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Index to recent news postings Rail Travel News is a twice-monthly print publication, published since
Dec 10, 1970.
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LONG, TOUGH HEARING HELD ON
GUNN FIRING FROM AMTRAK
On November 15 the rail subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing with the Amtrak board and David Gunn in attendance, as well as several senators interested in Amtrak. All the subcommittee members were supportive of Amtrak and opposed to the firing of David Gunn as Amtrak president, except the habitually anti-Amtrak Rep. John Mica (R-FL). It seemed clear from the declarations of both Gunn and Amtrak chairman David Laney that Gunn was fired because he resisted the efforts of the board to move down the path toward what he saw as the destruction of Amtrak. It became known that the board hired an independent public relations firm to announce Gunn's firing, as they did not want to use Amtrak's own media relations people to do the job. Gunn said that he learned of his firing first when it became know that the firm had been engaged. Gunn said that he realized that he had become an obstacle to "doing away with the corporate structure of Amtrak." One of the important issues pressed by the legislators was whether the Amtrak board is legally formed at present and whether they had the authority to fire Amtrak. Laney insisted that they did, but Sen. Schumer of NY said "There is no clear legal consensus that the board has the authority to act." Gunn said that it is clear to him that the Bush-appointed board is moving toward the three-part breakup of Amtrak. Schumer said "We're calling on the President to send Congress
a full list of five nominations [to the board]. He must follow the letter
of the law..."
GUNN: "THERE WILL BE A LOT OF TRAIN-OFFS" (Nov. 14)
On Tuesday, Nov. 15 the rail subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing on the firing of Gunn and on the question of the Amtrak board operating soon without a quorum. Subcommittee chair Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH) also believes that some of the Board members may have been improperly appointed. Rail advocates have been petitioning
C-SPAN to broadcast the hearing.
AMTRAK BOARD FIRES DAVID GUNN (Nov 10 news) SENATE OVERWHELMINGLY PASSES LOTT AMTRAK AMENDMENT AMTRAK RIDERSHIP: THIRD YEAR OF RECORD PATRONAGE Amtrak announced that in FY2005 just ended it had counted 25,374,998 passengers, for the third straight year of record ridership. Most impressive was that this happened in spite of major disruptions to service due to hurricanes and the down time of the Acela high-speed trains. The full report along with detailed route-by-route figures can be found on the Amtrak site at this link. AMTRAK ADVOCATES PUZZLE OVER PLAN TO SEPARATE CORRIDOR FROM REST OF AMTRAK AMTRAK WILL STUDY POSSIBILITY OF SEPARATE NEC CORPORATION LOTT-LAUTENBERG BILL PROVISIONS IMPORTANT FOR PASSENGER RAIL SENATE COMMITTEE PASSES LOTT-LAUTENBERG AMTRAK AUTHORIZATION BILL |
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DOT'S MINETA HARASSING AMTRAK &
AMTRAK'S REPLY TO THE MINETA LETTER
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