I’ve been working with NPR to discuss a number of the week. This time it’s 750,000 — the number of passengers who travel the busiest passenger rail route in the country, the Northeast Corridor, each day. On Tuesday, an Amtrak train traveling the route derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring hundreds. The crash brought renewed attention to rail safety and to Amtrak, which owns and operates 363 miles of this 457-mile stretch from Boston to Washington, D.C. I spoke with NPR’s Weekend Edition team to describe how Amtrak runs with operating losses and requires huge amounts of money for investment to improve its services.
You can listen to the segment above.