David Gunn tells Stephen Smith the story:
The operations guys said, you wanna fix it? We can fix it. I said, you come back and give me a plan for what we need in terms of rail ties, ditching, what we’re going to do with the signals (to go to electric push-pull trains).
Long story short, my guys came back and said that for $300 million, we can give you a first class, 115 mph railroad.
But the planners said, “We have to get a consultant on board!” It was a tie and servicing job – ”TNS” (?). I threw the planners out. I went to Governor Rendell, and they had $100 million set aside for improving that corridor. I said, you give me the $100 million, I’ll give you a railroad, and I’ll put $100 million of our money in. Norfolk Southern also gave us $3-4 million, because they used the tracks.
So we put it together, and I had to get approval from DOT and the Bushies [i.e., the Bush Administration people]. I never called it a program to rebuild the Harrisburg line – what I did is I went in and said, I need 50 miles of rail, 300,000 ties, this much wire, and I gotta rebuilding signal houses, etc. [might have been some more things in here that I didn't catch].
They thought it was a lot – why would he need that many supplies, they thought? – but in two and a half years (they fired me just before we finished) we had it done. And it’s been a great success!
My point with this whole thing is, you get it done by bits and pieces. You don’t do it in these great leaps forward. Lots of stuff you can do on the Northeast Corridor doesn’t sound sexy – put high-level platforms on the lower level at DC Union Station, for example – but there’s all kinds of things your an do to make it faster.
Go read the whole thing.
