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With a new Congress coming to power that's widely believed to have populist leanings (sidebar, p. 23), railroad lobbyists are looking with special care at a new, 95-page General Accountability […]

Amtrak has been granted billions of dollars in federal subsidies since 1971. As a monopoly, its unit costs have been exempt from the competition that has improved the performance of [...]

The myth of the monster trucks Next year, or perhaps sooner, the Congress of these United States will be forced to deal with the issue of bigger, heavier trucks moving […]

Will the rails rebound under Skinner's plan? Samuel K. Skinner the country's secretary of transportation, says he has a vision of transportation in the 21st century. That vision, as outlined [...]

Real progress is being made on several fronts, but a looming shortfall in funding could delay plans for the first true high speed rail system: Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Two pictures […]

Two midwestern utilities burn Powder River Basin coal, railed to their plants in their own trainsets. There the similarity ends, and for one a big problem begins. This is the […]

WASHINGTON -- Nov-28 -- (CongressDaily) Senate GOP leaders will face another test today on a vote to cut off debate on the motion to proceed to a railroad retirement bill. [...]

A railroad retirement bill that would increase employee benefits and could save the railroads more than $400 million a year was reintroduced in Congress last month, and was immediately in […]

are well suited to fill a vacuum in rail industry lobbying that could develop if the Association of American Rail roads is further weakened by railroad consolidations, says Keith Hartwell […]

Reliable is a praise word. Old Reliable is what the New York Yankees called outfielder Tommy Henrich, whose consistency helped them into the World Series four times between 1938 and […]

State legislators and Gov. Gray Davis will decide this spring if they want to start paying into a new $25 billion railroad that would link Sacramento, the Bay Area and [...]

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) is scheduled to hold its annual legislative meeting on March 8 and 9 in Washington, D.C. The Association is using this [...]

Six years of congressional salad days could be ending for railroads in Y2K. Republicans face a strenuous fight to retain control of the House in the 107th Congress that begins […]

In opposition, Labour MPs were falling over themselves to condemn the sale of the railway network. Now Ian Jack finds them strangely silent On the evening of the Ladbroke Grove [...]

The Acela Express, the first of 19 new Amtrak high-speed trains, began serving the Washington-Boston corridor on Dec 11, 2000. However, many more billions are needed to upgrade track and overhead wiring west of New Haven, CT, in order to realize the higher possible speeds of 150 mph, needed to make the trains competitive without subsidy.

Within a few weeks, a Congressional conference committee will be hammering out the details of Amtrak's Fiscal Year 1999 capital appropriation. The final figure should be somewhere between the $609 […]

Of course you remember Harry Bruce, a former chairman and CEO of Illinois Central Gulf (now Illinois Central). Early in his career he viewed rail-roads from the outside looking in--as […]

Recent reports in the business press might lead you to believe that Amtrak is once again on the brink of financial disaster, its deficit soaring to an unmanageable level, its […]

The makeup of the 11-member Amtrak Reform Council, whose members do not require Senate confirmation and whose function is separate from that of a still-to-be-appointed new Amtrak board of directors, […]

The Legislative Policy Committee of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association has developed a seven-point program for 1998: (1) securing final passage and full funding for the small […]

Just when you thought Amtrak had finally acquired more-solid footing, along comes the White House Office of Management and Budget with a draft proposal for FY 1999 that includes zero […]

"The method itself is totally discredited... Its flaws are irremediable... Any attempt at this stage to devise an alternative method would not only be costly but would serve no useful […]

The Federal Railroad Administration has taken considerable and understandable pride in recent times for its successes in bringing people together. First, Administrator Jolene Molitoris held a series of brown-bag-lunch all-day […]

Railroads and rail shippers will be interrogated on numerous economic issues by members of the 105th Congress--revenue adequacy, open access, bottlenecks, whether railroads under the antitrust laws, whether the operation […]

Irish author Samuel Beckett once wondered, "Who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand?" For too long, freight railroads have been rooting about in the sand, too. Enter former […]

During the Presidential election campaign, some folks on the other side poked fun at Bob Dole for allowing as how there was a lot in the good old days that […]

Whether you call it competitive access, forced access, open access, or unbundling, the 105th Congress next year is quite likely to consider applying it to railroads. During the 1980s some […]

I've recently had letters and phone calls from card-carrying members of railroad unions who have renewed my faith in a couple of my old beliefs. One of those beliefs has […]

This is a direct quote from a news release from the U.S. Department of Transportation: "The Federal Railroad Administration and the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense […]