Press release
Virginia Assn. of Railway Patrons
PO Box 867
Richmond, VA 23218
(Date)
For immediate release
Contact: 
Steve Dunham
Days: (703) 416-3284
Evenings: (540) 891-6614
Rail Passengers Want a Cardinal Every Day
Amtrak’s Cardinal, which runs between New York and Chicago three times a week, should run every day, says the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons. The organization is a nonprofit volunteer group advocating better train service in Virginia and West Virginia. The group wants Congress to direct Amtrak to run the Cardinal train daily, and it wants Congress to make sure that Amtrak has the operating funds, locomotives and passenger cars to do so. The association is also asking [municipality name] to sign a resolution requesting congressional action to make the Cardinal daily.
The train serves 11 states and Washington, D.C. It provides interstate transportation and therefore is a federal responsibility, says the group. The states of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana particularly benefit from its service, and daily, reliable operation would not only improve the transportation choices for people in these states, it would assist their economies by making many points in these states more accessible to people living in other places on the Cardinal route and on connecting lines.
The Cardinal is the only passenger train serving [municipality name]; Charleston, WV; Cincinnati, OH; and many other points. It provides a transportation alternative to towns that have little else. The train has been reasonably well patronized, but it provides substandard service such that three major cities do not even have a passenger train every day. This is an uneconomical use of station facilities, say the Railway Patrons.
The segment of the Cardinal route from Cincinnati to Chicago is one of the federally designated high-speed corridors. Eventually the group expects to see fast service several times a day between these cities, but even then daily, reliable service east of Cincinnati is important for the future high-speed service to be of benefit to Virginia and West Virginia, and a daily schedule is a realistic minimum for the current Cardinal service, says the association.
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