By Melina Druga, Transportation Today; July 2, 2019
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) recently questioned Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson and other officials on the railroad’s failure to connect rural areas to the rest of the country.
“I really hope moving forward that we try to make Amtrak all it can be,” Tester said at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing. “But we can’t forget about the rural areas. In two small towns, that happen to be fairly close to where I live, there were ticket offices that were closed… If we’re not going to leave rural America out, how do we make it so these folks in rural areas-who quite frankly will use the train-how do we make it work for them?”