@breezinup posted:The Borealis reconstiuted with 3 Superliner cars and two engines. Well, no problem having enough power!
Could be rough sledding for Amtrak. Besides the car shortage, the CEO was kicked out by the current administration, and budget cuts, staffing cuts (already happening), and a push to privatize are on the horizon.
Without diving into the politics of Amtrak at the moment, I agree that it will be a challenging road ahead. However, depending on whichever partisan news source you look at and they all could be considered partisan at the moment, Amtrak is not far off from being self-sufficient. The only trains I see in jeopardy are the 8 long distance western routes. It seems like Amtrak is on solid footing for the first time in its history on many routes.
Like everything in this world there are positive and negative aspects of the potential future and privatization of Amtrak. The only part I go back to is that Amtrak was created with the promise that the private roads could offload loss leader passenger trains in return for access to their privately owned tracks. I hope this continues into the future.
The good news here is that Amtrak is shifting existing equipment in the system to cover for routes affected by the loss of the Horizon fleet. At the same time, it now seems possible that the Horizon fleet might be repairable in the meantime while Airo trainsets come online to replace them and Amfleet cars.
