SWC IN DECEMBER?

So, I have read on these boards that the current administration will be getting rid of long distance trains soon. I had planned on taking the SWC at Christmas to Arizona from Kansas City. Will I be refunded 100% by Amtrak if they shut the SWC down before then?

Don't believe all that BS. As an Amtrak employee said in Chicago several years ago " They've been trying to get rid of us for years. We're still here. ". While it is possible things could go down the drain, make your plans. I'm sure you would get a refund, but I would not be concerned about that. It is important that we speak up.

Our federal system of government has checks and balances.

The executive branch (President) presents budgetary requests to the legislative branch (Congress) in the hopes the legislative branch will enact new laws that reflect the executive branches budgetary desires.

Federal government checks & balances

It takes a considerable amount of time for the legislative branch to get from a executive branch budget proposal to any actual changes to budgets.

Every year since 1971, most presidents and/or Congress says "... get rid of Amtrak!" But it's still here. I expect it to be here in December - and for the next 50+ years to hear the same thing!

Thank you everyone for easing my fears. I don't fly anymore, so Amtrak is the only way to travel for me (and I love it so much more than flying!) I wonder why the government is always trying to shut it down when it is so loved in this country? Also, everytime I travel, it is absolutely packed/booked. It's not like no one is traveling the rails anymore?

Because people don't want taxpayers to subsidize Amtrak - because "we don't subsidize air or cars"! Who pays for things like building airports, ATC, the FAA, etc...? (Hint - not the airlines by themselves.) Who pays for building roads, maintenance of them, snow plowing, etc...? (Hint - they are not free.)

There are certain organizations which produce "destroy the USA" budgets, and Trump simply copied his budget proposal from one of them (it's called the Heritage Foundation). I doubt Trump even read it. Thankfully it's dead on arrival in Congress.

I don't know why the billionaires who bankroll the Heritage Foundation hate America, but basically, that's their motivation: they want to destroy the US and replace it with some sort of aristocracy where said billionaires live like feudal lords. Everything they ever publish is designed to promote this. Somehow they manage to claim to be a tax-exempt organization despite their essentially for-profit activity.

I've stopped mincing words about groups like this.

All right, Neoren, I actually agree with everything you said. It's groups like the Heritage Foundation that are out to destroy this country and make us all serfs serving the 1 percenters.

ciship said:

So, I have read on these boards that the current administration will be getting rid of long distance trains soon. I had planned on taking the SWC at Christmas to Arizona from Kansas City. Will I be refunded 100% by Amtrak if they shut the SWC down before then?

Click to expand...

A bit of additional perspective...Amtrak was created so that President Nixon could finally wind down passenger rail service in the US as everyone going from Dubuque to Des Moines or Pueblo to Peoria would surely be flying there, or maybe driving if you're taking the family along in your road boat. Soon to be 46 years later, President Nixon is dead, his two vice presidents are dead, and Amtrak is still alive. Amtrak has even survived most of the airlines which were in existence in 1971 and quite a few more which were founded and folded in the meantime. So to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated. It has challenges and critics and will likely always have, but the odds of its survival are good. (Especially given a future calamity affecting commercial aviation.)