Hotline #736

Hurricane Andrew has had a serious effect on Amtrak service this week. Beginning the evening of August 23, all Silver Meteor and Silver Star service was confined to north of Tampa. The Miami Amtrak station had some water damage. The CSX line between Miami and West Palm Beach had little serious damage and is now open. Amtrak began partial service today and connecting buses have run from Orlando the past two days.

The Tri-Rail commuter service moved all its rolling stock to Orlando before the storm hit. It began service north of Fort Lauderdale yesterday and full service today. Because of numerous highway traffic tie-ups and National Guard checkpoints, Tri-Rail will also be running relief trains. They will pick up donated emergency materials from cities north of Miami less affected by the storm and take them directly by rail to the Salvation Army at Homestead.

Miami's Metrorail serves more of the area most affected by the storm. There is little information on the extent of damage, but Metrorail was not running as of today.

Further west, beginning the evening of August 25, the Gulf Breeze was turned at Mobile, as normal, but the Crescent was turned at Slidell, the City of New Orleans at Jackson and the Sunset Limited at San Antonio. The evening of August 26, both the Gulf Breezeand Crescent were cut back to Birmingham.

Fortunately, low-lying New Orleans, an important Amtrak center, was spared the worst of Andrew. Instead, the brunt of it came down on the Southern Pacific route across southern Louisiana. The Sunset Limited stops of New Iberia and Lafayette were right in the heart of the worst damage. The railroad apparently did not receive heavy damage and will reopen August 30. Sunset service west of Houston already has been restored. Crescent service resumed last night. The remnants of Andrew went on to spread heavy rain to Jackson, Miss., served by the City of New Orleans. Illinois Central has experienced washouts and signal failures and may not reopen until August 30.

California Zephyr passengers are being bussed around a Southern Pacific freight derailment west of Helper, Utah.

DOT Secretary Andrew Card is still on record supporting some sort of expansion at O'Hare Airport, in the wake of the apparent demise of the third Chicago airport this summer. Last week, NARP sent Card a letter outlining how much high-speed rail could be bought for the $10.8 billion the third airport would have cost and how improvements to railroads feeding O'Hare would be better than more runways.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said that the bolt-cutters found near the site of the August 12 Colonialderailment in Newport News, Va., definitely match marks on a switchbox lock that was found broken open. The NTSB maintains that the derailment was the intentional result of a criminal act. The FBI is continuing its investigation.

Amtrak plans to eliminate train 466, the inland Night Owl, which provides morning service from Hartford and Springfield into Boston. Amtrak says the ridership has been low, about eight a day on local trips. But Amtrak's skeletal advertising budget is also to blame. When the train was set up in April, it was heralded by area NARP members. But Amtrak's original purpose for the train did not materialize -- it was supposed to connect with the northbound replacement Montrealer service from Boston. That, of course, never happened.

The city council of Portland, Me., passed a resolution on August 17 in favor of a rail link between North and South Stations in Boston.

Virginia Railway Express has decided to look at running midday trains. Ridership has been increasing and is now up to 2,200 a day. No word yet on reverse commute trains. VRE wants to follow the example of Florida's Tri-Rail, whose ridership surged once midday trains were added.