Governor Chris Christie directs NJ Transit to halt payments to Amtrak

>The letters, sent out about 11 p.m. Wednesday, represent a sharp rebuke of Amtrak by the governor’s office. Early evidence suggests that the Amtrak rails were to blame for the derailment of a New Jersey Transit train at Pennsylvania Station in New York on Monday that has caused delays and cancellations across the region.

>A spokesman for Amtrak could not be reached for comment late Wednesday night. But earlier in the day, Charles W. Moorman, Amtrak’s president, said the agency was undertaking a “thorough review of infrastructure at Penn Station to evaluate current conditions.”

>Steven Santoro, the executive director of New Jersey Transit, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the fault lay with Amtrak because his agency’s safety inspections on the train cars that derailed were up to date. “The bottom-line message is Amtrak needs to step up to the plate,” he said.

>Mr. Christie also cited a derailment from two weeks ago, when an Amtrak Acela train derailed in the same area as Monday’s accident, causing delays for New Jersey riders who were directed in and out of neighboring stations in Hoboken and Newark.

>Mr. Christie had faced criticism for remaining largely silent on the commuting nightmare since it spilled into his state on Monday as he was delivering a speech in Florida. Until late Wednesday, his only public comments were to instruct New Jersey Transit executives to travel personally to stations on Thursday to address commuters’ concerns.
...

>But in his letter to Amtrak late Wednesday, he was sure to indicate, multiple times, his frustration.

>He wrote that the recurring derailments at Penn Station “indicate Amtrak does not take its obligations seriously and has not effectively applied N.J. Transit’s considerable payments to the proper maintenance of these assets, which are absolutely essential to its customers. Amtrak’s apparent disregard for N.J. Transit’s customers is entirely unacceptable to me.”

what does this mean for amtrak then? I'm not good at trains... I get they were being greedy cunts but what now? He just pulled 62 million from infrastructure, where will it go instead?

>New Jersey Transit pays Amtrak $2.5 million to $5 million a month for operating expenses and recently paid an additional $62 million for capital investments

I sorry but the millions of dollars you pay us every year isn't enough to maintain these rails properly you'll have to pay another sixty million.

You've got to love that chutzpah.

>>129508
It can't mean anything good for Amtrak. Trump's recent budget already had them losing a significant percentage of federal funding and that was before this happened. It can only mean fewer trains and routes.

>>129511
>more cuts to public transit
>less trains, less routes

I cant wait for the money to be diverted into a bank bailout or widen some highways. Its so stupid we havent just made train systems federal utility operations. They are the cheapest and most reliable public transit options by far, but America is so broken we cant even to cheap shit right.

>>129497
>Deface Amtrak
>pull funding
>publicly destroy them for doing a shit job and screwing over the public
>devalue their stock to shit
>drop some major fines for breach of contract
>force them to go under like a fucking shit after high fiber breakfast
>buy them out
>you now have a state owned infrastructure
Would take big balls to try this sort of taks over doe

>>129522
I'll believe it when I see it, until then this is just more destruction of transportation for poor people.

>>129513
>Into a bank bailout
>Inplying the banks didn't pay back the loans, plus interest

Making the train systems federal would be a painful, expensive process

>>129526
because low speed trains derailing has been working so swell. God forbid we fix a broken system.

Hey I got an idea, how about we pay a company to hopefully maintain the tracks?

>>129508
Nothing good. I used Amtrak for a while going up and down the cost from Boston to Tampa both ways a few times a year and their service and trains were dismal. They JUST got wifi on their trains. My train was stopped for 3 hours because they had to make "repairs" in the middle of fucking nowhere. The bridges they used legitimately scared the FUCK out of me because I would look out the window and it was all corroded so bad there were fist sized holes in the metal work.

For it to get that bad they have to be operating at near even. Getting this money pulled out from under them until all their infrastructure in the area is in "good repair" could kill them. They may just abandon that whole section of track and sell it off.

>>129523
What sucks is these lines aren't just for poor people. Nyc infrastructure is fucked