Wednesday afternoon rail news:
— U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, has been defeated in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District. Lipinski was defeated by challenge Marie Newman, The Hill reports. The eight-term representative from Chicago’s western suburbs has played an active role on rail issues, most recently introducing four rail-related bills, including one that would force Amtrak to cede control of Chicago Union Station. [See “Congressman introduces bill to transfer control of Chicago Union Station to Metra,” Trains News Wire, March 13, 2020].
— Brightline is reducing service as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Florida passenger operation has announced. As of today, the company will offer 18 weekday trains and 14 on weekends, while maintaining hourly service during commuter rush-hour periods. Schedule details are available here.
— The Steamtown National Historic Site has closed until further notice because of the coronavirus pandemic. More details, and link for a virtual visit to the Scranton, Pa., site, are available here.
Since Lipinski is a lame duck, hopefully his anti-Amtrak bill will die.
I’m glad Lipinski lost for the reasons noted by Mike and Mark, Those were the kind of issues that were raised against him and that he lost on.
However, they are not relevant to the issues here, so I’m not sure they belong.
Lipinski was awful. I’m glad he lost. He was a nasty homophobe and virulently anti-choice.
Great that Lipinski is gone….not much of a democrat
No one to hold Amtrak accountable anymore, at least not from Illinois.
Durbin is the king over the Amtrak funding for HSR to St Louis. Lipinski was spending more of his time on CUS issues.