By Ron Thaniel
December 8, 2003

With Amtrak's $1.2 billion appropriation intact, the House'senate Conference Committee cleared the $820 billion FY04 omnibus'spending bill on November 25. Final action will likely not take place until January.

While the House has scheduled a vote on the omnibus for Monday, December 8, it remains unclear as U.S.Mayor goes to press if the Senate will take up the measure on Tuesday, December 9 as planned.

If the Conference Committee Amtrak numbers hold firm in the House and Senate omnibus bill, Amtrak would get $1.2 billion, a nearly 15 percent increase over fiscal year 2003 funding, and would be allowed to delay a $100 million federal loan payment for a year.

Another sign of growing support for Amtrak is that it set ridership and revenue records over the seven day Thanksgiving week period. Ridership was up by 10 percent over Thanksgiving 2002 and ticket revenue appears to have been 7 percent greater than last Thanksgiving as well.

Amtrak added 60,000 extra seats and 78 trains to meet passenger demand around the country. Ticket sales activity reached an all time high of $30.9 million.

The strong Thanksgiving performance is on top of previously released passenger numbers from Amtrak that more than 24 million passengers traveled on Amtrak in FY03, the highest annual ridership ever experienced by the nation's intercity passenger rail service in its 32-year history.