Amtrak Money & Risks On the Rails

High speed rail is in the stimulus package, when does Amtrak get started…

This is The Environment Report… I’m Lester Graham.
It was a simple question. There’s 8-billion dollars for high speed rail projects. Where’s Amtrak going to start?

What a naïve boy I am sometimes. Turns out… Amtrak… doesn’t really make the decisions. The Federal Railroad Administration—part of the Department of Transportation—makes that decision… but not before it goes through the hands of all the states governors.
Marc Magliari is a spokesman for Amtrak… he says they’ve submitted a plan.
(((( “…that would not be our call.”
We do know any project under the stimulus plan has to be started within the next 18 months.
So… now Amtrak basically has to hope that each governor understands not only his or her own state’s needs, but how their decisions might affect a high-speed rail network.
Otherwise… you end up with something piecemeal… you know something like the Interstate highway system… where you can go 65 in one state… 70 in another… and 80 in yet another.
Hey—slow the train down… we’re entering Illinois.


(((STING)))

LESTER: Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful: Take chlorine. It purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous [ann-hide-druss] ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them. So, the freight rail companis have to buyexpensive insurance.
Shawn Allee is covering this.
Shawn, you found the railroads want the chemical industry to pay part of the cost. What prompted that?
- one rail line paid out big-time from an accident in Graniteville, SC, in ‘05
- chlorine from a chlorine tanker car crash
--nine people died
-phil napier is a firefigther who went to the scene
NAPIER: it basically took my breath and all I remember is taking a U-turn heading north but I ended up south. There’s a time-zone in there that I have no memory.
- it’s cost the railroad company 400 mill, so far
- Ed Hamberger heads Association of American Railroads –
- says it’s not fair that the government makes them carry these inhalant hazards and all the risk…
HAMBERGER: Several of our members have said if they were not forced to, they would not carry it because of that liability threat.
- solution? Have the chemical industry chip in money to insure chemicals in transit –might make ‘em think twice before they shipped out stuff that could kill people.
- the head of the American chemical council is Marty Durbin
- DURBIN: With regard to the argument the chemical industry needs and incentive to make safer products, frankly, we have all the incentive in the world.
LESTER: well, then you have to ask why nine people died in one accident… and there are still rail cars of the same stuff traveling around.
- Yeah, rail lines argue, if chem shares in the insurance risk – got an incentive to create safer alternatives
#END#