Save Cornwells Heights
Monday, August 29, 2005
Hello,
CWH commuters. I would say, “Good
morning,” but I’m very concerned it may not be. A great American city may be badly damaged, if not destroyed,
today. It is 7:30 a.m. as I write this,
and New Orleans and vicinity along the Gulf Coast are in grave danger from the
winds and the waves of hurricane Katrina.
Saving Cornwells Heights Amtrak service is something we all care very
much about, and I’m just back from meeting the 6:55 train to get the boarding
count, but today is a reminder that perspectives change, and perhaps today is
not the day to lament our own sorrows and fears, for there are so many others
in peril. Today they need or thoughts,
hearts, and prayers. That said, here is
the news:
I
had an excellent meeting with Congressman Fitzpatrick Saturday morning in
Doylestown. Thanks to the many questionnaires
and ongoing research information he is receiving, I believe he now has a very
firm understanding of what the Cornwells Heights Amtrak service means, not only
to present and future riders, but to the future economic development of Lower
Bucks County and Northeast Philadelphia.
He will now go to bat for us directly with David Gunn, the president of
Amtrak. It is my preliminary guess,
though, that the destruction about to be wrought throughout the South by
hurricane Katrina, affecting Amtrak lines and service as it will, may push our
agenda back a bit on the calendar. But
on the whole, I’m feeling more optimistic about the prospects for saving our
station. Other politicians are coming
into the loop, too.
I
am not writing what I had thought I would write as of last week. A few days and a hurricane can change so
much.
I
am reminded of another day, a very beautiful late summer day, when I boarded
the 8:11 at Cornwells Heights and napped in fits and starts on the way to New
York, sometimes opening my eyes to enjoy the purest blue of a cloudless
sky. It was shortly after we left
Newark, resting with my eyes closed, my seat slightly reclined, and my ears
lazily filtering the sounds of the first coach on the Keystone run, when a cell
phone behind me began to ring, and I heard the words, “A plane hit the World
Trade Center?!” A few minutes later,
the towers came into view. They had not
fallen. I did not see them fall. But from a Hudson ferry home later that day, I
saw the cloud they left behind. We were
one of the last trains that got into Manhattan before they closed the tunnels. In a strange way, it helped to be with
people that day, to know the shared feeling of loss and questions on the
streets and in the eyes of everyone I met.
It helped to be with people that day.
Expect
press coverage this week, and I hope to get the hard sell on for New York
commuters frustrated by the mid-Jersey rat race once Katrina settles down and
the wound is bound up well enough to consider the possibility of good news
again. I may be working the other side
of the tracks at the station this week as well, since there are many hundreds
there who can send in a form of concern, even if not reporting of their current
Amtrak ridership. Please keep New
Orleans and the Gulf in your thoughts today, for we knew a
different-and-yet-similar day once, and their thoughts were with us.
Take
care, and I’ll see you at the station.
Today I’ll ride the 8:11. It
will help to take the train, and to be with people today.
-- Rick