Amtrak

“ Amtrak shall provide reasonable access to the Federal Railroad Administration in order to enable the Administration to carry out its duty under this section. (b) QUARTERLY REPORTS.— The Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration shall collect the necessary data and publish a quarterly report on the performance and service quality of intercity passenger train operations, including Amtrak’s cost recovery, ridership, on-time performance and minutes of delay, causes of delay, on-board services, stations, facilities, equipment, and other services. ”

“ Contracts for Transportation- Amtrak may enter into a contract with a State, a regional or local authority, or another person for Amtrak to operate an intercity rail service or route not included in the national rail passenger transportation system upon such terms as the parties thereto may agree. ”

“ AUTHORITY.—The Secretary of Transportation may make grants to States, or to Amtrak in cooperation with States, for financing the capital costs of facilities, infrastructure, and equipment for high priority rail corridor projects necessary to reduce congestion or facilitate ridership growth in intercity rail passenger transportation. ”

“ ROUTING EFFICIENCY DISCUSSIONS WITH AMTRAK. Amtrak, commuter rail entities, regional and State public transportation authorities, and freight railroad carriers are encouraged to engage in good faith discussions with respect to the routing and timing of trains to efficiently move a maximum number of commuter, intercity, and regional rail passengers, particularly during the peak times of commuter usage. ”

“ Should the Department of Transportation issue any rule related to transportation for individuals with disabilities by intercity passenger rail after Amtrak submits its evaluation, Amtrak shall, within 120 days after the date that such rule is published, submit to the above parties a supplemental evaluation on any impact of the rule on its cost and schedule for achieving full compliance. ”

“ We can no longer justify paying subsidies of about $33 for every passenger who boards an Amtrak train, or funding a system in which three-quarters of the stations board fewer than 50 passengers a day, or asking taxpayers to pay 25,000 employees who provide Amtrak services for only an average of 57,000 riders per day. ”

“ If long-distance trains were eliminated, 23 States and 243 communities would be left with no intercity passenger rail service and 16 other States would lose some rail service. These trains provide a strong economic benefit for the States and communities that they serve. (8) Long-distance trains also provide transportation during periods of severe weather or emergencies that stall other modes of transportation. (9) Amtrak provided the only reliable long-distance transportation following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that grounded air travel. ”

“ PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PLAN.—Amtrak shall develop and post on its website a performance improvement plan for its long-distance passenger rail routes to achieve financial and operating improvements based on the data collected through the application of the financial and performance metrics developed under section 207 of that Act. ”

“ Through its locomotive engineer training program, Amtrak is trying to provide the same basic operating knowledge and skills, but within a much shorter time frame and more structured setting. Prospective engineers now receive at least part of their training in classes, and operating information pertaining to equipment and train control is technologically more advanced. ”

“ The Safety Board is concerned that Amtrak permitted passenger trains, especially one being operated by an apprentice engineer, to operate at speeds to 100 mph in an area approaching Back Bay station without considering or providing redundancy for the consequences of human failure. ”

“ In addition, the Federal government must reassess the appropriate Federal role of support for passenger and freight rail services such as Amtrak and Conrail. Our goal through federal assistance should be to maintain and enhance adequate rail service, where it is not otherwise available to needy communities. ”

“ Under Amtrak rules, the locomotive engineer is responsible for observance of signals and for control and regulation of train movement. He is also responsible for instructing apprentice engineers and for ensuring that they are familiar with engine duties During the accident investigation, Amtrak officials and locomotive engineers stated that the locomotive engineer of Amtrak train 66 should have instructed the apprentice engineer to start braking the train at the Pickle Factory, a landmark structure at MP 225.7. ”

“ IN GENERAL.—The term ‘private benefit’— `` (i) means a benefit accrued to a person or private entity, other than Amtrak, that directly improves the economic and competitive condition of that person or entity through improved assets, cost reductions, service improvements, or any other means as defined by the Secretary; and `` (ii) shall be determined on a project-by-project basis, based upon an agreement between the parties. `` (B) CONSULTATION.—The Secretary may seek the advice of the States and rail carriers in further defining this term. ”

“ The Safety Board believes that Amtrak should administer the program so that the time allocated for physical characteristics training and the scheduling of related examinations allow apprentices to pace their learning tasks and to develop confidence in their proficiency. ”

“ Each director not employed by the United States Government shall be subject to the same travel and reimbursable business travel expense policies and guidelines that apply to Amtrak's executive management when performing Board duties. ”

“ Operations InformationOperations Information Operating Procedures—Amtrak train 66 operated on the Boston division from New Haven (MP 72.3) to Boston (MP 228.7) Amtrak also operates MBTA commuter trains in the Boston area in accordance with the operating agreement of January 1, 1987, and dispatches trains and maintains physical plants in accordance with the MBTA agreement of July 1, 1984. The CETC signal and dispatching system controls the train operations on the main tracks at Boston. The train dispatcher oversees about 220 trains daily. ”

“ Safety Board investigators learned that Amtrak has no systematic way of selecting engineers to serve as instructors. When Amtrak inaugurated the program, management paired apprentices with engineers for physical characteristics familiarization and OJT. More recently, however, the selection of an instructing engineer has frequently been left to the discretion of each apprentice. ”

“ It is ballasted to the concrete tunnel floor with 24-inch deep crushed rock Near the POD, the north rail is fitted with an operative wheel-flange lubricator about 750 feet west of the curve.
The MBTA owns the track, and Amtrak maintains it for trains operating at speeds up to 100 mph. Amtrak performs scheduled track inspections twice weekly, at intervals of at least 1 day, and does daily walking inspections of concrete ties. In May 1990, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) had inspected the track and noted no defects in the derailment area. ”

