February
- March
2010
Crescent
Route
Our feature route this
month is Amtrak's Crescent that travels daily in both
directions between the Big Apple and New Orleans, the Crescent City.
You'll travel from the home of the World
Champion New
York Yankees down the Northeast Corridor to Washington DC. From DC
you'll visit the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama
and Mississippi on the way to your final destination in Louisiana where
the
"Who Dat" XLIV Super Bowl Champion
Saints reside.
If you're a future scholar looking for a
home with
passenger rail service check out the Crescent Route. In addition to the
many esteemed colleges and universities of the Northeast, you'll find
many
more to the south along this route. There's the University of Virginia
in Charlottesville, Clemson University in South Carolina, Georgina Tech
in Atlanta, and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, for example.
The University of Georgia is a 40-50 mile jaunt from Atlanta or
Gainesville, and in Louisiana, LSU is located in Baton Rouge 45 miles
northwest of New Orleans.
If you've got Carolina on your mind,
connect to the
Carolinian or Piedmont trains that provide convenient service to
Raleigh, home
of the North Carolina State Wolfpack, and Durham near Chapel Hill and
the
University of North Carolina.
Once you're snuggly tucked in your new
digs, you might
want to grab one of those dusty old books off the shelf and discover
how the early railroads in the south impacted our nation's history from
civil war times on. Better yet, toss it in your duffle bag on the next
trip home and open it occassionally between dreamy stares out of your
train window at the same land where early railroad history and our
Nation's civil war history was made.
__________________________________
Railroadin'
and Gamblin'
If you've dusted off that old
history book it becomes quite apparent that the
development of railroads in the USA has been at the center of
political bickering and controversy throughout its tortured history.
Nothing has changed and we
Americans of increasingly diverging political ideologies are now living
through another period of railroad development that is almost certain
to get a special bookmark in future history books.
In the recent past rail passenger
service in
the USA has been at or near the bottom of the US Department of
Transportation's totem pole and Amtrak has garnered some dubious
distinctions along the way. For example, using their Program Assessment
Rating Tool (PART), the US DOT gave them the only
"ineffective" rating in
their "Fiscal
Year 2009 Budget In Brief Report".
Thirty
seven
US DOT programs were evaluated.
Amtrak's
performance makes it
excellent cannon fodder for those who espouse that "Railroads are only
good
for two things... hauling freight and people who want to be treated
like freight". Regardless of such comparisons and Amtrak's
performance, if you've been
manhandled at the airport or stuck in rush hour traffic recently, you
may have an even worse analogy when it comes to the business of
transporting people.
We couldn't find a PART analysis in the "Fiscal
Year 2010 Budget in Brief
Report"
published in May 2009 but
a few statistics are given below to put things in perspective.
|
|
| Source - US DOT
FY 2009 and 2010 Budget Briefs |
Those relative percentages have
remained about the same for many years. In a 2002 paper published on TrainWeb
(credited to the
Missouri-Kansas Passenger Rail Coalition and the Ohio
Association of Rail Passengers)
it was stated that Amtrak had then been funded a total of $30 Billion
dollars over its 30 year life.
That compared to about $1.9 Trillion (with a "T") for the aviation and
highway segments
over the same time period. The reason for the discrepancy is
generally
attributed to America's love affair with the automobile and fast,
once convenient airline travel. Other contributing reasons are
attributed to attempts
to "politically kill the beast" by various factions in power over time.
2008 Traveler's Sunset -
View from the Diner near Dyer, IL
|
In any case, now
that America's flame
for highway and air travel has been tempered a bit by time and
circumstances, we find ourselves with the current imbalance that has
indeed left us with a stripped down railroad infrastructure that
facilitates
freight traffic
at the expense of passenger rail service. However, with the passage of
the Passenger Rail Investment and
Improvement Act of
2008 (PRIIA) the stage was set
for making some overdue improvements
to that infrastructure and restoring some balance to our
nation's transportation mix. |
The balancing act continued in January
of this year with the
first significant dispersal of the $8 billion dollars for funding the
development of high speed rail contained
in the Federal Railroad Administration's FY
2010 Budget
Summary as part of the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009.
