Get on the phone guys...now is the time to call your Senator

From NARP:

To NARP Members, February 3, 2009--

The Senate may vote this afternoon or this evening on a "kill-high-speed-rail" amendment by Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) to the economic recovery legislation. (No votes will occur before 4 PM Eastern.)

Please contact your Senators with a message like this, preferably by telephone, changing to your own words wherever possible:

Please vote against the Bond amendment to eliminate the $2 billion for high speed rail from S. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Our nation needs to develop U.S. passenger rail. The high-speed rail provision will put people to work immediately and provide long-lasting benefits for our country. The rail component of the economic recovery bill is already a tiny fraction of what is proposed for highways and should not be watered down further.

Please telephone if you can. FAX is second choice, e-mail is questionable unless perhaps to a Hill staffer with whom you have an ongoing relationship (or if it is the only thing you can do--at least it alerts your senators when the next, similar issue comes up, which is better than taking no action.)

Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or go to the Senate website and choose your state from the drop-down menu on the top right of the page.

Ross B. Capon
President
National Association of Railroad Passengers


GUYS, NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD...not just sit around and hope something good happens for rail in America.

What are his reasons? Or is it just opposition for the sake of it?

I've stated my viewpoint of being in favor of investing in HSR in the right places but in no way do I think this is a short-term economic stimulus issue. The only people that the NARP must be thinking of as being put to work immediately are yet more consultants.

Because Kit Bond believes that American workers don't build railroad tracks, signal systems, or rail cars. He believes that these things build themselves, and therefore, since "real Americans" don't like trains, the trains that build themselves will retaliate against real Americans by spending all the stimulus money they earned constructing themselves on junkets to Europe to cavort on French TGV tracks and travel through 100 mph Swiss tunnels.

Gents, lest we not forget highway construction projects are more VISIBLE than are rail - even for passenger rail publicly owned ROW's. In a crisis of confidence, visibility is oh so important. But regardless of what happens with Sen Bond's amendment, I'm confident that passenger rail (albeit much of it "plain old mundane' mass transit) will "get a chunk' under ARRA '09.

Finally, i hope it is noted that to date the Class i railroad industry has not not sought one penny under any Bush or Obama administration's 'stimulus' program.

As far as railroads not asking for stimulus money, Jim Young of UP expressed this opinion back on 1/23/09. (There's also this from a year ago.)

Mr. Amtrakowitz, I absolutely concur with the thoughts of Mr. Young, from the Associated Press article, that all sectors of the economy with freight transportation being one such, will benefit from a substantive recovery of economic activity. If a stimulus initiative is how to get there, as many far more informed and learned than myself hold, then so be it.

Regarding the piece from Pacific Shipping, if one holds that tax benefits represent an appropriation, then I must agree with your point that the railroad industry also feeds at the Federal trough. However, lest we note that in order for a tax benefit, deduction from income or credit frm tax liability, to have any value, there must be otherwise taxable income against which to offset.

I would worry about this bill if we had mccain in the whitehouse and a republican senate/congress, no way will this bill pass.

It is important to immediately fund the renovation of existing Amtrak cars, while at the same time making an investment in the infrastructure of many existing right of ways used by Amtrak and various commuter rail providers.

However, exotic, unsafe and unreliable trainsets and some of the less realistic high speed rail proposals do not even justify funds for further studies. Amtrak needs sidelined coaches returned to service, and various infrastructure projects, such as the installation of emergency back-up generators in NY Penn. These projects are "shovel ready" and will produce the intended stimulus effects in terms of employment.

However, there are many highly dubious high speed rail proposals that don't warrant any spending at all. Moreover, even something as simple as a repeat Acela order, which seems unlikely, would not meet the criteria of being "shovel ready," as procurement would no doubt take much longer than 2 years.

In the end, we need to fund Amtrak, but we don't need to waste money on exotic, unreliable trainsets, and we most definitely don't need to spend taxpayer money studying implausible proposals, such a dedicated high speed rail line terminating in a middle-of-nowhere place like Victorville, CA, or in reviving passenger trains over the old, partially abandoned, former Erie-Lackawanna.

hi55us wrote:I would worry about this bill if we had mccain in the whitehouse and a republican senate/congress, no way will this bill pass.

I would worry about this Bill if we had Obama in the White House and a Democratic Senate/Congress,; no way will this Bill pass (as presented to the Senate floor):

Here is a "brief passage" from an intended New York Times article that was never printed, but rather the content was included in a later article:

• WASHINGTON — Anxious over the ballooning size of the proposed economic stimulus package, now at more than $900 billion, lawmakers in both parties are working on a last-minute plan to strip $200 billion from the bill.
  
  The effort is being led by two centrist senators — Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.
  
  Among the initiatives that could be cut are $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $14 million for cyber security research by the Homeland Security Department, $1 billion for the National Science Foundation, $400 million for research and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $850 million for Amtrak and $400 million for climate change research. But so far, none of the suggestions come close to being enough to shrink the package on the scale proposed.

It appears that Amtrak will have to wait for the "spending bills' to be enacted and the enhanced guidelines authorized by PRIIA '08.