“ MEMBERSHIP.—The advisory board shall include— `` (A) representatives of State transportation agencies; `` (B) transportation and environmental economists, scientists, and engineers; and `` (C) representatives of Amtrak, the Alaska Railroad, freight railroads, transit operating agencies, intercity rail passenger agencies, railway labor organizations, and environmental organizations. ”

“ CONDITIONS FOR FINANCIAL INCENTIVES.— As a condition for receiving financial assistance grants under this section, Amtrak must certify that— (1) a reasonable attempt was made to reassign an employee adversely affected under section 24711 of title 49, United States Code, or by the elimination of any route, to other positions within Amtrak in accordance with any contractual agreements; (2) the financial assistance results in a net reduction in the total number of employees equal to the number receiving financial incentives ”

“ Documentation of apprentices' progress in the program and coordination between the engineer training school and the transportation department are inadequate. Amtrak did not adequately select or prepare its instructing locomotive engineers for teaching, supervising, and evaluating apprentice engineers. In failing to include actual operating conditions and typical equipment that trainees are likely to encounter, Amtrak's final evaluation of its train engineer apprentices neglected important aspects of train operating competency. ”

“ Why won't Congress stop subsidizing Amtrak, which costs taxpayers $35 per passenger every time a train leaves the station? Why won't the Congress stop subsidizing wealthy families earning up to $100,000 a year with thousands of dollars in annual student loan subsidies? Why won't the Congress stop subsidizing a few restaurants, bars, country clubs, and similar businesses with half a billion dollars in loans, when every other small business has to pay the full market rate of interest? ”

“ According to current training theory, after apprentices learn the territories and master basic operating skills, they should have an opportunity to combine the activities, [13] they would normally do so after learning the physical characteristics but before beginning OJT.
Safety Board investigators believe that Amtrak does not necessarily assign apprentices to routes for territory familiarization in a manner consistent with apprentices' learning needs. ”

“ Routing efficiency discussions with Amtrak. Sec. 403. Sense of Congress regarding commuter rail expansion. Sec. 404. Locomotive biofuel study. Sec. 405. Study of the use of biobased technologies. Sec. 406. Cross-border passenger rail service. ”

“ As a result of airline deregulation and decisions by national bus carriers to leave many communities, rail transportation may provide the only feasible common carrier transportation option for a growing number of areas. ”

“ The instructing engineers for apprentice OJT stated that trainees with a valid permit (head end pass) to ride the locomotive operate the train on the basis of the trainees' acquired skills. No engineers or apprentice engineers identified any documentation provided to show that they had passed qualification testing on the physical characteristics of their territories, and one apprentice said he had operated trains before being qualified. The apprentice engineer on Amtrak train 66 stated that he completed his physical characteristics qualification before attending the class. ”

“ The plan shall include a projected timeline for restoring such service, the costs associated with restoring such service, and any proposals for legislation necessary to support such restoration of service. ”

“ CONFORMING AMENDMENT.— The chapter analysis for chapter 247, as amended by section 210, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 24710 the following: ‘‘24711. Alternate passenger rail service pilot program.’’. ”

“ Philadelphia possesses two distinguished city gateways.
But the first big station terminals—in our American sense that a thing big must be bigger than anything else of the same kind in the world—were those erected at Boston and at St. Louis. The first of these handles a traffic far exceeding that of any other terminal ever built; the second has a train-shed that is gigantic and overwhelming; and so each of the cities can, in a measure of truth, claim for itself the largest railroad station ever built. Each has enough of novelty and interest to make it worthy of attention. ”

“ It is the problem of the cities that counts—not merely Albany or Buffalo or Pittsburg, but New York and Boston and Philadelphia and Baltimore and Cleveland and Cincinnati and St. Louis and Chicago. There is no use in laying [Pg 141] down additional main tracks when the terminals in the hearts of these great cities are so sadly congested as to take a freight-car as long to move through a single one of them as from three hundred to five hundred miles on open line. ”

“ But it was the mechanism of city transportation that would have looked the strangest in our eyes. New York City had built the world's first horse-car line in 1832, and since that year this peculiarly American contrivance has had the most extended development. In 1870, indeed, practically every city of any importance had one or more railways of this type. New York possessed thirty different companies, each operating an independent system. In Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco the growth of urban transportation had been equally haphazard. ”

“ The freight trains are gone from the downtown shopping streets and the two wicked grade crossings disappeared when the Pennsylvania built its splendid new Union Station. Other fine railroad terminals and new hotels have added to the comfort of the stranger. They are beginning in a faint way to give transfers on the trolley cars, and there is more than a promise that some day wayfarers will not be taxed a penny every time they walk across the bridges that bind the heart of the city. ”

“ Other great features of the Michigan Central Railroad are that its through trains for New York and Boston run out of Chicago along the Michigan Lake front, within a stone's throw of the city's costliest mansions, through South Park and the magic city of Pullman, affording an extensive survey of this marvel of a marvelous age, and later passing over the new Cantilever Bridge in full view of Niagara Falls. ”

“ In the beginning the British railway man does not feel that when he builds a railway terminal he has to provide a great congregation place for the people. There is of course at great interchange points in the heart of this country—such as Kansas City or Atlanta or Cincinnati or Omaha or St. Paul—a real need for abundant waiting-room capacity where through travelers may be properly housed between their trains—for a number of hours, if need be. ”