For the first time in its history, Hiawatha Service ridership surpassed 800,000 in 2011. The year-end numbers put ridership at 823,163. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT), that is a nearly four percent increase from 2010 when ridership totaled 792,848.
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Post Link: http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/opencms/export/nr/modules/news/news_3137.html_786229440.html
Amtrak’s Hiawatha Service, which runs between Milwaukee and Chicago, reached a new annual ridership level in 2011. More than 820,000 riders used the service, making the route the busiest Amtrak corridor in the Midwest.
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Post Link: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=9803
EARLIER this month, the New York Times‘s “Freakonomics” blog asked a panel of expertswhether Amtrak, America’s government-run passenger rail company, could “ever be profitable”. The answers ranged from the supportive (Amtrak’s problems are many, but they’re not all the company’s own fault) to the critical (it’s time to start breaking up the beast). One astute respondent, journalist Nate Berg, noted that the company had already answered Freakonomics’s question: “Amtrak will never be profitable,” David Gunn, Amtrak’s president, told a Senate committee in 2002.
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Post Link: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/01/amtrak
Iowa is no danger of losing an $87 million federal grant targeted for establishing Amtrak passenger railroad service between Iowa City and Chicago, the state’s top transit official told Iowa lawmakers Wednesday.
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Iowa is no danger of losing an $87 million federal grant targeted for establishing Amtrak passenger railroad service between Iowa City and Chicago, a state official told Iowa lawmakers Wednesday.
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The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) has launched a new website to inform stakeholders and the public on development of the state’s new rail plan.
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Post Link: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/why-trains-are-important-even-for-car-guys
Extravagant proposals to transform Union Station in Chicago from a 1920s passenger depot into a modern transportation center have come and gone like passing trains.
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Amtrak says its busiest travel of the year is around Thanksgiving and so for the next several days will have more seats available on its Missouri River Runner service.
The railroad says the afternoon train coming out of Kansas City, with a 4:19 p.m. stop in Independence, will have a third coach car each day through Nov. 27, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That train typically consists of a locomotive, two coach cars and a car with a snack bar and tables put seats for business class.
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Post Link: http://www.examiner.net/news/x918438121/More-Amtrak-seats-for-Missouri-service
