House to Stage Another Round of Votes on Anti-Train Amendments Today

June 9, 2015

June 9, 2015 The U.S. House of Representatives is reconvening today at 12:00 PM Eastern to take up legislative business, including voting on several key amendments that target Amtrak’s long-distance services and an innovative high-speed rail project in Florida. As part of the House’s effort to finish up the Fiscal Year 2016 Transportation, Housing & Urban Development bill, members will vote on amendments offered by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) that target t

Call to Action: Protect High-Speed Rail in Florida

Call to Action: Protect High-Speed Rail in Florida

June 8, 2015

NARP needs Florida members to take action TODAY to ensure that All Aboard Florida—a proposed privately funded high-speed rail project that will connect Miami to Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando—can move forward. All Aboard Florida represents the best chance Floridians have at having a convenient and reliable alternative to the massively congested Interstate 95. Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) is offering up two amendments in the Transportation, Housing & Urban Development appropria

House Appropriators to Vote on Anti-Amtrak Amendments TODAY

House Appropriators to Vote on Anti-Amtrak Amendments TODAY

June 4, 2015

The House of Representatives is scheduled to hold a final series of roll call votes on the Transportation, Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill today. Votes may come as early as 11:00 AM Eastern. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation voted to approve a budget last month that attacks funding for trains and transit. While House appropriators protected road subsidies -- and even increased spending on the Federal Aviation Administration -- but Amtrak funding was cut

Passenger Train Hype Machine Gears Up, Yet Again

May 20, 2015

Photographer: Jason Berg for Amtrak. From the Amtrak Corporate Collection If you’ve been paying attention, you knew it was coming. Anytime Amtrak is in the national news, a political spectacle is sure to follow. Once the political-media apparatus geared up in response to the recent Amtrak derailment north of Philadelphia, there was nothing that was going to stop this particular circus from coming to town; not the tragic nature of the accident, nor the unambiguous statements by the Nationa

CALL TO ACTION: Protect High Speed Rail Projects in Texas

May 18, 2015

NARP and Texas Rail Advocates (TRA) are urging members to take action TODAY to ensure that a proposed high-speed rail by Texas Central Railway (TCR) between Dallas and Houston remains an option to address transportation needs across the state. How can you help? First, contact Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sen. Jane Nelson today and tell them to remove Rider 48 from Article 7 in the Senate Appropriations Bill 48. Rider 48 is bad public policy that places government in the role of picking busin

Hearing Tomorrow: Tell Your Representatives to Say "NO" to Cuts to Amtrak and Mass Transit!

May 12, 2015

The House Appropriations Committee is holding a full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2016 transportation budget tomorrow at 10:15 AM Eastern. The full committee will consider a bill drafted by the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) subcommittee that slashes investment in mass transit and Amtrak—while protecting subsidies for roads and airports. Amtrak funding was cut by $262 million, transit funding was cut by $161 million, and funding for the intermodal TIGER grant p

Britannia Waives the Rules

April 29, 2015

American rail advocates frequently point to Europe and Asia for examples of what the United States’s future high-speed rail network can look like. This is for good reason: High-speed trains in France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and other countries offer travellers a welcome alternative to air and road travel. The lessons from abroad, however, don’t stop with high-speed intercity trains. U.S. advocates and policymakers can also cite foreign metropolises’ mass transit systems as examples fo

A Crucial Week for The Southwest Chief in Colorado

April 14, 2015

The Joint Budget Committee meets next week to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget. If the six-member Senate Budget Committee concurs with the House version then we finally will have the financial support of the State of Colorado – joining twelve SE Colorado communities, Kansas, Amtrak and BNSF at the table. In other words, it's crunch time! You've helped already and you've made a huge difference at the Capitol. Legislators have commented about how impresse

Who Will Save The Cascades?

April 1, 2015

When NARP asked for your help to save trains in the past, we’ve asked you to help us with routes that some politicians (wrongly) claim are lightly travelled: the Hoosier State in Indiana, the Southwest Chief in Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, and others come to mind. But today, we need your help to save one of the country’s most popular routes: the Cascades service between Eugene and Portland, Oregon. But why would the Cascades be in trouble? In the past, we’ve touted the route as a

Gulf Coast Service: This Time It Actually Is Different

March 25, 2015

For only 12 years -- between 1993 and 2005 -- Amtrak operated the nation’s only coast-to-coast passenger train. Running more than 2,700 miles between Orlando and Los Angeles, the Sunset Limitedconnected big cities including Orlando, New Orleans, Houston, Tucson and Los Angeles, with small towns such as Crestview, Florida, Sanderson, Texas, and Benson, Arizona. Unfortunately, 2005’s Hurricane Katrina caused significant damage to the railroad line along the Gulf Coast, forcing Amtrak to su