Another Effort Up In Political Smoke - n' Mirrors

Several news organizations are reporting on the Virginia House of Delegates and their underhanded move to stop the effort to get a state transportation authority off the ground.

The aim of the bill's sponsor, formerly ineffective presidential candidate John Edwards, was to get rolling on planning for passenger rail to relieve the state's growing transportation difficulties. The authority wasn't even going to have bonding authority. But many in Virginia already knew that they needed this.

If not the states, then who? If not now, then when?

And On Another Topic
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And Yet Another
If and when the New Mexico Rail Runner ever gets to Santa Fe, the city fathers have pledged that it will go all the way to the old rail yard and not just to a station in the state government complex about a mile south of the yard. This area used to be the place where the AT&SF spur from Lamy met the D&RG narrow gauge line and another short narrow gauge, the Texas and Santa Fe Northern, that connected to northerly sections of the state.

(Interestingly, the TSFN was built because Denver & Rio Grande couldn't build into the town because of an agreement with the old AT&SF. Eventually, nobody cared about the agreement any more.)

The old New Mexico Central up from Torrance, NM, on the old El Paso and Rock Island (later Southern Pacific) made it to the rail yard for a time. The yard is currently served by the Santa Fe Southwestern, owned by the State of New Mexico. The rail yard is a short walk from the Santa Fe Plaza and the Palace of the Governors, we believe the oldest continuously occupied government building in North America.

© 2006 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com