Friday, October 26, 2007

News Concerning US Senate's Efforts on Passenger Rail

Follow up from yesterday's news from All Aboard Ohio:

Dear Supporter of Passenger Rail,

The amendment to S.294 by Senator John Sununu (R-NH) that would have eliminated any train that lost over $200 per passenger was defeated by a vote of 66-28 (six senators not voting). To view how your Senator voted, click the link below, then click on Roll Call 00395 :
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_110_1.htm

More amendments are expected to come to the floor and are expected to be negative for the operation of the national system. The message that needs to be communicated to your Senators is thus: We must invest in Amtrak and we must invest in critically needed rail infrastructure to ensure frieght and passenger trains run on time.

For information to pass on to your Senators, Amtrak released it's ridership numbers for its routes. The routes in Ohio performed substandard at best due mainly to on time performance that is caused by congestion on freight tracks in Northern Ohio. Lake Shore Limited---312,643 FY07 vs 323,480 FY06, down 3.4% Capitol Limited---193,748 FY07 vs 198,044 FY06, down 2.2% Cardinal—96,896 FY07 vs 95,076 FY06, up 1.9%

Given the timeliness of this issue, E-mails and letters are not relevant.
Phone calls are needed.

Contact iformation for your Senator can be found here:
http://www.allaboardohio.org/cms/index.php/content/action/

Thank you,
Andrew Bremer

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