The Boston Globe map
below shows the proposed extent
of the development.
Click - DOT
18-10 - for an Adobe Reader file
of the USDOT's January 28, 2010
update summary. Click - Fast Lane
- to read the U.S. Secretary of
Transportation's blog entitled "America shouts a collective "Yes" for
high-speed rail".
So, after 40 years of marraige to
Amtrak and a dwindling love affair with highway and air
travel, there's a new flame out there on the horizon. Ray says at his
age he doesn't know whether or not he can handle the stimulation of a
new romance no matter how many pills you give him.
However,
even though
he still wakes up dreaming of steam engines pulling into Union
Station, he does admit that this new heartthrob may inspire him and
others
in saving their long term relationship with passenger rail.
For instance, check out the February
27, 2010 Issue of "This Week at
Amtrak" published by the United
Rail
Passenger Alliance for a recent
editorial take, or their September 9, 2009
Issue that states "Most people have no clue how much
activity
there is currently in the private marketplace for new and innovative
passenger plans. But, it’s there, all working in the glory of
the
free market system."
All that aside for now, given the
current
economic climate,
how the impacted states individually and collectively handle this
purported
"Eisenhower Moment" is at the forefront of today's transportation
industry headlines. For
example, in an article entitled High-Speed Rail Cash Lays
Congressional Track for
Billions More to Follow
published in the February 12, 2010 Energy
& Environment section
of the New York Times, it's stated that "States will likely have to
come up
with their own ways to pay for at least part of the work but that could
prove difficult given the budget crunches that have spread across much
of the country. California and Illinois, for instance, are facing
deficits of roughly $20 billion and $13 billion, respectively." Ray
just sarcastically grumbled to himself... "no sh... kickin' in
the mud ..."
States receiving more than $150
million in federal funds include Florida, North Carolina, Illinois,
Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and New York.
Since we've featured the Crescent this month, let's check out the
Southeast where the action is picking up.
Southeast
High Speed Rail Corridor
Seven states... Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and
Tennessee... have
joined together and formed the Southeast
High Speed Rail
Coalition
to "plan, develop and implement high speed rail in the Southeast." Click
here
for the January 26, 2010 Georgia DOT SEHSR Summit press release.
Two southeastern states with a
big appetite for high speed rail, long time players Virginia and North
Carolina, were summarily rewarded in January with the award of
$620 M in stimulus funds. Other states weren't so fortunate. Here's a
rundown including
selected links to the state
department of transportation websites and other sites and documents of
interest.
North
Carolina - $545,000,000 - Charlotte - Raleigh - to
Virginia
Population:
9,222,414 - State
DOT - Jan
28 Press Release - US DOT Fact Sheet
Source
- John Rottet http://www.newsobserver.com
(Ray has it on good
authority that the whistles
contained no liquid
refreshment)
|
"From the left, Durham
Mayor Bill Bell, Rep. David Price, N.C. Transportation Secretary Eugene
Conti, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson celebrate at Durham Amtrak
depot. Price and Conti are blowing train whistles".
Click -
"State gets $545
million to beef up
rail service"
published in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill News
Observer. |
Virginia
- $75,000,000 - Richmond-Washington, DC Corridor
Population:
7,769,089 - State DOT
- Jan 28 Press Release
- US DOT Fact Sheet
Source
- Karl
Scheetz - VRE at Manassas
National
Railway Historical Society
|
In a
March 8, 2010 article published
in the the Business Section of the Richmond Times Dispatch it was
stated that "The state suffered a
setback in the recent announcement of federal stimulus grants for
high-speed passenger-rail projects across the nation. Virginia sought
$1.8 billion but got just $75 million for its top rail initiative."
