West Virginia editorial: Growing ridership shows value of rail service

An Editorial From The Herald-Dispatch; November 30, 2017

Rail passenger service is by no means a thing of the past, as recently released ridership numbers from Amtrak show. And those figures suggest that President Trump and Congress should be careful about trimming back funding for Amtrak because doing so could leave many people without a viable form of both long-distance and short-distance transportation.

Amtrak’s recent annual report on 2016-17 fiscal year operations indicated ridership grew 1.5 percent to a record of nearly 32 million people during the 12-month period. Its revenues also were up 1.1 percent to a record $3.2 billion and the amount of money it lost ($194 million) is the least in its history.

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