Those of you who live and/or work in Ohio may be interested in what was just published in today's (8/26/10) Trains Newswire. http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=7299 Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate: I'll kill intercity trains Published: Thursday, August 26, 2010 COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio's Republican gubernatorial candidate has vowed to kill the proposed "3C" intercity rail project in the state and reject the federal money that would fund it, the Ravenna Record-Courier (Ohio) has reported. "We have to shut it down before it gets too far," John Kasich said. Ohio received $400 million in federal high speed rail stimulus funds for the Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati link. The trains, however, would initially travel at only conventional intercity passenger train speeds, and critics have latched onto that to claim nobody will ride them. Kasich was particularly derisive of the train's speed, calling it "the 39 mph high speed train," referring to one study that said that'd be the train's average speed. Proponents say that was under one proposal, but that it won't really be that slow. Kasich said he believes the state should focus instead on updating freight rail lines and related infrastructure.
