THE6:53 A$0CIRION OF A41~D 96ENGERS Post Office Box 653 ·Xenia, Ohio 45385 Thomas R. Pulsifer- President & Editor Issue N_OV. 1977 Number 21 T 0 S A V E T H E N A T I 0 N A L L I M I T E D SERVICE ON THE Columbus- Dayton- Richmond- Indianapolis line at least through November, but we've still got a fight for the service on our hands. Since the September is­ sue of "the 6:.53" your Association has been very heavily involved in trying to save the train through Dayton. As you will see we've had moments of joy and :~ments of despair in this scenario which has sometimes seen daily changes. 1n mid-September OARP mailed individ­ issue), called for assistance from our ual letters to the entire U.S. Cong­ member Paul Bunting in holding a press ressional delegation from both Ohio conference, and then held a very suc­ and from Indiana, plus Senators Met­ cessful and well-publicized press con­ zenbaum, Glenn, Bayh and Lugar. The ference on October 7th in Dayton Union letter proposed that legislation was Station, just prior to the arrival of needed to authorize Amtrak to pur­ the National Limited. All major TV and chase the track and signal systems radio stations covered our conference, necessary to maintain direct rail along with reporters from area news­ passenger service between Dayton and papers. Nat Simons from ORTA and two Indianapolis, plus appropriations to Columbus reporters rode the train to Amtrak's capital budget to allow Dayton and also participated. Tom Pul-­ this to happen. We suggested that sifer outlined OARP's controversial this be tied in with upcoming Cong­ proposal for rerouting the train. Dave ressional action to increase Amtrak's Marshall spoke on behalf of the Dayton operating budget. Area Chamber of Commerce which support­ ed our proposal, and Dudley Kircher, We got some polite responses from president of the Dayton C of C also the Congressmen, but no immediate spoke. All participants, plus some solution to the problem, except that train passengers, were interviewed in­ Senator Glenn and Senator Bayh in­ dividually by the press and media. dicated they would include a specif­ And follow--up coverage continued for ic allocation for the National Lim­ several days following. Dave Marshall ited situation as part of a Senate­ also was interviewed on some Dayton sponsored $18 million supplemental radio talk shows. ,--~rating allocation for Amtrak. OARP members can be proud of the long '111en we decided we'd better do some­ hours and hard work that we've been put­ thing a little more drastic and news­ ting in to these efforts to save the worthy ... and we did succeed! We did train- service over the most sensiole some research and came up with a new route. Dave Marshall, who serves as proposal for rerouting the National Limited (outlined elsewhere in this (continued .. ) I (continued from page 1) chairman of the Dayton C of C' s Trans­ Our press release for the press confer­ portation Committee, has been heavily ence of October 7th, plus copies of the involved in the ongoing, day-by-day letters to Governor Rhodes, Governor developments on this situation. And Bowen and to Amtrak President Reistrup the fight is still on, even though were mailed individually to each memher <v things look pretty bleak at the time of the Ohio and Indiana U.S. Congress­ 1§ Q) this is being written. ional delegations plus the Senators. > We also mailed copies to key officials 0 OARP has some copies of the letters 2 in Pennsylvania and to other interested sent to Paul Reistrup, Gov. Rhodes 0 parties at NARP, Keystone ARP, NETC, +' and Gov. Bowen outlining our new re­ SETC, etc. to achieve as wide a coverage routing proposal and any member who ,'d as possible. Q) would like copies, as long as they +' u last, may send us a business envelope Ridership on the National Limited has Q) (self-addressed) with 24¢ postage. been holding up fairly well at Dayton ~ ~ despite the on-again, off-again nature c Now, as the Amtrak agents at Dayton of the train over the past month. c; again start preparations for shut­ ting down the ticket office at the Prior to the last-minute reprive for end of the month, we have received a the train for an additional 30-days, response from Amtrak's president head Amtrak agent Andy Reed announced that they were interested in our he planned to retire as passenger a­ proposal, but they feel that they'd gent when the station was closed. So be better off using the Conrail/Union on what was to be his last day on the City detour routing as a "sword" to job, OARP surprised