Chris Shays-R, has been conducting a series of town hall meetings amongst the 4th CD towns. Yesterday he was in Norwalk. I was tempted to go, but in the end I recognized that once again the Iraq war would dominate at the expense of an issue that directly affects the 4th CD and Norwalk. The news reports confirmed my assessment. The Advocate revealed that the rail cars promised so many moons ago, are coming. After CT DOT made every indecision and bad decision they could. So what did they do? From the Advocate:
Since a $3.2 million deal to repair and refurbish 33 used cars was reached a year ago, the contractor, Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. in Yonkers, N.Y., has delivered 24 cars to the state, said Eugene Colonese, rail administrator in the DOT’s rail bureau.
he state has added 13 cars to Shore Line East and Metro-North’s Waterbury branch and is testing 11 more for service, Colonese said.
Once the state receives the final nine cars from Kawasaki, it will be able to rotate spare cars from Shore Line East onto the main New Haven Line, reaching the 2,000-seat goal promised to commuters more than three years ago.
The state agreed to purchase 33 used rail cars from Virginia Railway Express three years ago as part of an initiative to add seats to the overcrowded New Haven Line before new rail cars arrive in 2009.
But delays and miscalculations by the DOT kept the project from progressing as ridership increased to record highs.
First, the DOT had a hard time securing a contract with Amtrak to lease locomotives that could pull the used rail cars. Once the locomotives were leased, the DOT couldn’t find a contractor interested in repairing the cars, configuring them to work on state rail lines and removing the Virginia logos from the exteriors.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell has chided the DOT for the delays. Last year, once a contract was signed with Kawasaki, she visited its Yonkers plant to check on the project.
Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said commuters await the extra seats as overcrowding continues to plague the New Haven Line.
“The whole purpose of the (Virginia) deal was to improve service on the New Haven Line, not Shore Line East,” Cameron said. “We need to put those extra cars into service.”
And Rell’s answer to the problems at the DOT are to hire lawyers to assess the organization. I’m too disgusted to rant about this. But feel free to rant about this or anything else in the comments.
source: Advocate, Repaired railroad cars are on their way, , May 7 2007
