Thank you, chairwoman brown. I now recognize mr. Gardner, you may proceed. Mr. Gardner thank you, chairman lipinsk lipinski, the Ranking Member, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today Service Transportation boards key role in enabling amtrak to effectively serve the nation. Strongly support the s. T. B. Needs ieve the board updated authority for Passenger Rail so we can achieve the ontime evels and erformance your constituents deserve. Ongress took amtrak on for the job. Common carrier obligations for assengers and the associated operating losses for passenger service, the freights agreed to whereverrak to operate and whenever it wanted over their lives. Trains with trak dispatching preference over freight and to empower what is the s. T. B. To ensure amtraks access to the rail network. 50 years since the Freight Railroads agreed eagerly to this bargain and yet many of our host railroads fall short in ulfilling some of these key obligation obligations. Mr. Gardner, if youll
Remembering passenger train crusader Tony Haswell trains.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from trains.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
San Francisco Chief,
Super Chief. The next day, Amtrak killed all of them except the
Empire Builder (and it killed the leg to Portland),
Super Chief, and
City of San Francisco (which was cut to three days a week). That’s a loss that’s hard to forgive.
Business analysts remember that the idea of a national passenger railroad was sold to Congress as a profitable enterprise, but it turned out to be a big money loser. Rather than a normal government agency, Amtrak was created as a for‐profit corporation with stockholders and, potentially, investors. The railroads were supposed to give it seed money based on the amount of money they claimed they had lost in the previous three years. After spending that to get started, Amtrak was supposed to make money.