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[CNJRoss]

VHSR email, 3/16:

 

About | Donate | Members

 

President Trump’s 2017 Budget eliminates funding from Amtrak's long distance routes, including the Cardinal, the Crescent, the Silver Star, the Silver Meteor, the Palmetto, and the Auto Train which serve the citizens of Virginia; eliminates “New Start” transit grants; and greatly reduces “TIGER” grants.

These cuts will reduce or eliminate intercity passenger rail service for over 51% of Virginians and 57% of our state’s jobs!

Our transportation network serves as the arteries that our nation's economy moves on. We need to invest in our country's infrastructure not allow it to crumble even further!

Please tell your Senators and Representative to oppose these cuts by visiting www.VHSR.com/TrumpBudget!

Thanks,

Virginians for High Speed Rail

  

Virginians for High Speed Rail
5101 Monument Ave.
Richmond, Virginia 23230

 

[CNJRoss]

Progressive Railroading, 3/16:

 

Trump budget ends funding of Amtrak long-distance trains, TIGER grants

President Donald Trump's proposed federal budget blueprint would cut the U.S. Department of Transportation's budget by $2.4 billion, or 13 percent, to $16.2 billion, according to the document.

Regarding rail, the budget calls for terminating federal support for Amtrak's long-distance service; eliminating the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grant program; and limiting funding for the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Program (New Starts) to projects with existing full funding grant agreements only.

The budget request streamlines the department to focus on "vital federal safety oversight functions and investing in nationally and regionally significant transportation infrastructure projects," the document states.

 

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[CNJRoss]

NARP Hotline, 3/17:

 

Hotline #1,007: NARP Opposes New Proposed Federal Budget Cuts; Florida Brightline To Start Service in July; Caltrain Executive Director Advocates in D.C.; Texas Bullet Train Encounters Hurdle

March 17, 2017 Share this post

 

Check Out Our Newest Hotline! NARP thanks those members who have sent in industry-related news stories, op-eds, editorials, or letters to the editor from your communities. We include them in our social media efforts, along with the weekly Hotline. Please send your news items to Bob Brady, bbrady@xenophonstrategies.com, and we will continue to share it with the membership. We also ask members to send events that we can put on the website here. And please follow NARP on Facebook and Twitter.

 

The Trump Administration released its first proposed general budget this week, which included steep cuts to long distance rail, commuter rail and transit. The “skinny budget” outlined the Administration’s proposal to cut spending – despite campaign promises of major infrastructure investment. Overall, the budget cuts $2.4 billion from transportation, or 13 percent of the previous year’s budget and attacks Amtrak’s long-distance service.

 

NARP strongly objected that this loss of federal funding will jeopardize access to rail in more than 200 communities nationwide, and it could also result in the loss of tens of thousands of American jobs.

 

“It’s ironic that President Trump’s first budget proposal undermines the very communities whose economic hardship and sense of isolation from the rest of the country helped propel him into office. These working class communities—many of them located in the Midwest and the South—were tired of being treated like ‘flyover country.’ But by proposing the elimination of Amtrak’s long distance trains, the Trump Administration does them one worse, cutting a vital service that connects these small town economies to the rest of the U.S.  .  .  .

 

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[CNJRoss]

CNN 3/31:

The end of the line for American long-distance trains?

 

(CNN)The railroads that once helped build the United States today still carry thousands of people across the country on journeys of business, discovery and pleasure.

 

But their role in opening up the vast open spaces between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans could soon be drawing to a close.

 

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[CNJRoss]

The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN 3/30:
 

Memphis and 220 towns and cities nationwide could lose Amtrak

 

 

From Macomb, Mississippi, to Fulton, Kentucky, and points beyond, cities and towns across the country face loss of rail passenger service if the Trump administration has its way.

 

The National Association of Rail Passengers says 15 national routes are on the chopping block if Amtrak’s federal funding is slashed, and 220 cities and towns would lose all Amtrak service.

 

Memphis would say farewell to the City of New Orleans, which connects New Orleans and Chicago and recorded 72,127 boardings at Central Station in 2016. It's Tennessee's only national Amtrak route.

 

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NARP News Release:  Rail Passengers Respond to White House Budget: “What About the Jobs, Mr. President?”

[CNJRoss]

CNN 4/1:

The end of the line for American long-distance trains?

 

 

(CNN)The railroads that once helped build the United States today still carry thousands of people across the country on journeys of business, discovery and pleasure.

 

But their role in opening up the vast open spaces between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans could soon be drawing to a close.

 

In March, President Donald Trump proposed a national budget that would terminate federal support for Amtrak's long-distance train routes.

 

Continue here w/photos.

[Sloan]

 

 

Return of an Amtrak passenger train to Orlando in further doubt

 

Since 2005 there's been no passenger train from New Orleans to Orlando. Considering the cuts to long-distance rail service proposed in President Trump's 2018 budget outline, it may stay that way.

http://www.nola.com/...eans_orlan.html

[CNJRoss]

High Country News, Paonia, CO 5/2:
 

Opinion

Last ride for the West’s iconic trains?

 

Trump’s budget would make it harder for Westerners to ride the rail.

 

by Forrest Whitman

 

Forrest Whitman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of

 

High Country News. He lives in Salida, Colorado, and rides a lot of trains.

 

 

 

If you see a train, better get on it. The California Zephyr, the Coast Starlight, the Empire Builder, the Texas Eagle and my favorite, the Southwest Chief, may soon be heading West for one last ride. Back in my railroad days, when a brakeman died, someone would announce at sign-in: “He caught the last westbound.”

 

 

Of course, it’s all about money. The budget President Donald Trump submitted to Congress looks like it was written by the Heritage Foundation, a group that thinks the government has no business “subsidizing” anything, except for the military. Amtrak may cover 94 percent of its budget almost entirely from ticket sales, but still, that's not enough for those purists.

 

What a loss to the West these iconic trains will be. They are not only part of our Western history, but they are also symbols that somebody still cares about the rural West.  .  .  .

 

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[CNJRoss]

KWYB Butte, MT: KTMF Missoula, MT 6/24/17:

 

White House budget cuts could severely impact public transportation funds

 

 

WHITEFISH -  Under proposed White House budget cuts, long distance rail services could disappear around the country, including the Empire Builder, a passenger train that services the Pacific Northwest.

 

Amtrak trains are essential for people like Kalispell resident Terry Browning.  Without Amtrak Browning tells us she would not have been able to get to her job in Washington State.

 

SNIP

 

Other trains under threat are the Silver Meteor, Southwest Chief and Coast Starlight, and that’s just to name a few.

 

More here w/video report.

[CNJRoss]

The Hill, Washington, DC 9/6/17:
 

House defeats conservative effort to defund Amtrak

 

 

The House rejected a conservative proposal late Wednesday night to eliminate $1.1 billion in federal subsidies for Amtrak.

 

An amendment offered by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) to a government-spending package for the next fiscal year failed on a 128-293 vote with a bipartisan coalition uniting in opposition.

 

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