Hotline #776

Senate Appropriations is expected to mark up the 1993 supplemental appropriations bill with Amtrak money in it on June 8; floor action could follow within a day or two. House Appropriations may mark up the 1994 transportation funding bill as early as the coming week.

A statement from a House Ways and Means subcommittee, from June 2, announces plans for a series of hearings on "miscellaneous revenue issues," beginning June 17. Among the items listed for a future hearing is a proposal to place one cent of the tax on diesel fuel paid by railroads into an intercity passenger rail trust fund. Although the dollar amount would be small and the freight railroads would be opposed, the principle is important to Amtrak and likely to get more serious attention if this release prompts supportive mail to legislators, especially Ways and Means members.

On a separate dispute with Amtrak, the freight railroads are pressuring the Senate Commerce Committee to change S.839, the high-speed corridor bill, so that Section 402(a) of the Rail Passenger Service Act would not apply to routes getting high-speed funding. Section 402(a) protects Amtrak from railroad gouging by giving the ICC authority to resolve disputes and requiring the ICC to consider service quality as a major factor for any compensation over incremental costs. Yesterday, NARP filed a statement with Senate Commerce strongly opposing any such change.

The X2000 is now in Florida. Tomorrow, it will go from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, with display from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, and back to Miami. On June 6, it will be on display at Miami from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. On June 7, it will make three round trips to Golden Glades and Fort Lauderdale. On June 8, it will make one round trip to Deerfield Beach and West Palm Beach, and two to Fort Lauderdale. On June 9, it will leave Miami at 9:30 am, with display stops at Ocala at 3:00 pm and Waldo at 4:15 pm, arriving at Jacksonville at 6:00 pm. On June 10, it will make a round trip to Tallahassee, with an intermediate round trip back to Drifton. On June 11, it will go from Jacksonville to Washington and remain there until June 15.

Delays with planned Amtrak stations are blamed on slow action by the Southern Pacific on track work, according to the Oakland Tribune. The Emeryville station, which was to open next month, will now open at the end of October. The station in downtown Oakland at Jack London Square, which was to open in December, will now open one year from now. Both stations are to replace the old 16th Street Station damaged in the 1989 earthquake.

Grumman Corporation and Japan Airlines want to connect Kennedy and La Guardia Airports in New York with a maglev. The Port Authority, which operates the airports, is likely to support that because it is considered maglev-friendly. The 20-mile distance could make it attractive as a demonstration project. However, a maglev is probably not as meritorious as existing proposals to link the airports with each other, Long Island City and Manhattan by subway or light rail. The Port Authority has done too little in 30 years to promote better transit access to its airports.

The FBI made a second arrest late on May 27 in the case of last year's Amtrak derailment at Newport News, Va. -- a 19-year-old man who was picked up at La Guardia Airport in New York. On June 2, a federal judge ordered the first suspect sent to a federal hospital in North Carolina for psychiatric evaluation. The maximum penalty for derailing a train is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

There were two accidents in April involving the ICE high-speed train in Germany, neither of them on the newly built high-speed track segments. The first was when an ICE derailed while entering the station at Hanau, east of Frankfurt, at 37 mph. The second was April 14 outside Berlin, when an ICE bound for Stuttgart and another passenger train collided head-on on a single-track line at about 25 mph. Three people, including two engineers, were killed in the Berlin incident. Neither accident appeared to be caused by any ICE-related mechanical problem.