Amtrak

Two train lines are back in service after being suspended because of a propane leak north of Wilmington. Amtrak suspended service between Wilmington and Philadelphia, starting about 11 a.m. Service was restored by about 11:40 a.m., though some delays were expected. SEPTA's Wilmington/Newark Regional Rail Line was also running again Claymont and Newark. The leak was at an Amtrak maintenance facility.

TRENTON - Amtrak is going to break the speed limit in the Northeast Corridor. The rail service announced Monday that it will operate test trains overnight at 165 m.p.h. in four stretches from Maryland to Massachusetts. Acela Express equipment will be used for the tests, which were to start at about 10:30 p.m. Monday in New Jersey and will continue into next week, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said. All the locations may one day have regular 160-m.p.h. service; the current top speed limit is 150 m.p.h.

SEVERAL supporters of President Obama's re-election campaign chose 30th Street Station as the backdrop Wednesday to lambaste Mitt Romney for his proposal to end federal funding for Amtrak if he is elected president. "There is a clear choice between investment and outright chaos," said state Rep. Tony Payton Jr., who was joined by several Democratic mayors from Massachusetts, where Romney was governor. "The time to invest in infrastructure is now. " During the Republican National Convention last month, Romney adopted a platform calling for full privatization and an end to government subsidies that support programs like the nation's passenger-rail operator.

WASHINGTON - Warning to Amtrak from Mitt Romney and Republicans: You're on your own. The platform Republicans adopted at their convention included a call for full privatization and an end to subsidies for the nation's passenger rail operator, which gobbled up almost $1.5 billion in federal funds last year. "It is long past time for the federal government to get out of the way and allow private ventures to provide passenger service," the platform said, arguing that taxpayers dole out almost $50 for every Amtrak ticket.

Good fences may make good neighbors, but not for Bristol Borough and Amtrak. An 8-foot-high chain-link fence that Amtrak erected along four blocks of residential Garden Street is ugly, unsafe, unnecessary, and unwanted, borough officials and homeowners say. Amtrak says it's needed for the safety of residents, especially children, who live across from four sets of tracks used by Amtrak, SEPTA, and freight trains. The chain link looks like a temporary fence at a construction site, residents complain, with trees and weeds overgrowing it and a 25-foot railroad right-of way. It doesn't keep people off the tracks, they say. All it blocks is any police cars, fire trucks and ambulances that would respond to an emergency on the tracks, plus neighbors' mowers that used to keep down the weeds.

WASHINGTON - Amtrak is proposing a $7 billion to upgrade Union Station in Washington to turn it into a high-speed rail hub for the Northeast. The Washington Post reports that a plan calls for doubling the number of trains the station can accommodate. Amtrak would add new platforms, tracks and stores. Six tracks for high-speed rail would be added. There'd also be a 50-foot-wide, 100-foot-long glass-enclosed main concourse. A developer is also planning a $1.5 billion complex of offices, residential towers and a hotel that would be built on a deck over the tracks behind the station.

When John Adams traveled between Boston and Philadelphia in 1776, it took him two weeks. On Amtrak's Acela today, the trip is about five hours. But sometimes, the train seems as frustratingly slow as Adams' horse. Poking through North Philadelphia, lumbering out of New York City, wallowing through Bridgeport, America's high-speed rail is anything but. Compared with its cousins in Europe and Asia, Amtrak's showcase service is heavy and slow, less a bullet train than a cannonball on wheels.

Amtrak is thinking big in small-minded times. At all levels, government is scaling back. One of our political parties has decided that investment in infrastructure is a dangerous, socialistic experiment, and the other one can't manage to persuade the country otherwise. So this may not the best moment to pitch a $151 billion bonanza, which is the amount Amtrak would like to spend over the next 28 years bringing high-speed rail to the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor. But Amtrak is thinking long-term.

Amtrak's updated plan for high-speed train travel on the East Coast envisions 37-minute trips between Philadelphia and New York, after a $151 billion redevelopment of the entire Northeast Corridor. Faster service would be phased in gradually, as Amtrak improves existing tracks, signals, bridges, and power lines and then builds a separate high-speed corridor between Washington and Boston to accommodate trains traveling at 220 m.p.h. In a report released Monday, Amtrak revised its projections for costs, ridership, and the alignment of its proposed new 438-mile high-speed corridor.