Hotline #752

The leading candidate to be President-elect Clinton's DOT secretary now appears to be William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. William Daley is described as a sharp banker and "shadow mayor," for the advisory role he has played for his brother.

Amtrak President Graham Claytor spoke at the Clinton economic summit in Little Rock on December 15. He made the case for putting furloughed Beech Grove workers back to work and for the Amtrak penny. He said that TGV and bullet-train-style high-speed rail is "down the road quite a piece" but said that Amtrak was eager to provide X2000-style service in corridors around the country -- "All we need is capital money." Applause followed his statement and Clinton said, "Now that was a good statement."

All three big U.S. automakers now favor a higher gas tax. They hope it will strengthen demand for energy-efficient cars and prevent or minimize further increases in the federal fuel efficiency standard. Lee Iacocca said even the Japanese don't make a profit on small-car sales here but do in Japan, where higher gas prices boost demand for small cars.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D.-Mich.), in another letter to DOT Secretary Andrew Card on December 7, warned him against appointing Amtrak board members before Bill Clinton takes office and said the present board "appears to be obsessed with" naming Graham Claytor's successor. Dingell said he would push legislation to nullify any lame duck board appointments and rescind any effort to replace Claytor. An unusual Amtrak board meeting that was called for December 15 to discuss candidates for Amtrak president apparently never took place. It appears that Clinton's people will get to pick Claytor's successor, but Card may still go ahead and make the two Amtrak board appointments not requiring White House involvement.

The new chairman of the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, Bob Carr (D.-Mich.), said this week in a press release, according to Congress Daily, that highway and airport spending should be sped up to create fast jobs. He rejected maglev, but "also major rail or subway projects, for the short term, because the return on those investments is too long."

An Amtrak Capitol Corridor train struck an automobile the evening of December 16 and derailed near Davis, Cal. Forty people were aboard and four were injured. The owner of the car, who had taken a wrong turn and abandoned it on the tracks, was taken into custody after a struggle and sent to a Sacramento hospital for psychiatric evaluation, according to the Associated Press.

The weekday schedule for San Diegan train 784 changed on December 14 because of track work. It will run about a half hour later than shown in the timetable between Los Angeles and San Diego, but will run at the time shown in the October timetable on weekends.

Canadian National and Canadian Pacific are nearing an agreement to share one main line between Montreal and North Bay, according to the Journal of Commerce. Instead of having one company grant the other trackage rights, a new, track-owning corporation will grant trackage rights to both CN and CP. They will jointly own this infrastructure company. This is a small-scale version of the concept railroad analyst Isabel Benham once proposed for U.S. railroads, separating the operating and infrastructure elements of the railroad industry, much as they are with highways and aviation. This idea is gaining favor in Europe, but is still anathema to U.S. railroads.

New Jersey Transit will hold two public hearings on the proposed Hudson Waterfront light-rail system. The hearings are at Jersey City city hall, January 6, 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm and again at 7:00 pm; and at Hoboken city hall, January 13 at 7:00 pm.

Twenty-five years ago, just nine days after the demise of the New York Central's Twentieth Century Limited, the Pennsylvania Railroad combined the Broadway Limited with the all-coach General, on December 12, 1967. The Broadway had been the last all-Pullman train in the United States.