Word: amtraks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Philadelphia and Atlantic City, a Shell station owner was retailing premium for 86.7? per gal. Presumably, some thought was given to all of this over the afternoon turkeys; on Thanksgiving night and Friday, drivers noted widespread obedience of new legal limits. Many people just kept off the highways altogether. Amtrak, the national passenger rail service, had to get "every available coach" out of mothballs to meet an unexpected flood of business...
...country, with the aim of raising another $400 million a year to keep the Northeast railroads running. The next day President Nixon's new Secretary of Transportation, Claude S. Brinegar, rejected the idea of a federal bail-out and proposed instead a kind of freight version of Amtrak, the quasi-Government corporation that runs long-distance passenger trains (TIME, March 26). Brinegar would create one or more corporations, with presidentially selected boards, that would take over assets of the six bankrupt lines, operate the choicest rolling stock over a "core" system of heavily used runs, and junk the rest...
Although total U.S. rail travel continued its almost quarter-century decline last year (see chart), Amtrak logged a slight increase in passenger miles. In the five months ended last Sept. 30, the company carried 10.4% more riders than in the comparable period of 1971. The increase helped hold Amtrak's deficit in the first half of fiscal 1973 to $63 million-a huge amount, but down 9% from a year earlier...
...Amtrak's Metroliner, which covers the 227 miles between New York and Washington in three hours and runs on schedule 95% of the time, has established itself as a serious competitor to air and bus service. Lewis plans to start similar runs in the Midwest later this year with four turbotrains capable of hitting 170 m.p.h. to be leased from Canadian and French firms. Reservations and ticketing for Eastern Amtrak runs are now handled by a central computer, which by 1974 will take over ticketing for the whole country. Amtrak lately has even been expanding rather than curtailing...
Attitude. Lewis and a crew of Amtrak marketing men, most of them hired from airlines, are out to promote rather than merely provide rail passenger service. Lewis himself came to Amtrak from the aerospace industry (he was once president of General Dynamics) and has maintained his zeal for rail travel despite a Congress-ordered slash in his salary from $125,000 to $60,000 a year. Amtrak is now plugging airline-style package weekend tours that include train and hotel reservations in a single, discount price, and has negotiated car-rental discounts for Amtrak passengers at some destination points. Although...