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Home My WebLink AboutMT Assn of Railroad PassengersMONTANA ASSOCIATION OF RAILROAD PASSENGERS - MTARP DEDICATED TO: RETAINING, IMPROVING AND INCREASING RAIL PASSENGER SERVICE IN MONTANA. JUNE 2007 2110 WINGATE I..4NE BIZ. LINGS, MO,VT~INA 59102 406-~52-1339 ernail - iimabiff(&imt.net Web site wv~v. mtarv.or~, BOZEMAN 5/11 AND BUTTE 6/29 MEETINGS SUMMARY The meeting in Bozeman was attended mainly by people fxom Livingston who's main object was to get commuter transportation between Bozeman and Livingston. After the initial talks that they stated we convinced them that we wanted more than just a commuter line, they then agreed that we needed to start somewhere and were willing to give some support, which as of this writing has not been sent to this address. We get a lot of people who keep telling us they want to support us and believe in our canse and ideas. But when it comes to money to help further our ideas and cause, it is not there. We did not get anyone from the university to come and listen, nor from the hospital. We did gain a couple of members who were a great help in getting the invitations out to the chambers, city (town) officials, county officials and others. We sent to Big Timber, Livingston, Manhattan, Belgrade and Bozeman invitations to come and express their views in our discussion group. I did receive a correspondence from a woman at the university that is trying to organize a state group for transportation alternatives. She did not show at our meeting either, as I think her thrust is bikes and walking paths. Our next stop was in Butte 6/29. We met with some people from Montana Rail Link in the morning - more on that in a separate article. After lunch we met in the restored hip depot that Janel Madrazo has been working so hard to get done. With the help of her and Brandon Stodden we invited officials like we did at the other cities we had these meetings. Here again we sent to the same t2~pe of people in Butte, Deer Lodge, Anaconda, Ennisl Dillon, and Phillipsburg. We received some attendance by official members of governmem and chamber members from Butte and Anaconda along with the staffmember of Sefiator Jon Tester and some concerned citizens. Butte of course has had some dealings with the Rail Road people and Anaconda has the Copper King Express excursioh train. Those items we think made them think they should not miss our meeting. They have a unique problem that the rest oftbe of the cities along our proposed corridors do not have. The corridor Bi!llngs/Missoula would not pass through Butte, so the corridor Butte/Garrison would be an alternate. The fact that the tracks were still in place from Whitehall to Butte was an interesting topic. We had been told they were removed and they told me they had not. They are the older and not good rail, so it would have to be upgraded, which could be done in the future. But opinions are all over and for me not a subject to be talked about now. We do want to keep on the good side of everyone. Those representing the governments of the area are really interested in our project and want to be part of us. It was stated they wanted to have their governmental bodies approve being members of our group. We wish others would do the same, as we could then show that the towns and counties are really behind us and want our project to succeed. As we know governmental agencies do not invest in projects unless they know it is good for their people. Looking forward to seeing all of you at our annual meeting in September. No election just reports on our community meetings and our talks with RR People. And of course a good time being with those that care about the same things you do. AGAIN U.S. IS BEHIND WITH RAIL PASSENGER Railways join fomes to compete with airlines By Claire Soares In Brussels European rail operators threw down the gauntlet to low-cost airlines yesterday, hunching a continental alliance that l~ima to get passengers offplanes and on to trains by offering them sweeteners such as train miles and appealing to their green credentials as: well as their wallets, Budget airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet have transformed travel, with Bdtons regularly nipping away for mini-breaka~ But Wain operators hope to create a rail revolmion, capitalising on the public's growing fears about climate change and frusa'atiun with lengthy airport checks. The Railteam alliance - which includes Eurostar, France's SNCF, Germany's Deutsche Bahn as well as Austrian, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss operators - will create one system to book international wain fares. So instead ofpurchasingtickets fi-om separate operators for the various legs of a London to Am.qterdam jouruey, for examp!e,.there will be a une-stop shop that will issue passengers One ticket for the whole trip. And because pHc. es will be more easily comparable, fares are likely to drop. "For the first time, we can promote and sell Europe's high-speed rail network as an integrated whole," Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said at the launch in Brussels. "Railteem can highlight gaps in the current prices and