Click - "Rail is Virginia’s
transportation future,
officials say"
to read this
Peter Bacque article in its
entirety.
|
Georgia
- $750,000 - Studies
Population:
9,685,744 - State DOT
- Greenville-Atlanta-Macon Corridor
Executive Summary
(August 2008)
Source
- Georgia DOT - Passenger
Rail
|
In her February 19,
2009 "Suporta
Report" entitled "Georgia May Not Even
Get Crumbs for High Speed Rail",
Maria Suporta reported that
"All
Georgia received was a planning
grant for $750,000 to study the feasibility of three high-speed rail
lines — Atlanta to Birmingham; Atlanta to Chicago (through
Tennessee) and a third from Macon to Jacksonville... But there was a
hitch...Because
the $750,000 was for a planning study, the federal government requires
a local match of $750,000. That 50/50 local match apparently had not
been included in the state budget... and so far, the state does not
have the funds in place to meet the matching requirement" |
Similarly an Atlanta Journal
Constitution Political
Insider article entitled
"Welcome
to Georkansas: Suddenly, we have a rail gap"
read in part that (earlier on) "...U.S.
Transportation Secretary Ray
LaHood warned that the Sunshine State (Florida)
needed to get its act together to compete for high-speed rail funds...
Georgia got a
similar warning but didn’t jump to action. It got a $750,000
sliver".
Tennessee
- $0 ARRA
Population:
6,214,888 - State DOT
- Potential Passenger Rail Corridors
Platform
at Memphis
Currently the only major Tennessee
metropolitan area served
by intercity rail
|
Tennessee
is participating with the lead agency (Georgia DOT) in a joint
application for a potential high speed rail line between Chattanooga
and Altlanta. The study was funded separately (not
funded by ARRA) via a $14.2 M study grant
awarded by the US DOT in September of 2009 .
To
read the the Atlanta Journal
Constitution's September 11, 2009 story on the award click - "Georgia high-speed
rail line gets $14.2 million study grant" |
(Ray' says
his gut reaction
is that 'the proposed magnetic levitation project
will never get very far off the
ground.')
Alabama
- $0 ARRA
Population:
4,661,900 - State
DOT
South
Carolina
- $0 ARRA
Population:
4,479,800 - State
DOT
South
Carolina appears to be on the same
bus. The most recent information we could find is an article by Greg
Hambrick published in the April 29, 2009 edition of the Charleston City
Paper "High-speed dreams on
a turtle-trot budget".
Unless we missed something, the SCDOT
is practically silent on the
subject. They list a few "Transit
Projects" in their Comprehensive
List of Projects and touch on
high-speed rail in the Summer/Fall
2009 issue of their TRANSITLINES
newsletter.
More
to the Southeast
Florida
- $1,250,000,000 - Tampa - Orlando - Miami
Population:
18,328,340 - State DOT
- FRA to FL DOT 02-28-10 Award Letter
- Fact Sheet
Source - Florida
DOT -
Federal Economic Stimulus - High Speed Rail Program
|
Further to the
southeast, and handled
outside of the SEHSR Coalition, Florida received the biggest award with
$1.25 B for the development of the
of the Tampa-Orlando-Miami corridor.
Since we've wandered away from the Crescent route a bit, and the since
the political saga that has accompanied the development of passenger
rail in Florida warrants its own story, we'll leave Florida for
now. But first... |
With all of the
Federal Funds
being disbursed, we thought it would be a good time to again ask
Mr. La
Hood, the
FRA and the National Railroad Passenger Corporation the
question: "On what exact date
does Amtrak Plan on restoring the 'suspended'
Sunset Limited
service
between Orlando and New Orleans?" Click
here
to take
Ray's poll on this question and help us check out our new polling
feature.
The above article was
inspired in part by Uncle Dave Macon's "Railroadin' and Gamblin' "
(YouTube
- Link Removed by contributor)
(This footnote modified 10-15-2010)
__________________________________
Denver
Union Station Update
In the June 2009 issue of Train
Times we presented an
overview of the Denver Union Station Renovation
Project. Here's a
status update as of March 12, 2010.
