Hotline
Your weekly source of fresh takes on news affecting America's passengers. See also the RPA Blog.
Hotline #730
July 17, 1992
The Senate returns on July 21 and likely will take up transportation appropriations soon. Any NARP member with a Senator on Appropriations should tell him or her that the House figures for Amtrak capital and the Northeast Corridor were unacceptable. The Food and Drug Administration "generally approved" on July 15 Amtrak's program for long-term compliance with their earlier consent agreement. This week, the FDA told NARP that "once we engaged Amtrak, we found their people to be cooperative and r
Hotline #729
July 10, 1992
The full House last night approved the 1993 DOT appropriations bill, H.R.5518, 306-74. There was a long debate, mainly over an amendment by Rep. David Obey (D.-Wis.). That was a variation of last March's bill to break down the "firewall" between domestic and other spending, as set up by the 1990 budget agreement. This time, the proposal was to take $2.6 billion in spending authority from foreign aid programs and transfer it to Public Works transportation programs, in order to stimulate the econ
Hotline #728
July 3, 1992
The full House Appropriations Committee approved this week the fiscal 1993 DOT appropriations bill. It has the subcommittee-passed Amtrak numbers, including just $74 million for capital -- 58% below this year's capital grant of $175 million, which was the House-passed number then, and 75% below Amtrak's 1993 request of $300 million. This is alarming. The number could become a baseline for future years, when Amtrak may face less sympathetic appropriations leaders (at least in the House). Also, $7
Hotline #726-C
June 26, 1992
Late last night Congress sent a bill to the White House that President Bush will sign. It sets the railroads running again, provides for a 38-day cooling-off period, and then baseball-style arbitration that means that arbitrators mush choose one side's offer or the other rather than come down in the middle. This is to encourage parties to make reasonable offers. Yesterday afternoon, the House Energy and Commerce Transportation Subcommittee passed the bill on a 14-3 vote with "no" votes from Sik
Hotline #727
June 26, 1992
The Machinists strike against CSX and the national rail lock-out are now over. Congress passed H.J.R.517 ending the strike at midnight and the President signed it very early this morning. The House vote was 248-140 and the Senate vote was 87-6. By a vote of 18-76, the Senate tabled an amendment by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D.-Minn.) to remove the arbitration sections of the bill. That simply would have pushed off the day of final reckoning to some other point in the summer. Amtrak expects to reactiv
Hotline #726-B
June 25, 1992
It seems unlikely that Amtrak will be struck tonight as a union spokesman had previously hinted. Amtrak's Night Owl will run tonight. Negotiations continue and the events on Capitol Hill make it politically unwise for labor to start a new strike tonight. Amtrak continues to run its Northeast Corridor and Chicago-Milwaukee services, the latter because Soo Line is one of the few railroads still operating. However, the Empire Builder is not running and, even though Central Vermont is running, the M
Hotline #726-A
June 24, 1992
Early this morning, the Machinists Union struck CSX. Within a few hours, the other big freight railroads, except Guilford and Soo Line, shut down in solidarity, clearly fearing the unions otherwise would resort to rolling strikes against different railroads. As a result, the only Amtrak services running today are the Northeast Corridor -- but not the Montrealer -- and Chicago-Milwaukee -- but not the Empire Builder. Atlantic City trains are running unreserved. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of
Hotline #726
June 19, 1992
In anticipation of a June 24 rail strike, Amtrak is not taking reservations for trains originating June 24 or 25, and plans to curtail some overnight trains before June 24. Generally, anything that would be moving at 12:01 am on June 24 will not leave its point of origin, or will operate only part-way. For example, the westbound Empire Builder of June 23 will be a Chicago-St. Paul coach train. However, Amtrak plans to run the following trains that originate on June 22 through to their final dest
Hotline #725
June 12, 1992
The House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee had its mark-up on the 1993 transportation budget yesterday. For Amtrak, they have proposed $331 million for operations, $74 million for capital, $146 million for the mandatory retirement payments, and nothing for NECIP. That puts us about where we want to be for operations and mandatory payments. The drop in capital is a problem, but not a surprise in a year that will be tough for all domestic discretionary programs. As for the Northeast Corr
Hotline #724
June 5, 1992
The House Appropriations Committee made its allocations between the various subcommittees on June 3. Transportation gets $12.8 billion in 1993, which is down 7% from this year. That is bad news, meaning that some or all transportation programs will have to take a funding cut this year, including Amtrak and transit. Amtrak has announced the postponement of the extension of the Sunset Limited to Miami. The new target date is April 4, 1993. The initial payment to CSX for track work has only just g