The Bull Sheet
December 1990
Current News
The American European Express will inaugurate a new route on December 21 with a special train from Chicago to Washington via. Indianapolis and White Sulphur Springs. It will leave Chicago at 6:20 P.M., arriving Washington at 4:00 P.M. the following day. Several specials are scheduled between then and the end of the year, but regular-frequency schedules are not planned to be implemented until the spring. It is understood that the train will be powered initially by Amtrak locomotives, but sometime in 1991 the train will reportedly use locomotives acquired by AEE for its exclusive use. One source reports that they will be E9's.
Amtrak intends to relocate its Cincinnati passenger operations from River Road Station to the Cincinnati Union Terminal in the spring of 1991. Amtrak will pay $636,000 in relocation costs, and CSX will pay another $500,000. Amtrak will lease space in the terminal, which will also be used by museums, a theater, and various civic attractions. Currently, only the Cardinal, making three trips a week in each direction, serves Cincinnati.
Amtrak's two experimental EMD F69 locomotives 450 and 451 have been road tested on several Amtrak routes this fall. On October 23-24 they made their first trip east of Chicago on the Capitol Limited to Washington. The European-looking AC traction motor equipped units underwent extensive testing at the AAR's facilities in Pueblo, Colorado, for a year, and now are completing their final phase of testing in revenue service. [Reported by Alex Mayes]
New ticket office and baggage operation at Chicago's Union Station opened on October 27. Other improvements are slated for completion by next summer.
Amtrak will build a new $5-million commissary and on-board crew base at Sunnyside, New York. According to the October 29 issue of Amtrak's 'Newsbreak,' the new facility will replace an 80-year-old commissary that has become outdated. Completion is slated for the spring of 1991, in time for startup of service on the 'West Side Connection.'
Beginning this month, railroads will pay a 2.5-cents per gallon tax on fuel.
CSX reports an 11 percent decrease in grade crossing accidents for the first 10 months of 1990 compared to the same period last year. Still, in the 1990 period, there were 625 accidents resulting in 67 fatalities and 247 injuries.
There are no longer any GP35 units on the CSX locomotive roster.
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