then it's up to individual operators to decide what to do." Deutsche Bahn board member Karl-Friedrich Rausch agreed: "It's got to be our objective to make sure our fares by Rain are competitive with those by air. We're principally targeting leisure journeys below six hours and business journeys below four." The days of bargain-basement high-speed mil tickets are still a little way off. Railteaun's online booking system, which cost =A320m to set up, will not go live until 2009. But by 2010, the umbrella group wants to have increased the number of international passengers by almost 70 per cent to 25 million. Acenrding to Eurostar, the appetite is already there. The cross-Channel operator saw a 39 per ceut jump in ticket sales in the first three months of this year for those trains that arrive with ~ood connection times for local French high-speed services &at go on towards the Mediterranean and the Alps. And eventually,., 6fficials say, timetables can be co-ordinaled to Create good transfer times in the same way as planes. As EU governments fret about reducing carbon emissions, rail executives are eager to point out &at high-speed cross-border rail journeys within Europe.release about 10 times less C02 than flights to the same destinations. "People can go anywhere on the network and get there raore quickly than by air. Train journeys ... are more environmentally fi%ndiy," Mr Brown said. Like f~equent flyers, Railteem regulars will be able clock up train miles. And if passengers miss a connection, they will be able to hop on board the next alliance train, even if it lsrun by a different operator. High-speed mil networks are being extended like never before across Europe. More than 5,000 kilomelres of track links 100 major destinations aCross the Continent, and &at is set to U'iple by 2020. IT LOOKS LIKE IT IS EITHER DO SOMETHING OR GET OFF THE POT!! IF YOU ARE GO1NG TO HELP OK, BUT IF YOU ARE GOING TO SIT BACK, YOU MIGHT JUST AS WELL TURN TO SOMETHING ELSE. To NARP Members, July 9, 2007- Here are several items of interest. I) Congressional action on Amtrak funding-three markups are scheduled this week for the Transportation-Housing Urban Development Fiscal 2008 funding b'dL Tell your member of Congress to support fuU funding for Amtrak. Full details, including links to contact your Members of Congress can be found at our Action Alert Center: http:#www, uarpraiLorg/cms/index~php/main/act] The markup schedule is as follows: Senate Appropriations Traasportation-HUD Subcommittee. 3:00 p.m. Tuesday Senate Appropriations full committee: 2:00 p.m. Thursday House Appropriations full committee: Time TBA Thursday (The:House subcommittee approved $1.45 billion on June 11) 2) The third in a series of four Amtrak hearings by the Railroads Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will be Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. on "Amtrak's Capital Funding Needs." ' That hearing is scheduled to be web cast on the committee's website:http:#transportulinn.honse, gov/ 3) Today, Amtrak begins a new, Monday=Friday Acela Express one-stop round-trip between Washington and New York. Train ~2105 departs New York at 6:$0am, stops at Philadelphia at 7:55am, and arrives Washington at 9:25. Train #2120 departs Washington at 3:$$pm, stops at Philadelphia at 5:23pm, and arrives in New York at 6:30pm. 4) Amtrak Guest Rewards and Chase Bank are new accepting pre-ragistcations for the new Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card. Go to the Amtrak Guest Rewards Website http://wv~w,amtrakgneatrewards.com to register (click on the link on the left side). You will receive a nofiee once Chase bank is ready to begin taking applications. Once your application is approved and you activate the card, you wili receive 5,000 bonus Guest Rewards paints. Chase is planning to begin accepting and processing applications on September 10. -Ross B. Capon LT GOVERNOR SPEAKS Shnater: Some members think mil passenger should be profitable. My goal is to get Amtrak to break-even. Refers to national equipment pool to help states. MT Lt Gov Bohlinger: Who is riding the Empire Builder? Some people think it's just vacationers. It's Montana residents go'rog to medical facilities in Seattle or to the Mayo Clinic. Military personnel fi.om xx at Great Falls. Native Americans going to work or visiting family. Students going to school out of state. Homeland Security personnel that guard our border. Our greatest need is for a national passenger rail policy. We pay our fair share. Montana has the'nation's ninth highest tax on gasoline and the 10th highest on,~esel fuel. Our vaSt road system-10,572 miles' state and federal-means the state struggles to come ap with the needed funds. We have a populatioh of 944,000 on 145,000 square miles (nation's fourth l.ad'gest state). 