Commentary

Crew-consist debate heating up once again

Trick question: How many persons are needed to operate a freight train?
Commentary

What’s with Congressman Mica, the Foodie?

Will somebody pass John Mica some Pepto Bismol? Surely the 11-term House Republican from Florida suffers recurrent gastrointestinal distress resulting from digging into, examining, criticizing, and lambasting Amtrak’s troubled food and beverage income statement more often than the FBI excavates searching for Jimmy Hoffa.
Commentary

Could the worm be turning for Amtrak?

Legendary Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver etched his illustrious baseball career and winning record with the three-run homer. Were Amtrak a Major League Baseball team, its success would be measured, instead, by infield hits. But Amtrak may have hit one long ball this week when new House Rail Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) conceded that Amtrak passenger service on the Northeast Corridor and on state-supported corridors is profitable and efficient.

Commentary

Amtrak budget reality could make a preacher cuss

Let’s get real about President Obama’s fiscal year 2014 and beyond budget recommendations to Congress. They’re street theater, and one might just as well be entertained viewing Gucci-clad Washington lobbyists intermingling with Capitol Hill tourists outfitted in spandex and plaid-pattern polyester.

Commentary

Amtrak haters: Bullies with no public purpose

Conservative columnist and American Enterprise scholar Michael Barone, with degrees from Harvard and Yale, is a smart fellow. But a recent column about Amtrak suggests his research consisted of wandering into the posh Capitol Grill in Washington, D.C., and sitting at Amtrak baiter-in-chief Rep. John Mica’s luncheon table, absorbing Mica’s jihad against publicly funded intercity rail passenger service.

Commentary

Obama’s rail vision requires voice of the people

One clause in a single sentence in President Obama’s second inaugural speech has potential for meaningful consequences: “Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce.”

Commentary

Engineer rides American Dream to a short line

It is unlikely Scott DeVries soon will be sitting aside Norfolk Southern Chairman Wick Moorman at an Association of American Railroads board meeting, or sharing small talk over lunch with Union Pacific Chairman Jim Young. And whether DeVries someday becomes Railway Age’s Railroader of the Year is unknown. But read on.
Commentary

Adore or abhor income protection? Thank Jim Hodgson

Perhaps no individual so significantly affected the payment of income protection to rail workers as did President Nixon’s labor secretary, James D. Hodgson, who died Nov. 28 at age 96.

Commentary

DeMint departure resets reregulation game

The late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson observed, “A week is a long time in politics.” And what a week it was on Capitol Hill.
Commentary

Remembering Warren Rudman—and a Greek tragedy at the ICC

Even The New York Times, the nation’s newspaper of record, missed, in its lengthy obituary, the absorbing connection between railroads and former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, who died Nov. 19 at age 82.