Monday, June 22, 2009

WILL AMTRAK GET SOME STIMULUS MONEY ??

I hope that Amtrak will get some of the stimulus money. The route from New Orleans and Florida has been discontinued for years now. The service was suspended after the Katrina Hurricane due to track damage.

Years ago a train fell into the river in Alabama because of the deterioration of the tracks. The reports were supposedly filed every year that the tracks were inspected but that was not the case.

1 comment:

lexslamman said...

Indeed Amtrak is studying restoring the Sunset Limited route east of New Orleans, in addition to studying the restoration of the Pioneer route from Denver through Cheyenne and Boise to Seattle, and the North Coast Hiawatha from Chicago via South Dakotah, southern Montana, and Idaho to Seattle. As funding currently stand only one of these trains will get enough equipment and track upgrades to be restored.

There is some hope, though. There is a bipartisan effort, The Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009, that will provide an unprecedented amount of funds behind high speed rail and public transit. With the kind of money our congressmen are now discussing, all three of those routes could be restored within the next few years. A good start, Ms. Smith, would be to lobby your congressperson and senators for passage of the Act.