Or is it "Up and Down"? Congress and/or the administration keep chasing one another around and around, each trying to outbid the other on how much funding they'll allow for Amtrak. Gasoline prices are on the way up again and many rail lines are reporting increased ridership but does this reach the brains (if there are any) of the administration? Some in Congress are trying to see the way clear to propose more than the president's budget wants to allow. Some talk about high-speed rail--when? (Exasperating as I read today of the French doing a high speed connection from Paris to Strasbourg reducing the rail time from four hours to two and a bit!) Some other proposals talk about providing milliions to run more trains between cities within 400 miles of one another. So what's supposed to happen to long-distance rail? Does that proposal cover the lines that provide service (through cars) from Chicago to Los Angeles or Chicago to Seattle or New Orleans to Los Angeles?
Midst all this someone did mention the difficulties posed by freight trains on the same track as passenger trains, that the freight companies haven't lived up to their agreement to give passenger trains priority. I can just see CSX or UP living up to that rule!!
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