Infrastructure Summer: Amtrak Victorious

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Infrastructure Summer: Amtrak Victorious

The much-maligned rail operator gets some respect and more than a few billion in banknotes out of the bruising infrastructure battle.

BY GABRIELLE GURLEY AUGUST 9, 2021



An Amtrak Northeast Regional train slows for a stop at the Metropark Station in Iselin, New Jersey, on November 25, 2019.

Providing quality rail service to major metro areas and a measure of mobility for those in remote areas should not be controversial. But like vaccinations against an often fatal disease and teaching American history, dependable passenger rail service has been treated like a stain on what remains of the nation’s experiment with representative democracy.

Yet with the bipartisan infrastructure package, which cleared a key cloture vote over the weekend, Amtrak riders are big winners. The beleaguered rail operator scored $66 billion in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). After years of legislative chaos on the infrastructure front, nothing is certain. But if the bill passes, Amtrak will get some stability that adds up to a vote of confidence.

In fiscal 2019, Amtrak passengers made 32.5 million trips across the entire national network. More than half of them (18.8 million) were along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Boston and Washington. If those trips were instead made on Interstate 95, the often-gridlocked north-south thoroughfare on the East Coast, the highway would likely be unnavigable.

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[msongs]

1. true high speed rail requires dedicated tracks. not happening soon here. china got the tracks

by taking land from owners under threat of imprisonment or worse. cant do that here

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I have taken Amtrak in recent years, although not in the northeast corrider.

From Lamy, NM to Los Angeles and then to Portland, OR. Also, from Lamy, NM to Kansas City.

In April of 2020 I was set to take Amtrak from Lamy, NM to Chicago, overnight in a hotel there, and then to Seattle, WA. A total of four nights, three of them on board the train. I'd of course booked a sleeper car. Alas, the thing I was to attend in Seattle was cancelled in mid-March, and so I cancelled the train trip.

I am hoping that next year, or perhaps in 2023 I'll be able to take that particular trip. I just love the train. I love being in a roomette, which is perfect for one person. I love being able to go back and forth between the roomette and the lounge car. I love being seated with total strangers for a meal, and meeting new people that way.

I know we have a long way to go before things are at all like they were before the pandemic. I've been saying for some time now that we need to think of the pandemic this way: Pretend it's the spring of 1939, and you and I are good friends and we are planning a trip to Europe next year. We've been planning and saving for several years now and we can hardly wait! It's going to be wonderful! We'll be going to London, Paris, Rome, probably several other countries and cities. We haven't yet worked out the details, but those will be coming soon. And then, September arrives. A new war breaks out. Oh, crap. Clearly we won't be going to Europe next year, but we're hopeful this war won't last long and we'll take our trip a year later. Except this war doesn't end. It goes on, and on. When it finally ends, it's 1945. The soonest we could possibly take that long postponed trip is 1946, perhaps a year or two later. And when we eventually take that trip, the Europe we see is vastly different from the one we might have seen had we been able to go there before the war. This pandemic is going to be a lot the same. It's going to last a whole lot longer, and many more things will change than most of us had at all anticipated. The changes from the pandemic will be, of course, quite different from the changes of WWII, but will be no less transformative.

Before the pandemic I was making trips three or four times a year to various science fiction things. The last one I went to was Mile Hi Con, in Denver, in October 2019. It does look as if Mile Hi will happen this year in October. Hooray! I will see people I have not seen for two years! I have already signed up for that con, but depending on what's happening with the pandemic, I will readily cancel if that seems like a good idea.

And as for Amtrak, I really, really wish I could take it from New Mexico straight north to Colorado. Alas, that's not possible.