Word: railings
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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None have felt a stronger grievance than the traditionally responsible public-service unions, including the coal miners, the electric-power engineers and British Rail's locomotive engineers, who have tended to fall behind their more militant colleagues in the construction and engineering trades...
...have been highballing toward disaster. Six lines,-which control half the trackage in the 15-state area, are bankrupt, maintenance has been cut for lack of cash, and equipment is literally falling apart. Now, however, there is light at the end of the tunnel: following House approval, a Northeast rail reorganization bill passed the Senate last week. Expanded to include the Ann Arbor, a ruined Michigan line, and bearing a price tag of at least $4 billion, the measure is quite a Christmas treat. While the railroads clearly need help, the Senate proposal has all the markings...
...guaranteed bonds to satisfy creditors of the bankrupt lines (there is no precise limit). In addition, a new Railroad Equipment Authority would guarantee $2 billion of loans to finance the purchase of new rolling stock. Then Ginnie Rae would turn over operation of the new system to a United Rail Corp., a freight-carrying version of Amtrak, which runs the nation's passenger trains. If the United Rail Corp. is profitable, holders of Ginnie Rae's bonds could eventually exchange them for stock in the corporation, turning it into a privately owned company. There is little evidence, though...
...some instances old hands will go on drawing paychecks even if they find work elsewhere. Communities served by little-used routes that may be cut out will get $400 million in grants to help them buy tracks and equipment and keep them in operation under regional rail authorities three-quarters funded by the Government. Complains Charles Van Horn, a Washington representative for the Chessie System, a profitable Northeast line: "It's a Christmas tree...
When Nixon signed a lavish $407 million appropriation for Amtrak only last month, he asserted that strengthening the nation's rail system was necessary to cope with the energy shortage. And a Transportation Department study for the White House indicates that any abrupt halt in rail service by the bankrupt carriers would boost the national unemployment rate by 3% and lower the gross national product by 2.7% within two months. That seems an extravagant prediction, but the Administration is hardly likely to risk any derailment of the economy on top of Watergate and the energy crisis...