This Stimulus legislation is intended to identify projects that would create jobs - quickly AND visibly. That is why I noted highway construction projects earlier in the discussion. They ARE visible, especially when you are navigating a construction zone - with an 18 wheeler behind you "not exactly' happy with any adherence on your part to the reduced speed limits - $375 minimum fine, speed photo enforced, hit a worker 14 years in jail...etc not withstanding. While I hold that there are numerous "shovel ready' projects about Amtrak's own properties that could be considered "stimulus', that the President's own party seems to have porked up the Bill with funding for National Endowment for the Arts as well as in all likelihood studies on sex lives of the aardvark is jeopardizing the entire intent of such and could well result in a Senate filibuster unless the President gets some moderate Republicans on board. He is trying to reach out, but he knows that compromises must be made - and this Times article is indicative of those that will have to be made.

While I still hold that "there will be something' for passenger rail infrastructure within the enacted legislation, new Amtrak train service to Jerkwater Junction will have to wait.

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:we most definitely don't need to spend taxpayer money studying implausible proposals, such a dedicated high speed rail line terminating in a middle-of-nowhere place like Victorville, CA

IINM, is that not being funded by private monies? Nor is Amtrak to be the operator.

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:or in reviving passenger trains over the old, partially abandoned, former Erie-Lackawanna

WADR, don't agree there. Not only in this particularly harsh winter, but all year round, would passenger service be needed on the former EL through the Poconos, particularly. And frankly, no such service is proposed with Amtrak, but NJ Transit has been solicited for operation, so that's off-topic like the "Desert Xpress".

Gilbert B Norman wrote:new Amtrak train service to Jerkwater Junction

Rhetoric aside, that has been one of the problems with Amtrak foisted upon it by politicians, i.e. no focus on express intercity operation.

The continuing pressure exerted on our infrastructure by both obsolescence and fuel trends (which will be back before we know it) is one to the most serious issues facing us.

But the pork noticed and flagged by Senator Bond is just one of the many examples of the politicization of economic recovery by the high-minded elite who consider themselves President Obama's masters and handlers. Many of us are wise to this, and the margin is growing rapidly.

As evidenced in the recent Trains cover story; the simplistic "Amtrak should turn a profit" argument is now the mantra of a faction as obstinate as some of the most doctrinal urban liberals. Our new President, if he chooses to do so, has an opportunity to defuse a lot of this polarization and set the stage for some serious progress. But the rhetoric, on both sides, has to be examined more closely.

It appears that the Times article from which I quoted a brief passage at an earlier posting got revised; here is the article as revised and which is the lead front page story in the Friday Print Edition:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/us/po ... mulus.html

A review of such will show that there is no longer mention of Amtrak. I have edited my earlier posting to reflect that there has been updated reportage by The Times.

While my 'batting average' for agreement with expressed opinions of Bill O'Reilly is about a .200, I am with him when he noted that the Bill has become "porked" up. The intent of the Bill is to appropriate funds to projects that will provide jobs and VISIBILITY that people are working again (the latter important to FDR); any Tax provisions contained within this stimulus legislation should be directed towards increasing economic activity - tax equality such as a middle income family with income in the $150K range 'slipping into' liability for the Alternative Minimum Tax can be addressed later. 'Arts and aardvarks' are customarily addressed in Spending Bills - so is Amtrak funding.

While I hold that there are numerous "shovel ready' infrastructure projects about the Amtrak property which will result in visibility (and delays) to Northeast rail passengers, funding of the 50 Mass HQ, LD train operations, new rail equipment, and, heaven forbid, NARP's 'vision", will have to wait for the Spending Bills. Again, lest we forget, that PRIIA '08 provides for substantially increased guidelines in the level of Amtrak funding.

I read that times article this morning and I said, good money is still there for amtrak.

Having started three manufacturing companies from scratch, I have, at the very least, some expertise regarding the concept of "shovel ready" or "wrench ready" projects. Long before I ever started the actual manufacturing of my products, I hired staff. I needed planners, purchasing agents, marketing personnel, etc. All of those people needed to contact suppliers and place orders for immediate needs (equipment, supplies). We had to hire contractors to make leasehold improvements in the buildings that we leased (and of course, they had to buy supplies, secure equipment, construct drawings, get permits, etc.). In two situations, we had to redo the sewer hookups between the buildings and the street. I could go on.

What I am saying is that even if the final product is one year, two years, even three or more years into the future, people go to work in the meantime. It is a gradual process, but one that often can be speeded up with a little extra cash in hand. If anyone has the notion that the only legitimate projects are those that put all of the necessary people to work immediately, you are going to be disappointed.

Just a quick comment about the concept of lower taxes to spur investment. While that is a debatable theory, I am of the opinion that, even if it does work that way, the process takes even more time (my personal opinion is that if someone actually invests their income, they deserve the tax break...if they don't, that's a subject for someplace else).

As far as I am concerned, there are good, workable rail projects waiting to happen, from equipment rebuilds to new tracks (sidings, new tracks on existing rights of way, new rights of way), new signals, new systems, etc. When it comes to passenger rail service, there is little question that the US is on the same level as some third world countries when it comes to providing access to rail travel. Whose flag is on the moon?