforts require more and better intercity transportation connections. While the airline industry is restructuring, let's look at one transportation solution that can help travelers move more easily around the Midwest - modern, fast, comfortable and convenient high-speed rail service linking Madison to Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities. A recent Capital Times editorial, "Keeping jobs in Madison," connected the shortage of high-quality jobs coming to Madison with its lack of transportation links: "It could turn out that the development of a high-speed rail connection to O'Hare International Airport...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 7, 2004--The United Steelworkers of America today hailed the passage of federal legislation calling for a major expansion of the high-speed magnetic levitation ("maglev") transportation system deployment program. The measure was included in the House bill reauthorizing the nation's surface transportation system and is similar to legislation approved by the U. S. Senate in February. The bill promotes the development and deployment of maglev systems to build passenger rail transportation at speeds in excess of 240 miles per hour. USWA President Leo W. Gerard said the maglev program has...

U.S. rail crunch could snarl Asia trade Don Phillips Monday, March 29, 2004 International Herald Tribune Freight congestion has spread across the Union Pacific Railroad system, especially in Southern California and the southwestern United States, raising concern about the effects on America's trade with Asia. If a solution is not found before the rail freight rush begins in the late summer and autumn, the slowdown could disrupt trade through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, just two years after a West Coast port strike caused chaos. Railroad officials say that has not happened yet and add that they...

Update on Madrid Investigation Compiled By: Ryan Mauro tdcanalyst@optonline.net Due to breaking developments in the Madrid bombing investigation, WorldThreats.com felt readers should be updated. We feel it is best to do this by proposing the three theories in this article. ETA Theory 1. Press reports since December 2003 did indicate that ETA was mobilizing for new terrorist attacks in Spain. 2. ETA has long been the traditional internal enemy inside Spain, and thus, rightly so, is the main suspect at first. 3. ETA traditional gives phone-call warnings before attacks. A blackmailer or blackmailers, previously unknown, sent threatening letters to the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Commission proposed Wednesday to liberalize cross-border passenger rail services by 2010 and to force rail companies to compensate passengers for late or canceled services. It also put forward measures to boost the use of freight trains in Europe. European Union Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said more competition for such international connections as the Thalys and Eurostar high-speed trains was needed, and cargo by rail must acquire a much greater market share. "The lack of quality assurance for freight services ... has a negative impact on...

The French railway system, long the envy of British travellers, is badly maintained, deeply in the red and a hostage to self-interested trade unions, says a book to be published tomorrow in Paris. SNCF: La Machine Infernale, written by three investigative journalists paints a sorry picture of what many tourists consider the most obvious triumph of the French public sector. French railways, the authors argue, survive only because of £7 billion annual taxpayer subsidies and politicians terrified of confronting a deeply rotten system. Their main thesis is that France's railways are now moving at two speeds. First there is the...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Amtrak President David Gunn said Tuesday that President Bush's proposal to give the railroad just over half what it sought in federal subsidies would shut it down just as more passengers than ever are taking the train.</p> <p>For Fiscal 2005 starting in October, Amtrak formally asked for $1.798 billion, or about $300 million more than it received for 2004. That includes a $570 million operating subsidy, repayment of a $100 million government loan and $791 million for replacing rails and ties, repairing bridges and overhauling major equipment.</p>

<p>The high-speed maglev train project is making a long, slow -- and maybe final -- stop in the U.S. Congress.</p> <p>Federal lawmakers are expected to vote within the next few months on whether to appropriate more money for planning and possible construction of the magnetic levitation train as part of a six-year transportation funding package.</p>