SMART UnionResponding to a federal mandate and acting on transportation legislation passed this year by the General Assembly, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced Tuesday that Virginia will assume more financial responsibility for Amtrak regional service in the state.
The agreement had to be in place by Oct. 1 or the regional rail service would have ceased in the state.
Read the complete story at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Jim Henson’s Pajanimals has teamed up with Amtrak in their new sweepstakes. The sweepstakes offers three levels of prizes: Grand prize (one winner), first prize (five winners) and second prize (10 winners). The grand prize-winner will receive four round-trip tickets on Amtrak, a flip video camera and a four-piece large Pajanimals plus set.
First place winners will receive HeysUSA Amtrak luggage and Pajanimals Adventure Game. The ten second prize winners will receive an Amtrak hoodie and a Pajanimals Playdate DVD.
Entries to win must be received by July 31, 2013 and be 18 years or older to enter the contest. To enter the sweepstakes visit www.henson.com/PJsweepstakes.
I just sat through a pretty boring hearing on rail financing. But I’m glad I stuck it out, because the fireworks came at the end, when Rep. John Mica picked a fight with the wrong man.
John Robert Smith is familiar face in transportation reform circles. The former Republican mayor of the town of Meridian, Miss., he now leads two of the most significant advocacy organizations in the field, Transportation for America and Reconnecting America. He also happens to be a former chair of Amtrak’s board of directors. All of those qualifications made him a natural choice to testify as a witness at this House Transportation Committee hearing.
Read Tanya Snyder’s complete blog report at DC.StreetsBlog.org.
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D., Pa.) made a whistle-stop plea July 8 for Congress to block efforts to cut Amtrak funding 31 percent.
Casey said $350 million in cuts proposed by House Republicans would cost Amtrak workers their jobs and Amtrak passengers their rides.
Read the complete story at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
SMART Transportation Division National Legislative Director James Stem appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation June 19 at a hearing to explore improvements in freight and passenger rail safety.
Stem testified on a variety of issues including fatigue, positive train control, the shipment hazardous materials, new technologies and worker training.
Stem told the committee that any discussion concerning rail safety should start with employee fatigue as the first order of business.
“Our railroad corporations are re-investing more than $20 billion annually in upgrading, maintaining and expanding their infrastructure, but are unwilling to invest anything in resolving the most pressing of safety issues – unpredictable work schedules coupled with employee availability policies,” Stem said.
“The Railroad Safety Improvement Act of 2008 contained provisions for two pilot projects sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration for improving work schedules and employee notification. We have urged all the Class I railroads to participate in a pilot project, but not a single railroad would agree to a pilot.”
Stem offered the following suggestions to address the issue:
•Providing employees a regular start time so they know days in advance when they must come to work. A large majority of our members have a regular start time and do not consider fatigue to be a safety issue. Employees with regular start times are not the employees who are dying in fatigue-related collisions.
•Notifying employees before going off-duty what time they will be required to return to work for the next tour of duty. This option actually improves the availability of the employee by allowing the employee to return to service after only 10 hours off duty.
•Replacing the required 10 hours of undisturbed rest immediately following service that is now required with 10 hours of undisturbed rest immediately preceding service. This will give the employee at least 10 hours of notification prior to reporting for service.
“The high level of professionalism and dedication of the operating crews running our railroads today are the only reasons that accidents are not more frequent,” Stem said.
On positive train control, Stem testified that there are segments of the railroad industry that are hoping Congress will grant a blanket extension of three to five years for PTC implementation. The current required date for implementation is more than 30 months away on December 31, 2015.
“If Congress chooses to grant a blanket extension for PTC, the railroads that are behind on their implementation schedule today will further slow their progress, or just stop the process until that new extension expires,” he said.
“Any extension for PTC implementation should be on an individual basis, short in duration, six to 12 months, and only after identifying the reasons that the current implementation date is not obtainable.
“The PTC systems that are being implemented today contain all the information on thedisplay screen that is necessary to operate a train safely. This will be the first time that the operating crews on the locomotive will have all that information contained in one place and displayed in real time. The quality of that information on the screen will significantly reduce the complexity of safely operating the train.”
Some railroads, including Amtrak, BNSF and Metrolink in California have announced that they will be able to meet the statutory deadline and are continuing the implementation and testing of PTC components.
?On Amtrak, Stem testified about the need for continued funding of the passenger rail carrier.
“Since its inception, Amtrak has done a remarkable job with often inadequate resources. While setting ridership records in recent years, their safety record remains solid. Amtrak’s growing passenger volumes has made them far more self-sufficient than in the past, recovering 79 percent of their operating costs from ticket revenue. The high price of fuel, growing highway and airport congestion, and the significant increase in the number of passenger rail options, all contribute to the constant increases in ridership on Amtrak.
