Yesterday's NY Times had a little blurb on page A17 from an AP report about how the White House was selling off Amtrak:
The Bush administration sent Congress on Thursday its plan to turn Amtrak into a private company that would focus on running trains in competition with other rail lines. It would set up a federal-state partnership to maintain tracks and stations.Today, of course, the front page Times news is that all high speed Acela trains have been stopped because of cracks in the brakes:
The bill would also authorize money for projects on the Boston-Washington corridor, which carries nearly half of all passenger ridership. "This legislation is a lifeline to a dying railroad company," Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said.
Amtrak took all its Acela Express trains out of service early Friday morning after a government inspector looking under a train following a speed experiment noticed cracks in the brakes, and a quick check found hundreds of similar flaws on other trains.Coincidence? Or just part of the plan to destroy Amtrak?
The discovery of widespread fissures in the brake discs disrupted the travel plans of more than 10,000 people who ride the Acela Express trains every weekday along the Northeast Corridor between Boston, New York and Washington.