6.51 people per square mile. We have more deer, elk, cattle and sheep. If we could figure out how to tax them, we might be able to kick in. We hope Congress will not require low-population states to pay for long-distance trains. A system without such trains is not a national passenger mil system. Rep. Gerlach (R-PA): Amtrak not always making best use ofproporties it owns. Your thoughts? Velma Williams (Sanford): Is there a commitment at the top? Brown: Depends on which top. This top is supportive but I'm not the only top. We used to bo #1 in passenger mil and now we're the caboose, and we don~ use cabooses anymore. Rep. Nadler (D-NY): A few years ago we had a $375 billion, sm-year bill because the administration said that's what the needs were. But the adminlslratien insisted on $256.4 billion as the limit because that's what their principles allowed. We proposed indexing the gasoline tax currently 18.3 cents. In 1993, we imposed a 4.3 cent a gallon tax on transportation fuels for deficit reduction. Presently the highway and aviation payments went into the trust fund but the rail payments continued to go into deficit reduction until they were repealed a few years ago. Much of the freight destined for New York City is tracked fi.om mil heads in northern New Jersey. But CSX and NS are working on terminals in Allentown and Harrisburg. Once those t~rminals ar~ complete, that freight will b~ Ixucked all the way from Allentown and Harrisburg, and 1-83 will be a parking lot. Nekrilz 0L rep): Citizenry is way ahead of the palicymakers (in willingness to ride rail). We need to catch up to the citizens.. PANEL II - Will Kempton (Callrans); Astrid Gl)an (NY DOT Comsur), Frank Buslacchi (WisDOT Secretary and Surface Commission member), Indiana S~ate Sen. Jaclanan Kempton: $600 million hacMog in California projects. Glynn cites declines in OTP of New York mutes. Says, "I hope this is a typo-the Lake Shore Limited from 70% to zero." Busalacchi: "If gasoline went to $7 and there was a mass exodus [from the auto] of people wanting to ride transit and passenger rail, we are not ready. We are not ready in two years. With your leadership, we've got to get on the stick." Shuster asks about merits of Farley project, which he hopes to visit in August. Glynn: "An excellent example of how to turn a mundane building into a signature site. We and the governor's economic development team are very involved." Shuster: And you'll have some cash? Glynn: "We agree that cash is critical." [laughter] Shuster thlnka people will always choose {to drive. Asks Capon what does he mean by "a whole lot" more train riders. Capon: Well, ifAmtrak is 1% of intemity travel today, and within my il~-tlme that grew to 10 or 20%, those would be huge numbers in absolute terms." Brown asks what is crucial to getting more people on U-aim. Capon urges that on-time performance be addressed in the House bill, notes that it is in the Senate bill. Notes importance of air-rail terminals...the easier it is to transfer between rail and other modes, the closer rail comes to matching the flexibility of the auto and the more passengers we'll have. Larry Blow (Maglev Coalition): Continental Airlines sponsored a oharette (fancy name for a meeting) on high speed rail at Texas DOT. Continental is looking for ways to offioad short distance flights. Colin Peppard: If 10-15% of intemity trips of S0 miles or more were on rail in 20 years, that would be a good goal. Kevin: Chicago-St. Louis EIS projects a 10-fuld increase in ridership. 10 million/year using trains (entire Midwest HSR). Springfield IL just learned they would lose commuter air service. The local chamber shrugged. This would have been unheard of a few years ago. Brown asked about contracting out. Capon said be real clear on what the public commitment is, and be realistic-when it comes to huge projects, lots of investors know that the original Channel T,nnel inve~tors lost their shirts. Shustar asked our views of con~aacfing out, in particular the Metrolink commuter service. Capon said if, as your previous wimess said (Kempton), the servico is working well, we have no problem with it. Later, I clarified that I was talking about commuter rail and certain ancillary services (such as Kempton refened to) but expected that Amtrak would remain the train operator. I referxed to the "Why Amtxak?" frame from a Gene Skoropowski presentation (which I also showed at the NARP Board meeting in May), and gave staff a copy alter the hearing. Shuster's fust question to me was re the ACAC contract, as I had provided staffwith the House's "troth in testimony" form revealing this. He did not pursue it after hearing what a tiny percentage of our total budget the contract represented. (I initially referred to our budget as $1 bill,o? but correetod that to one million.) Here is more about coverage our Vision has received. Also, I should note that I had a lot of belp with that op ed piece carrying my name. Isabel Kaldenlmch did the first draft, and the sul~sequent editing process included David Johnson, George, Isabel and me. Green Energy News led with this story on June 26, under the headline "Rebuilding~ Rethinking America's Energy Efficient Railroads" Also, we had 1,095 visitors to wWW.narprail.org <http.