So now that the ARRA '09 stimulus grants have been announced by the Federal Railroad Administration I thought it might be nice to make a note of the fact that in New England a very large share of the money that is being awarded to actual rail construction, the "Corridor Development Program", went to PAR.
http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/Resear ... region.pdf
[quote=""Vermonter rail line gets $70 million stimulus funds, including adding station service in Holyoke, Northampton, Greenfield" by Michael McAuliffe, The Republican, Springfield, MA"]
The administration announced Wednesday that $70 million will be allocated to the realignment of the Amtrak Vermonter line in the region, a project that will include opening station service in Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield. Another $40 million is designated for a new segment of second track for the Springfield-New Haven, Conn., line.
In addition, $50 million will fund improvements to Vermonter service in Vermont
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/ ... 70_mi.html[/quote]
$35 million - Portland, ME - Brunswick, ME
$70 million - Springfield, MA- Northfield, MA
PAR Grand Total: $105 million
Everyone else: $90.5 million: Amtrak ($40 million) and New England Central R.R. ($50.5 million)
Letting someone else pay for your capital upgrades: PRICELESS!
. With all due credit to PAR obviously they're committing to maintaining a substantial amount of track to Class IV standards, which is impressive for them. Furthermore they do deserve credit for pursuing a sucessful survival strategy in the lean years. Hopefully this will bode well for the Nothern New England economy and the railroad for many years to come.
BTW the total capital infusion to PARs lines over the last 10 years from passenger projects and the Pan Am Southern partnership is now approaching a quarter of a Billion dollars. ($250,000,000)
If that is not called a windfall I don't know what else is.