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Here is one possible idea: 1. Allow the Chicago Union Station to continue the ownership of this station. 2. Amtrak and Metra will each own a third with the city owning the remaining third. Amtrak will continue handling dispatching. 3. A one dollar minimum maintenance surcharge be put on all tickets,...

Having read Mr. O'toole's book Romance of the rails, he makes several valid points. Concerning the NEC, with state of good repair costs near 50 billion dollars, he asks if it is worth it. The powers that be have asked and answered that question in the affirmative. Noting this and the fact that the N...

One line not up for acquisition by VA is the former C&O track from Doswell to downtown Richmond at AM junction. I wonder if CSX plans to route freights that do not need to set off and pick up at Acca over this line? Does this mean that Collier yard in Petersburg will see more of this activity? I...

The S line was considered inferior to the A line in that it was rather curvy and hilly as opposed to the straighter and level A line. I sometimes wonder why Amtrak did not offer to acquire it with CSX granted sole freight rights.

If I can be devil's advocate, two points come to mind: 1. With ZOOM conferencing, there will be a fall off in business travel in most non-governmental cases. This hurts airlines as well as Acela. Government travel, especially dealing with national security, might continue to be in person. 2. Since m...

If Amtrak comes to Florida with this proposal, since Brightline is building a system on their own dime, the powers that be in that state may tell Amtrak thanks but no thanks. We have our own system, thank you very much.

Another factor to keep in mind is the increased cost to maintain lines that would be upgraded to class 5 standards where the railroads feel that it is not warranted for their operations. They would probably insist that Amtrak come up with more money to keep these tracks to greater than 79 MPH standa...

I am curious as to what do you mean by a paper barrier? With regards to the Pensacola to Jacksonville segment, was not the Sunset East service suspended rather than discontinued, even though it is a short line railroad operation?

The map produced by Rohr Turbo looks quite fascinating, but one thing seems to be left out. South of Richmond, there seems to be no more passenger service down the A line. I fell this is a mistake to forsake this route because it serves an area that is rapidly growing, especially with retirees, for ...

Here are some ideas: 1. re-equip Capitol Limited with single level cars and make the Pennsylvanian a New York section of that train. 2. Over some of the long distance routes, initiate a Palmetto style daytime schedule, for example, a second Chicago to Denver daytime train maybe called the Denver Zep...

I just noticed over on the trains web site that the Rocky Mountaineer plans to start a Denver CO to Moab UT seasonal tour train. It would be interesting if they decide to operate the ski train in winter.

As far as Florida is concerned, Brightline could take over all rail passenger operations south of JAX. The Silver Meteor and Silver Star could be split there and one section run down the FEC with Brightline power and crews similar to the days when ACL trains were handed off to the FEC. The west coas...

CSX may have a good reason for not allowing greater than 90 MPH on their lines without track centers spaced further apart than normal. A few years ago two of their employees were killed by an Amtrak train near Washington Union Station. It seemed to be a case of mis-communication since they were stan...

From what I have read, NCDOT is making incremental progress on this line like building some overpasses and possibly other things. In addition to Amtrak, I believe there are plans for commuter service on this line. Sometimes I fear for the future of urban transit since there will be jobs that will no...

I recall from the last monthly performance report that Amtrak put out that the Carolinian had a 3 million dollar operating surplus while the Piedmonts were breaking even or were not far from it. This seems that, from first glance, the NC services cover their costs. Of course, there are other expense...