Cliff Black Quotations

Would we add items to our wish list of capital; projects? Yes. But we are getting back on track.

There are pluses for both Amtrak and its passengers.

We really regret this, but this was beyond Amtrak's ability. This made it impossible for our trains to proceed until this morning, and even then there was a tremendous amount of freight train congestion.

We don't know what ignited it, perhaps a leak.

We will do that to help alleviate the discomfort because of the terrible delays.

You have got to educate people, and you need to enforce existing laws, so that people do not intrude onto grade crossings and that people are more careful as they approach grade crossings.

We are spending $250 million a year on the Northeast Corridor infrastructure. We are playing catch-up, but we are well on our way to bringing the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair.

We will be severely delayed. But we need to get the people to their destinations.

Americans want and need passenger train service, ... They've demonstrated that by riding our trains wherever we operate them in large numbers. It is a myth that no one is interested in riding long-distance passenger trains.

The fares will not be driven strictly by time of day, or day of week, although we will loosely follow that. They will be driven by the number of advance reservations and are keyed to times of day, to some extent.

The cost of propulsion, the cost of fuel, keeps going up.

Amtrak must respond to increased costs of operation which have risen for a variety of reasons, including higher energy costs. We periodically adjust fares upward in response to market conditions and we try to set fares at a level that will produce the most revenue.