La Hood:

In his keynote address at the Opening General Session of Railway Interchange 2011 in Minneapolis Monday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood (top) said that the Class I railroads “are our good partners in developing the President’s vision for high speed rail.” That vision involved “giving 80% of Americans access to high speed rail,” a network he said would be fed by local transit and regional rail services. “We believe connectivity is important,” he said.

La Hood, calling President Obama and Vice President Biden “the rail men of the 21st century,” noted that the Administration has already invested $10 billion in the nation’s rail network through various passenger rail projects, an investment “that could not have been done without our Class I partners. There is not enough money available for what we want to accomplish without good partners like them” contributing private-sector funds. Citing projects like the Chicago-St. Louis corridor higher speed rail improvements, La Hood said, “The fact is, we’re not just filing reports and stuffing them in file cabinets.” He added that the Administration strongly supports high speed rail and freight rail.

La Hood urged Congress to pass the American Jobs Act of 2011. Recently announced by the President, it contains some $4 billion for rail projects (in that money $2 billion for Amtrak), “enough to lay 4,000 miles of track and create thousands of jobs. We’ve got tracks that need to be laid and trains that need to be built in this country. Congress must take action now.”

Congress has just passed an extension of the existing SAFETEA-LU surface transportation funding bill through early next year. La Hood, exhorting that “transportation has always been bi-partisan,” called upon Congress to craft and pass the next six-year bill, “to put Americans back to work.”

Prior to La Hood’s remarks, REMSA President Phil Homan of Loram Maintenance of Way (bottom) noted that some 9,000 people are attending Railway Interchange 2011.