EDITOR’S NOTE: There will be a meeting on Southwest/Amtrak in the Kingman City Council Chambers for city officials, chambers of commerce, tourism bureaus and economic development departments on Tuesday, Oct. 29 from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
Dear Editor,
Amtrak’s Southwest Chief is one of your town’s public transportation lifelines. Twice a day it stops, once on its way to Los Angeles and once on its way to Chicago. Last year Amtrak wanted to substitute the train with a bus from Dodge City to Albuquerque. Under that plan, the train that stopped in your town would have been a Los Angeles-Albuquerque coach train with no amenities other than toilets. Fortunately, Congress stepped in and put a stop to that for the fiscal year that ended September 30. There is a possibility that Amtrak may revive this for the fiscal year that began October 1.
But that’s not the current threat. The situation is substantially worse.
Amtrak has declared that all long distance trains, including the Southwest Chief, are “relics of the past” and should be discontinued. Amtrak wishes to concentrate its business model on the Northeast Corridor (Boston-Washington) and various short corridors of 750 miles or fewer. Transportation Secretary Chao has echoed this, as has President Trump, who has threatened a veto if Amtrak is fully funded. Sen. Moran (R-KS) has brought together a team of senators from both parties to fight this. His slogan is “National or Nothing,” and he is holding up funding for the Northeast Corridor and the President’s appointees to the Amtrak board until he can get the commitment necessary to keep the national network trains running. Thankfully, our Sen. Sinema is front and center on this effort.
We at All Aboard Arizona have made presentations in Flagstaff, Yuma, Maricopa and Tucson to city officials, chambers of commerce, tourism bureaus and economic development departments to alert them to the situation and ask them to work with their senators and congressmen to keep their trains running. We would like to come to your town to make a similar presentation to alert you to the danger to your train and develop an action plan.
Tony Trifiletti
Executive Director, All Aboard Arizona