“Even with their remarkable progress, Amtrak has had no shortage of congressional critics who expect Amtrak to be the world’s only profitable passenger railroad. We ask that this committee take a fresh look at this American success story and work with the leaders of Amtrak and others to help ‘America’s Railroad’ build on its 40 plus years of success. Amtrak was created because the demand for rail passenger services remained strong, and the private railroads could not make a profit operating their own passenger trains.”
Addressing worker training, Stem said that thousands of new employees will be coming into the freight and passenger rail industies in the near future and that adequate and appropriate training is a major safety concern.
“Our experience is that the training of our members varies widely from railroad to railroad. Some of the larger railroads are reported to have excellent initial training programs for conductors and engineers. However, they rely almost exclusively on computer-based training for follow-up training or what I call ‘training on your own.’ They no longer use the traditional model of mentoring or apprenticeship, where a new employee has the advantage of working with more mature employees with experience, skills, and good technique.
“Forty years ago, there were five members of a train crew and they spent years working as brakemen before becoming conductors, and likewise, years as a fireman before becoming an engineer. Today, the standard crew size is two. Now railroads hire people off the street and train them to be conductors in several short months. We are concerned about the long-term impact of insufficient training processes that create employees that lack the confidence in their abilities to stop a train movement when they suspect something is wrong.
“It’s expensive to train new people, so like some American companies, railroads, when left to their own desires, will reduce training costs as much as possible for the short term gains involved.”
Also testifying before the committee were Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo, National Transportation Safety Board Chairperson Deborah Hersman and Association of American Railroads President Edward Hamberger.
To read Stem’s complete written testimony, click here.
SMART Transportation Division National Legislative Director James Stem
testifies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
June 19, 2013.
The following release was issued June 18 by the National Association of Railroad Passengers.
The National Association of Railroad Passengers announced that it will fight implementation of the House Appropriation Committee’s Fiscal Year 2014 transportation funding levels.
The draft bill, which the subcommittee will consider tomorrow, slashes Amtrak’s budget by a third, threatening Amtrak’s very existence. The bill also fails to include funding for the High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Program. Not only does the bill include no new funding for the highly over-subscribed TIGER grants – a competitive, multi-modal program – it rescinds $237 million in previously appropriated FY 2013 TIGER funding that is not yet obligated.
The House proposal denies state and local leaders the resources they need to develop the modern transportation network necessary for mobility and economic growth. It comes as economic experts and the International Monetary Fund criticize the U.S. for plunging ahead with austerity even as low interest rates make borrowing for projects unusually affordable, America’s unemployment rate remains unacceptably high, and the need for transportation infrastructure investment is widely acknowledged.
The House committee’s bill has just $950 million for Amtrak, a 29 percent cut from the final 2013 number ($1,344 million). This includes a $350 million operating grant (21 percent below the FY 2013 level), and $600 million in capital (33.5 percent below FY 2013).
These numbers are even more disappointing when compared to President Obama’s FY 2014 request of $6.7 billion for passenger rail. That request targeted $2.7 billion for current rail service, including $675 million for the Northeast Corridor, $300 million for state corridors, and $800 million for Amtrak’s long-distance routes. The president had proposed moving Amtrak from the discretionary funding pot and reclassifying it as mandatory spending.
“The proposed House budget is extremely disappointing in its unwillingness to tackle America’s growing infrastructure crisis,” said NARP President Ross Capon. “Millions of Americans depend on the U.S. rail network to commute to work everyday, and for millions more Amtrak is a vital intercity connection, allowing them to travel for work and for family. This is especially true in smaller and rural communities where trains serve as the only alternative to driving, connecting residents to essential services in larger cities. Curtailing service at a time of growing demand makes no sense.”
The committee has also trashed the Administration’s proposal to continue development of a National High Performance Rail System. The president proposed $3.7 billion in FY 2014 for the development of world-class high speed rail and upgrades to conventional rail service.
“Elected officials at the local level depend on the Congress to aid them in maintaining and developing the transportation network that is foundational to our community, our economy, and our way of life,” added Capon. “That infrastructure is crumbling, and we are living off the investments made by previous generations. This House budget is another instance of Congress kicking the can down the road. If enacted, it will be a disaster for future generations of passengers.”
What’s up with California Rep. Jeff Denham? Enquiring Amtrak enthusiasts would like to know.
According to a report by Politico transportation writer Adam Snider, the Republican representative from California’s 10th Congressional District “has been busy with rail lately, hitting up both New York and Illinois in the past few days.”
Snider writes further: “Fresh off roundtables in Chicago and Springfield, Ill., Denham told Morning Transportation that his look at Amtrak’s long-distance trains is all about the limited money.”
“Like anything in government, we’ve really got to look at the dollars and cents behind it. How do we fill seats? It’s one thing to have the transportation — it’s another thing to have it sitting empty,” Denham told MT.
How do you fix that, Snider asks?
