Amtrak

The New York region can’t count on Washington to fund its transit mega-projects.

While the investigation is just beginning, initial reports indicate that the train entered a tight curve at too high a speed.

Just hours after seven people were killed and hundreds injured in an Amtrak derailment near Philadelphia, the U.S. House voted to cut funding for the passenger rail service.

Tomorrow, the House Transportation Committee will consider a bill that changes the nation’s policies on passenger rail. The proposal, while it includes some cuts, is a departure from the senseless vendetta many House Republicans have waged against Amtrak in the past. The National Association of Railroad Passengers, NARP, says the plan contains "commonsense regulatory and governance reforms."

Oil production is booming across North America, as new technologies make it possible to extract liquid crude oil from sources like the Bakken shale oil field in North Dakota and Montana, or Alberta's tar sands. The ever-increasing volume of crude oil mined in remote Great Plains locations often finds its way to refineries via "rolling pipelines" – freight trains that tow a million barrels of oil around the United States every day. Production of Bakken crude has tripled over the past three years, and 79 percent of it is shipped out by rail.

Transportation for America is gearing up for a fight over transit, rail, and TIGER funding, and they're asking supporters of smart transportation investments to make their voices heard.

Amtrak can be a great option if you want to travel to another city sans car. But if you want to take your bike on board an Amtrak train, on most routes you'll have to dismantle it, at least partially, and fit it in a box that for a $10 fee can be stowed with the luggage. Then once you arrive, you'll have to put it back together -- if you know how -- before rolling away from the station.

On Monday, we featured a Systemic Failure post about FRA regulations in our morning round-up from the Streetsblog Network. Systemic Failure indicated — and Streetsblog repeated — that the FRA was unwilling to change its rules to allow Amtrak to use “off-the-shelf” trainsets and other equipment.

Yesterday was a tough day to try to get attention for a Senate hearing on the future of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. After all, at least one senator had gotten a poisonous letter and everyone on Capitol Hill was on high alert. What’s more, the Amtrak hearing coincided with the vote on gun control, one of the most dramatic and high-stakes votes in the body so far this session.