WASHINGTON — Amtrak President Joseph Boardman told the Senate Appropriations Committee May 17 that Amtrak will never “be able to cut costs enough on long-distance trains to make them profitable. It becomes more a question of policy whether we are going to have border-to-border, coast-to-coast connectivity.”<\/p>\n
Boardman urged the lawmakers not to cut back on long-distance train subsidies, which he said would deprive a significant area of the country with train travel that is essential to rural Americans without airport options.<\/p>\n
The Amtrak CEO also testified that he wants to increase security patrols of the nation’s rail passenger network — much of it owned by freight railroads over which Amtrak trains travel — using new technologies, including ultrasonic and laser devices, to provide advance pinpoint warning of track tampering in the face of elevated terrorist concerns.<\/p>\n
He warned lawmakers that trains are more vulnerable to attack than commercial airliners because terrorists have widespread access to the track, bridges and tunnels used by passenger trains.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON — Amtrak President Joseph Boardman told the Senate Appropriations Committee May 17 that Amtrak will never “be able to cut costs enough on long-distance trains to make them profitable. It becomes more a question of policy whether we are going to have border-to-border, coast-to-coast connectivity.” Boardman urged the lawmakers not to cut back on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31,45,9,18],"tags":[574,1022,1023],"member_types":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n