him with an im­ hold over Conrail's head to force promptu "party" which was covered by Conrail to fix up the Cincinnati to one of the Dayton TV stations as a human Indianapolis tracks for the National interest story. The three Dayton Am­ Limited as specified in the USRA's trak agents; Reed, "Bud" Sherrill, and Final System Plan. John Edminson, expressed gratitude ~or_ all the help and support OARP has glve And meanwhile it is the passenger, and continues to give in promoting the you and I, who must suffer with slow­ passenger service and in helping to er train service, service which by­ save the train service in Dayton. passes proven successful market cit­ ies, and an almost total ignorance of The new train times for Dayton during the public's demands. November are 8:40am for #31 westbound, and lO:lOpm for #30 eastbound. New Am­ As for Indiana, despite Governor Bow-· trak schedules do not show the service en's "name calling" response to OARP to Dayton. and a nasty phone call from one of the Indiana Congressmen's office, we When #31 ran 6 hours late on November 6 believe we have succeeded in forcing (CR freight derailment east of Columbus some Indiana politicians to acknow­ necessitated rerouting via Crestline) ledge that this National Limited sit­ OARP's Dave Marshall notified several uation IS a valid problem and that Dayton radio stations and encouraged maybe they'd better start doing some­ Daytonians to thus make a convenient thing about it. We have word from "round trip to Indianapolis" that day our Indiana contacts that some In­ as perhaps their last chance for a diana governmental officials are be­ train ride out of Dayton. Quite a few ginning to come around, and speak heeded the advice, it is reported, thus out with more favor to the railroad adding a few more dollars to Amtrak's problems. If we have helped to do revenue report and boosting ridership just that, then we of OARP have then figures for Dayton. helped to accomplish quite a lot. RIDING THE CONRAIL/UNION CITY DETOUR -- Karl Gelfer rode #31 and #JO on Oct. - lOth over the Union City route and in a phone call to OARP reported that if the train met no freight interference it could just meet the published schedule, but that some segments of track were very rough and that the eastbound train was delayed almost an hour by a stalled freight near Columbus. Other trips have reported delays approaching 3 hours! AMTRAK PRESIDENT PAUL REISTRUP RESPONDS ... (Oct. 25) Dear Mr. Pulsifer: I know that the Ohio Association of Railroad Pas­ sengers has been Amtrak's friend through fair and foul weather. Your constant efforts to promote Amtrak and improve passenger service have been obvious to me _,-r a long time and I, along with others at Amtrak, am grateful to you and your v.~--ganization. It is, therefore, with considerable sadness that I must reply to your October 6 letter by stating that Amtrak will not pursue rerouting the Na­ tional Limited to Cincinnati, thence over the Chessie System to St. Louis. Your letter made quite a persuasive case for the proposal As a matter of fact, your reasoning is close to my own on this issue as I, too, want to retain service to Dayton and include Cincinnati on the route. On the other hand, it is important to Amtrak to do so as part of a Dayton-Cincinnati-Indianapolis route as per the language of the Final System Plan issued by the U.S. Railway Association. I am asking that Conrail expedite trackwork between Cincinnati and Indianapolis and, frankly, operation of the National Limited on the Muncie route may be one key to the solution. It is no secret that Conrail is not enthused with operating our train over that busy freight line. As long as this routing exists, Conrail has some motivation to upgrade Indianapolis-Cincinnati. I want to specifically say that I'm quite unhappy with having to give up the Dayton market. I hope to restore train service there as quickly as possible. I wish I could say when service will be restored, but Conrail has not provided us with specific target dates for track work. While we are having discussions with Conrail, we are also pursuing a legal case against the trustees of the bankrupt Penn Central that, we hope, will result in track upgrading between Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Also, we have requested $16 million in our Five-Year Plan for additional track work on the line. I regret that I could not give you a response more to your liking, Jut I assure you that I will give this issue my personal attention until it is resolved.