Which will be the first to go?

LI Loco wrote:Let's try to focus on what can be done to keep as much of the system intact as possible?

Yes I agree also the Cardinal will not go actually the Government is requried to make it go also my Hit List Pointelly
Sunset east of NOL
Texas Eagle Thru Cars
Lake Shore- Boston Section
Palmeeto
Reduce the Chief to tri-weekly
The Empire Builder is safe fursure also I hope this not the case.

AmtrakFan

Regarding Mr. Greer's comment appearing on the preceeding page, whoever sits in that elliptical office @ 1600 has the Amtrak Appropriation presented to him (her, in the future??) as part of an Omnibus Spending Bill.

There is no line item veto power, it's "take it or leave it".

UNOHOO will make some comment about the "drunken sailors up on the Hill", the Wall Street Journal will editorialize negatively, but UNOHOO will sign it.

Amtrak will get the $$$ contained in it; so will the National Cowgirl Museum, and some professor who "knows someone" will forget what a classroom is and study the mating habits of catfish, to which I have noted in the past "they just do it, dont they"?.

I guess we didn't learn this in PolSci 101.

And that, Mr. Norman, is precisely my point. Thank you for using your well-known eloquence to bolster it. Our focus should be on convincing (threatening?) our elected reps to support Amtrak in the chamber. "You vote for my Amtrak funding and I'll vote for your pet project". I don't necessarily like this process, but it is "the way it is".

waitn4atrain wrote:I beg ot differ Mr. Metra, the occupant of 1600 has no where near the power in this issue as do the congress members from the affected states.

I'm well aware of the differences between the executive and legislative branches, so let me clarify my statement

The President wields considerable influence with the congress being held by his own party (as the political leader of his party). That being the case if Bush decides to push on Amtrak (a question in and of itself) he will likely be successful in getting at least some of his proposals accepted. Of course, we can attempt to counter this by contacting our congresspeople as appropriate.

I don't think this is particularly likely, but that's the way I see it.

The President said he has acquired "political capital" and "plans to spend it." However, that political capital is not unlimited. He will spend it where he thinks he will have the greatest ROI.

Killing Amtrak only appeals to the budget hawks, and he has shown what he thinks of them. His real base these days seems to lie with the religious right - folks who care more about abortion and gay marriage than whether they can see a doctor.

In short, there is little political upside to killing Amtrak. He may get a $900 million appropriation but then have to backtrack when Amtrak faces its next cash crisis, i.e. support a supplemental appropriation.

Privatization appeals conceptually to the neo-cons, but there has to be a market, i.e. viable competitors, to support it, and right now I don't see it in the cards.

Bush's best bet is to work out some formula calling for token state contributions to supporting LD services, e.g. 80-20 formula. It's too late to incorporate it for FY 2005, but look for something to develop for FY 2006 or FY 2007.

To add to the "hit list" of trains going................maybe the Boston Section of the Late for Sure Ltd???

According to Trains Magazine, the Boston Section of the Lake Shore will just be cross-platform at Albany, it will not be coupled to the New York Section.

I was aware of that actually, but I have a little feeling somewhere down the road the the Boston section of the LSL may be frizzled (folded) altogether, unless I'm wrong of course........

I agree that you can't split red-state blue-state hairs on this one, since so many LD routes are literally a lifeline to towns in such red states as Montana and Mississippi. Out of curiosity, not being a numbers-intuitive kind of guy, I graphed $256B (highway budget) vs. a proposed $900M Amtrak appropriation in Excel, just to see how the columns stacked up. It's laughable. The Amtrak column is like the width of the BORDER of the highway column. How will eliminating Amtrak save anyone anything in the grand scheme of things?! I don't know what the federal budget for aviation is, but my guess is that even $1.8B for Amtrak would not even represent .5% of the total transportation budget, which in a perfect world would correlate directly to the percentage of ridership as it shakes out by mode.