-//www.narprail.org/> on June 25 (the day the Vision was released) vs. roughly 500 on a normal Monday. Within those 1,095 visits, each visitor clicked on an average of five links to go to other parts of oar site. Buckley & Kaldcabach provided the following information on June 25 distribution (which was in addition to the NARP office's extensive distribution * l~mailed out almost 400 press releases directly to the reporters, with notes indicating the regional angle on the story ("your city will be directly linked..."). * Wrote to reporters whom we've sent introductory notes about Ross, indicating that because of their past interest in rail transportation alternatives, they may be interested in today's release. * Saturated daily newspapers, TV and radio in the following markets: Allentown and Scranton PA, Baton Rouge LA, Raise ID, Brownsville TX, Columbus and Dayton OH, Des Moines IA, Knoxville and Nashvilie TN, Las Vegas NV, Louisville KY, Madison WI, Mobile AL, Tulsa OK. * Sent personal notes indicating their city was slated to get better connections and more service . to reporters we've worked with before at major dailies or TV in the following locations: Albuquerque NM, Colorado Springs/Denver/Fort Collins CO, Billing~ MT, Bismarck ND, Omaha NE, Wichita KS, Birmingham AL, Indianapolis IN, Quad Cities, IA, Duluth MN. * Also sent to trade publications (political, transportation, transit etc.) I've run the 30th anniversary clips from PR newswire. Note that where it says "releases" that just means the site posted the press release - which is important and useful but should not be confused with someone writing a story about the issue. Details, including links to websites still active where the release was posted or the article Was written, is attached. ' Many of the unrecognizable names below nre syndications of the Tennessenn throughout Tennessee. Note that PR Newswire is really good about monitoring where its releases are post, ed but not so good about pieking up stories that are written about them - google and yahoo searches are better for tlmt are how Some of the other stories you've already found were uncovered. WANTED.. Sponsorship of annual meeting on Board the Charlie Russell Cho Cho $4000 would sponsor 50 then it is $80 for anyone else. Otherwise it is $90 per person. Charter on the 9/15 no charter 9/29 Meet at 3PM on board -Train leaves at 4PM returns about 6 PM INCLUDES Prime Rib dinner prepared by Yogo INN WHERE/WHAT IS NEXT We have had four town meetings - Missoula, Billings, Bozeman & Butte. No more until after annual meeting. We have had the opportunity to speak to a lot of the movers and shakers in the places we gave our presentations. We had the biggest crowd in Missoula thanks to the hard work of our Vice President-South, Mike Ackley. We had help from members in Bozeman, Butte and Billings. We hung our banner at each location. We had media coverage of both paper and TV in Missoula during the meeting; after the meeting in Billings bY paPe'k and TV; before the meeting in Butte by both TV and paper; and at the meeting in Bogeman. We gained members at every place we went. We will be working during the next eo.uple of months in putting together information that is needed by the Universities to have good statistical information so we can have an accurate Economic Impact Report and a Business Plan to accomplish our goals. What are the goals we have talked about? First we would like to have corridor trains operating between Missoula and Billings, then a corridor train operating between Billings and Shelby (to connect to the Builder), and a corridor train to operate between Butte and Garrison to connect with the Missoula/Billings train. Does this project have any hope of success? Yes, we think if each ofyou pledge your support and get the support of your city and county we have an excellent chance. We are talking with representatives from Rail Link and BNSF. A report of what transpired with the railroads will be given at the meeting. I would state some now, but that wouldn't be good as we want a good crowd at our annual meeting. clip & mail: MTarp 2110 Wingate Billings 59102 Yes I would attend the meeting on board the train - sponsorship or not. Add name below & how many. MONTANA ASSOCIATION OF RAILROAD PASSENGERS 2110 WINGATE LANE BILLINGS, MONTANA 59102 406-652-1339 cmail jimabiff@IMT.NET web page www ,~, ..... NO CHARTER - 9129 ONLY RESERVATION BY AUG 4 SEND NAME & NUMBER 2110 W[NGATE, BLGS 59102 Mayor, City of Laurel -- 115 W. 1~t St. Laurel, Mt 59044 NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 309 BILLINGS, MONTANA ¢ THIS EDITION OF TIIE OFFICIAL NEWS FOR "MARP' IS WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE FOLLOWINO BUSINESS. WE ASK YOU TO THANK AND TO SUPPORT THEM. WE NEED MORE LIKE THEM. BE A DUES PAYING MEMBER OR BE A SPONSOR OF THE NEWSL~I-i'ER OR BE'I-fER YET, BE BOTH. PLEASE HELPH LEWIS TREE SERVICE 225 SHERMAN ROCK SPRINGS, WY 307-382-8675 MCCARTNEY-WARF CONSTRUCTION INC P O BOX 163 WHI't'~_JFISH, MT 59937 406-862-5449 OR 862-7646 ROBERT & CATHERINE FISHTAIL, MT HAL COOPER PASCO, WASH ACKLEY PAINTEqO 1603 JACKSON ST M1SSOULA, MT 59802 406-728-2178 DEPOT ENTERPRISES JANEL MADRAZO BLrrTE, MT 59701 406-494-4968 CHICO HOT SPRINGS PRAY, MT 59065 406-333-4933 DON'T LET OUR ORGANIZATION GO THE SAME WAY THE CABOOSE HAS GONE, GOING. --- KEEP US ON TRACK AND PAY YOUR YEARLY DUES NOW!!! PAY YOUR SPONSOR FEE NOW-- FOR FUTURE ISSUES!! WE ARE GAINING GROUND AND MAKING OUR POSmON KNOWN. " ~