“I think we have a variety of different options. Everything from cancelling them altogether to using private industry. Even looking at a state-supported route type scenario — where is it of greatest value to each state, or is it of great value?”
The last Amtrak bill, in 2009, shifted some of the financial burden for shorter routes to states, a model Denham is eying, Snider writes.
Rep. Denham sits on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
WASHINGTON – The reduced level of federal investment in Northeast Corridor (NEC) infrastructure has resulted in a cumulative degradation of its components, nearing the loss of asset functionality and decreased reliability of the system that threatens the successful continuity of passenger rail operations, Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman told a Congressional committee June 7.
“There is insufficient NEC infrastructure investment to meet both the on-going normalized replacement and the backlog capital requirements. And that means we are eating our assets alive,” he explained.
Boardman said this de-capitalization of NEC assets leads to rapidly increasing degradation of ride quality, reliability, and the ability to support major improvement projects.
He urged the federal government to act now and use the opportunity of rail reauthorization legislation to take the lead in funding a major program to build out the NEC infrastructure needed for the coming century. Amtrak shares the NEC with eight commuter railroads and its infrastructure supports the movement of 260 million intercity and commuter rail passengers each year. Several of the most important segments, such as the New York tunnels, are at capacity with ridership demand at record levels and growing.
Boardman noted Amtrak needs $782 million every year for the next 15 years just for the costs of NEC normalized replacement ($386 million) and the backlog of infrastructure work ($396 million). That level of funding will allow Amtrak to run a safe railroad at maximum allowed track speed, maintain an excellent on-time performance and meet the basic needs of those who want to develop real estate along the NEC and fill their development with the people who they expect to come by train. However, it will not address needed capacity improvements, trip-time reductions or other new initiatives.
He reminded committee members that after Amtrak was given control of the NEC in 1976 during the Conrail process, it was followed by several significant, federally-funded repair and improvement programs which transformed the dilapidated mid-century rail operation it inherited into the successful high-rail speed rail route it is today.
A copy of Boardman’s full written testimony can be found here.
WASHINGTON – The Amtrak board of directors is extending the contract of President and CEO Joe Boardman for his achievements in improving the operational and financial performance of America’s Railroad and providing the continuity of leadership critical to the ongoing implementation of the company’s strategic plan.
“We are extremely pleased with the progress Amtrak has made under the leadership of Joe Boardman,” said Chairman Tony Coscia. “The changes Joe is managing within the railroad are resulting in real accomplishments and it is important for him to stay on, continue his work and provide leadership for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.”
At its May meeting, the Amtrak board of directors approved a two-year renewable contract for Boardman, who was appointed president and CEO in November 2008.
“As a result of the good work Amtrak employees across the company are doing to implement our plans and produce our achievements, the board of directors asked me to continue in my role,” said Boardman. “Key to our current success is our improved financial position and our plans for growth are made more attainable because Amtrak is covering more of its operating costs, and costs are under control and in line with industry standards.”
Under Boardman’s leadership, Amtrak has experienced many accomplishments including record ridership and revenue, continued reductions in the need for federal operating support, a significant reduction of debt, the best ever system-wide on-time performance, expansion of state-supported services, the introduction of Wi-Fi service and eTicketing, and the creation and implementation of a corporate strategic plan.
In addition, he is managing new equipment orders for Northeast Corridor (NEC) and long distance services, a major planning effort for the development of next-generation high-speed rail, a comprehensive employee safety program, enhanced security initiatives and numerous capital projects to improve Amtrak infrastructure, stations, maintenance shops and other facilities.
On his first day at Amtrak during the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday travel period, Boardman walked the platforms at Washington Union Station, greeting passengers and talking with employees and has continued that practice whenever and wherever he travels. It is not uncommon to see him speaking to passengers aboard a train or visiting with employees out on the railroad at crew bases, rail yards, stations and other locations. He has logged over 200,000 miles traveling on Amtrak trains during his tenure.
Joseph H. Boardman was appointed president and chief executive officer of Amtrak by its board of directors in November 2008. Under his leadership, Amtrak has improved its operating and financial performance, and is building the equipment, infrastructure and organization needed to ensure its strong growth continues. The company is investing in projects critical for enhancing the passenger experience and essential for supporting its national network of intercity and high-speed rail services. In addition, Amtrak’s next-generation high-speed rail vision will provide a global competitive advantage for the United States.
Before joining Amtrak, Boardman was the administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), an agency under the U.S. Department of Transportation, and also served as a member of the Amtrak Board of Directors. Prior to his position at FRA, he was the longest serving commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation.
WASHINGTON — Amtrak rolled out three new locomotives on Monday, the first step in the railroad’s plan to modernize its aging fleet of trains.
The three are the first of 70 new locomotives the railroad is buying to operate on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston. Amtrak said they would operate at speeds up to 125 miles per hour on the Northeast route, matching the top speed of its current regional trains.
Read the complete story at The New York Times.