lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 5:59 pm
The Amtrak portion is $1 billion and is meant to fund operations from December to March. There was an Amtrak town hall today and management indicated that if the proposed transit funding in the bipartisan bill makes it into whatever final bill there is they should be able to reinstate daily long distance service and recall some furloughed staff.
Regardless of what apparently was said, "first crack" at that B is to buy gas and pay someone to drive the trains.
I would not get hopes all that high about an LD frequency restoration. For those here who hold they have a place as a transportation resource, as distinct from something that interferes with efficient railroad operations, I wouldn't get "hopes all that high". As I have consistently maintained throughout my twenty years of participating around here, they were to have been gone in an orderly manner, i.e. chop The Cardinal and Sunset Limited before you chop the Lake Shore and Capitol, starting around '76 and likely taking at least five years to complete (never forgetting that had either RPSA70 never been enacted or the roads declined to sign up, there wouldn't be, post de-reg, an LD left today), a tangible step has been taken to be rid of 'em and those "who want 'em gone" are not about to forfeit this step.
Further, let us not forget that the "Lions" from both Houses and the aisles within each, who obstructed cost effective legislation with their "pet trains" are going or gone. The new breed like AOC, and those her age or party notwithstanding, think of Amtrak only as a means to get to get to Wash from a Corridor point. Even "Amtrak Joe" is really only "Corridor Joe".