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Public utility status does not result in an exclusion from Constitutional protections. Indeed, federal and state courts often have reversed federal and state regulatory agency decisions based upon this standard of review: "allowed rates must be fair, just and reasonable including the recovery ...

Things are looking great for the NYC to Scranton service. https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/amtrak-regional-agency-agree-on-study-of-scranton-nyc-service/ SCRANTON, Pa. — Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority have reached agreement on a study to assess a ...

That was my impression as well. There may still be some low hanging fruit available in terms of speed increases, such as curve improvements, grade crossing improvements, and eliminating certain slow orders that have been in place for years. I'm not sure if the geography of the Plaistow-Portland lin...

I don't think it was ever 90 MPH territory. Maximum allowable speed on the B&M in the passenger days was 70 or 75 if I recall correctly, and I can't imagine it was higher than that on the MEC. "Correct" ... from everything I've ever seen 90 MPH passenger trains are a historic "ne...

Interesting to see West Falmouth confirmed as a possible new station. Also interesting to see discussion of potential speed increases. That's a pretty big deal if related to PTC it seems to imply Class 5 operations.

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Interesting to see these ideas coming up ... Rigby certainly has plenty of space to work with. Lots more than most other places. Never thought of that as an asset bit given growth in Boston it makes a lot of sense.

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Great news regarding Acela II. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that they spent all that money putting up new constant tension catenary in the Princeton Junction area before figuring that out, haha! Probably still a good investment. Constant tension still provides better performance...

I am in agreement with CN that the CSX-PAR transaction has real potential to change traffic patterns. Should be interesting to see if that happens. I don't think CN has had to worry about anything happening in Maine for a very long time.

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I think the 5th Amendment arguments about a taking would be appropriate to a business that is not operating a public utility. Railroads are most definitely public utilities and therefore subject to public interest questions in a way that others are not. Amtrak's own creation and existence including ...

Absolutely-- the 'Blue Nose' POSJ/SJPO traffic dented both MMA and CN volumes (mostly MMA) but now it'll surely move CSX to prominent northeast markets. I'm told CSX wants to run Keag to Rigby in one crew in the next 5 years. That would seem to imply flawless Class 2 conditions with minimal enroute...

Still interesting to me that no one seems to know who the other customers for Sprague coal are ... Sappi is biomass boiler is not running at present according to what I've heard ... Not sure if they have a different boiler that could take coal.

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So strange to hear of such high traffic counts down there ... Very interesting and thanks for reporting on it.

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Megabus won't even bother with the market. If the for-profit people are pulling back or ignoring the market entirely, what makes anyone think it's going to increase after a couple million in track upgrades or going to a once-daily pattern of service? That would have been a really good argument agai...

What was the last status on that? It was on the MBTA list right?

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Somebody *REALLY* screwed up ... either they used old lead solder or one of the components wasn't made to spec. With regards to Budd as "greatest ever" ... I would only note that this is only true due to Amtrak's extraordinary maintenance efforts over the years. Amtrak has been forced to d...