Federal
Loan
|
We had no idea of what was in
Santa's
sleigh when we sent out our 2009 Christmas Greeting. Surprise,
surprise -
Click - "Feds put $424 million into FasTrack,
Union Station"
to read the February 6, 2010 Denver Post article by Mike
McPhee that begins: "The announcement of
a $304 million
federal
loan Friday gave the green light to the redevelopment of Union Station
as a major Front Range transportation hub."
|
Colorado
Rail Passenger Association Civil Action
Not
so fast! Colorado
Rail Passenger Association's
lawsuit that was filed
on May 18, 2009 has still not been decided in
Federal Court. So, amid all of the hoopla that accompanied the new
Federal Loan, ColoRail filed for a Temporary Restraining Order
on February 24, 2010
to prevent construction work from starting on the DUS Project until the
case is decided.
As reported in Denver
Westward on
February 25, 2010 in an article entitled "Union Station construction: ColoRail
files for
restraining order to stop it"
"ColoRail Board President Ira Schrieber says
the shovels shouldn't be allowed to hit the dirt... 'Obviously the more
they dig, the more they will have an argument that they can't turn back
now... They could say, 'The chickens are out of hen house and
we
can't round them back up'.' Schreiber thinks the lawsuit should be
wrapped up soon enough. With just a few more rounds of lawyerly briefs
and replies to be filed in court, he estimates the U.S. District Judge
John Kane will rule on their suit within six weeks."
Unfortunately for ColoRail, Judge Kane
declined to issue the restraining order on February 26th
ruling
that RTD and the authority in charge of the redevelpment hadn't been
properly served and therefore he could not act on the motion.
ColoRail's consul said it was just a 'glitch' and would be
taken
care of and indeed it was.
On March 12, 2010 ColoRail filed a "Final TRO"
and a consolidated "Amended Complaint"
(Civil Action No.
09-cv-01135-REB Consolidated with Civil Action No. 10-cv-00462-REB).
Stay tuned...
Construction
__________________________________
Website
News at Rail Passenger USA
Amtrak
Updates
Lynchburg,
VA Station
Source - USA Rail
|
Amtrak
updated a few
of their northeast regional timetables
effective January 18,
2010. In addition to the changes reported here last month, the Northeast Corridor 4 timetable
was added to
include expanded Amtrak service between Boston, MA/Springfield,
MA and Lynchburg, VA. (Ray says that
he figured it would be more
appropriate to report the update in this issue, but in reality we just
missed it in the
transition.) Click on the
link below or to go to the Amtrak
website to view the new timetable. |
Click here
to view the Rail Passenger USA Lynchburg station page for the Crescent
Route. Eventually we'll prepare a Route Guide for the expanded NEC 4
route.
Wikimapia
Project
In the process
of linking Rail Passenger USA station pages to the
corresponding Wikimapia pages, we've noticed that many of the Wikimapia
links to the Amtrak Station information pages need to be updated to
reflect the current URL addresses incorporated by Amtrak in their
October 2009 website reconfiguration.
Rail
Passenger USA has been updating these links as we refresh our own
website. However, we've not checked or corrected all of them. If anyone
would like a Wiki Project to work on, a good one would be to
check the Amtrak Station links
on Wikimapia.and make the
necessary corrections.
Rail
Passenger USA Route
Guide Tip
We've tried to include a
bit of area history for each of the station stops described in our
route guides. This has been done by linking the large photo on Page 2
of each station stop description to an area history website or other
site of local
significance. For example, an article describing the "Wreck of the Old 97"
is opened in a new browser
window or tab when clicking
on the "Dan River" photo presented on "Crescent Danville P.2"
of our Cresent Route
Guide.
Photo credits for the larger photographs on our site are shown
separately in a
text box located above the right, top corner of each large photo. Click
on the link(s) in those text boxes for photo copyright information.
Happy
Rails to You!
Ray York
Rail Passenger USA
__________________________________________________
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here to send us an email or subscribe to our newsletter
Rail
Passenger USA is a free website founded by Ramblin' Ray, an old train
travel addict who devotes most of his time to mapping USA passenger
railroad routes and preparing route guides to share with others via his
website.
www.railpassengerusa.com
|
