May 28, 2006 11:47 pm US/Eastern
Schumer Calling For Special Amtrak Investigation
Rail Giant Still Doesn't Know What Caused Massive Outage
by Jay Dow
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
The trains are running on time at Penn Station, but for how long?
Aaron Frucher, who is from Manhattan and traveling to upstate New York, was wary of his trip on a train.
"I hope it doesn't happen again today, because I don't want to be walking through a tunnel, I'll tell you that much," Frucher said.
Frucher is referring to Thursday's mammoth system outage that paralyzed Amtrak's northeast corridor from Baltimore to Queens, stranding tens of thousands of Amtrak and NJ Transit rail passengers, many of them in dark, hot tunnels.
May 25: Amtrak Restores Power, But Damage Is DoneAnd when it comes to an explanation for what caused the outage, Amtrak officials, who would not comment for this report, are also in the dark and still investigating.
So if you've already paid for your train ticket and made promises to friends and family to visit, how do you get on one of these trains not knowing if what happened last week could happen again?
During a late-morning news conference on Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer told reporters train travel is vital to America.
"The whole country has an interest in keeping Amtrak good," Schumer said.
May 25: CBS 2's Andrew Kirtzman: Amtrak Nightmare Was InevitableSchumer, who has long supported increased funding for the troubled agency, called for the formation of an independent blue ribbon panel to investigate what caused the outage, and how to prevent it from happening again.
"I think when this blue ribbon panel reports back on how antiquated the equipment is, dating back from the 1900s and the 1930s, it will help galvanize Congress to put in the greater funds that are needed," Schumer said.
Until then, passengers like Nischom Silverman said they'd continue to take their chances on the rails.
"I guess it'll be a hot walk back to the station," Silverman said.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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