Here we go again (and again and again):
Popular media, in their news reportage and opinion delivery, is gushing like a first-strike gusher on Jed Clampett’s Silver Dollar City, Mo., homestead over the federal government’s allocation of the first installments of millions upon millions of dollars (out of a total $66 billion earmark) for 10 major railroad projects across the nation.
And so is the government.
Among the coming disbursements is $143.6 million for the previously announced improvements to Norfolk Southern’s main line between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.
The project, which includes the addition of a second daily Amtrak Pennsylvanian passenger train between Pittsburgh and the state capital, is expected to have a total cost of $180 million, with the commonwealth picking up part of the tab.
Additionally, and as the Post-Gazette reports it, the federal government also has “set aside $500,000 to study the feasibility of extending passenger trains west of Pittsburgh to Columbus, Fort Wayne, Ind. and Chicago along existing tracks.”
“It is one of 69 corridors receiving a total of $34.5 million to fund evaluations of whether passenger rail service would be viable along those routes,” the P-G reports.
But, rest assured, even if its found not to be “viable,” the “evaluations” will be “tweaked” to make it all so (including, by the way, a mandate that cost-exploding union labor will be employed).
Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah, goes the federal government’s chant.
Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah, goes rail aficionados’ chants.
Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah, echo the media.
Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah, a local editorialist chanted:
The coming rail upgrades “mark a major triumph for Pennsylvania transportation infrastructure, and a promising step towards unparalleled connectivity in the Eastern U.S.,” the editorial noted.
But even the laudatory editorial was forced to note the local project’s dirty little secret:
“(O)verall speeds won’t go up: It will still likely take around 9 hours to get from the Golden Triangle to New York.” And nearly 5 ½ hours to Harrisburg.
One can drive to New York City from Pittsburgh in just under 6 hours. One can drive to Harrisburg from Pittsburgh in just over 3 hours.
A major bugaboo remains that freight trains are given priority over passenger trains. Thus, it more than appears that taxpayers are having their pockets turned out to subsidize not better or faster passenger train service but Norfolk Southern’s freight-fueled bottom line.
Oh, and then there’s this: Media reports have touted how the existing daily Pennsylvanian saw an increase in ridership of 9.4 percent during the 12 months ending Sept. 30.
But that’s not much to cheer about post-pandemic, considering that ridership tanked by more than 41 percent from fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2021.
The bottom line in all this, as noted by the Allegheny Institute (in Policy Brief Vol. 23, No. 34) when word of this second daily Pittsburgh-Harrisburg train deal first broke in September, is that Pennsylvanian ridership has been consistently down, a second daily train is not warranted and such a massive taxpayer infusion amounts to just another in a long line of corporate wealthfare follies.
Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah? Hardly.
It’s more like taxpayers are getting double-punked — by their own government and in cahoots with Punker No. 2, the very profitable railroad that even with a $163 million charge against losses incurred over the February railway accident in East Palestine, Ohio, posted third-quarter 2023 income of more than three-quarters of a billion dollars.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
