Conservative columnist and American Enterprise scholar Michael Barone, with degrees from Harvard and Yale, is a smart fellow. But a recent column about Amtrak suggests his research consisted of wandering into the posh Capitol Grill in Washington, D.C., and sitting at Amtrak baiter-in-chief Rep. John Mica’s luncheon table, absorbing Mica’s jihad against publicly funded intercity rail passenger service.
Mica’s endless blistering attacks against Amtrak for failing to earn a profit hang as a sword of Damocles, diverting scarce managerial resources from effectively improving efficiency and customer service to explaining, without respite, why Amtrak should exist at all.
Thirty-one million passenger boardings, up 55% since 1997 — coupled with increasing highway and aviation congestion and a rapidly aging population — should be reason enough, but not for Mica, Barone, and other Amtrak haters.
You may read it all at the link below.
Amtrak haters: Bullies with no public purpose | Railway Age.
Filed under: Amtrak, Passenger Rail Politics, Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy
Trains For America 
Your comments and opinions on the latest passenger rail happenings