Actual wording of Amtrak's agreement with freight operators?

Does anyone have a source/link to the actual verbage of the operating agreement established with the freight railroads when Amtrak was first founded? I'm curious if the freights were only obligated to allow operation of what existed on the day of the agreement, if space was carved out for future expansions, or if there was even any kind of an explicit quantity of service they had to agree to allow to operate?

You can start here: RPSA70
https://history.amtrak.com/archives/rai ... 201970.pdf

The short answer is that none of that was required of the freight carriers. The ICC and later stb were the ones tasked with determining whether or not service was necessary and access would be provided. Likewise, if rates were unable to be negotiated, they would be set at a fair rate determined by the boards.

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Any actual agreement in force today between Amtrak and a contracting road is bilateral and as such is exempt from public disclosure under FOIA. However, I have, but honestly cannot locate at this time, a copy of the May 1, 1971 Operating Agreement between the roads and Amtrak. While that Agreement has of course been amended many times over the past fifty-one years, such called for roads to "negotiate in good faith" with Amtrak whenever the latter desired to change or add to services proscribed under the Basic System (essentially the LD System as it exists today, less Chicago-Miami plus Portland-Spokane).

Now some may wonder if the Boston & Maine RR (part of Timmy's 1:1 Lionel set) "negotiated in good faith" twenty years ago regarding the Downeaster service, which has proven to be a "successful start up". Likewise present day, have Chessie and Topper "negotiated..." with Amtrak and Local sponsors regarding the NO-Mobile service?

But all told, the roads are required by law to "sit down at the table" with Amtrak, and if a party feels aggrieved, they can seek relief from the "Surf Board".

Here you go —

Amtrak/CSX Host Railroad Agreement
June 1, 1999
https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Document/d ... Master.PDF


Source
https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=96974

All the good stuff is redacted...

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eolesen wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 10:17 pm All the good stuff is redacted...

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I dunno... it looks like they may of messed up on covering up the sections of the PDF and didn't "flatten" it.

Edit to add: Attacked it with Scribus. The underlining text was redacted with black and flattened, so... damn...

I'd best correct this before someone corrects me:

As submitted:

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 7:18 am ......proscribed under the Basic System (essentially the LD System as it exists today, less Chicago-Miami plus Portland-Spokane

Should read:

......proscribed under the Basic System (essentially the LD System as it exists today, less Chicago-Miami and Pittsburgh-St. Louis, plus Portland-Spokane

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 7:18 am Now some may wonder if the Boston & Maine RR (part of Timmy's 1:1 Lionel set) "negotiated in good faith" twenty years ago regarding the Downeaster service, which has proven to be a "successful start up". ...

But all told, the roads are required by law to "sit down at the table" with Amtrak, and if a party feels aggrieved, they can seek relief from the "Surf Board".

Well, it took six years from the time the Maine Legislature passed the law creating NNEPRA (the state passenger rail agency) until the first cries of "All aboard!" In that time, then-Guilford (later PanAm) suggested that they could run the service rather than Amtrak (and everyone anticipated they would run a "designed to fail" service), then they insisted that it was absolutely no-doubt-about-it necessary that, for passenger trains to run, that the state would have to upgrade their system to c. 132# rail (115 pound has, in reality, sufficed). So I assume (I don't recall that level of detail) that NNEPRA and Amtrak probably had to go to Washington and tattle on poor Timmy, but in the end the service did successfully start.