George Davison Iowa Law

Good News from Chicago

Here is a story about the Midwest Governors' Conference in Chicago at which they discussed and took action to get improved passenger train service.

The hidden story, as I see it, is the effort that Iowa is undertaking with Iowa Interstate Railroad.  The owners and management of Iowa Interstate are to be commended for stepping up and offering to help get more passenger trains to Iowa.  The effort will help the railroad, as well.  It will get better tracks and safer operations.

Midwest governors OK pact for high-speed rail push
Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:43pm EDT 

 CHICAGO, July 27 (Reuters) - The prospect of billions of dollars in federal money to spur high-speed rail has united eight U.S. Midwest governors who announced on Monday an agreement to work together to obtain that funding.

The governors, as well as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, agreed to create a Midwest rail steering group to coordinate applications for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allocates $8 billion nationwide for high-speed rail.

"We want to make sure the Midwest is in front of the rest of the nation," said U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who joined Daley and the governors of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin at a high-speed rail summit.

Governors from those states, as well as Indiana, Minnesota and Missouri, signed the agreement.

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle said federal high-speed rail funding could rise to as much as $19 billion in the coming years with ongoing appropriations and that the Midwest states want a substantial portion of that money despite the fact that other U.S. regions were also vying for it.

"I don't think you will find any part of the country that will have as well coordinated, thought out, solid application as we're going to put out from the Midwest states," he said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has already received pre-applications for the funds totaling $102 billion with $13 billion of that amount requested in the Midwest. Funding grants are expected to be finalized this fall.

The Midwest coalition has identified priority rail corridors linking Chicago to St. Louis, Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, and to the Detroit area. Those corridors as well as additional ones reaching into other states carry a price tag in the tens of billions of dollars over 10 to 20 years, according to Doyle. The high cost will require local funding at a time when most Midwest states are facing budget problems due to the recession.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said his state took a first step toward local funding by including high-speed rail in $31 billion, six-year capital spending legislation he signed into law this month. The measure raises fees, taxes and allows video gaming terminals to generate money to help pay off bonds.

Iowa Governor Chet Culver said his state was partnering with a private freight carrier for a passenger rail link between Chicago and Iowa City estimated to cost $130 million.

"There's a lot of opportunities here to partner with the freight rail carriers to just upgrade the tracks to take them from 59 miles per hour to 79," he said.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, whose state has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs due to the ailing automotive industry, said high-speed rail could mean 57,000 permanent jobs and 15,000 construction jobs for the region.

 

(Reporting by Karen Pierog; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish)

On the Death of Walter Cronkite

Post-World War II broadcast journalism was dominated by Walter Cronkite.  Certainly, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley with the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC were important competitors.  But, when big news broke, or when there was a space mission, it was Walter Cronkite to whom many viewers tuned.

There are some important Iowa connections for Cronkite.  Prof. Jeff Stein at Wartburg College has created a web page showing the long association among and between Cronkite, the WMT stations in Cedar Rapids, and long-time WMT executive William B. Quarton.

Cronkite was born in St. Joseph, MO.  He also spent time in Kansas City before moving to Houston, TX.  He'd return to Kansas City and St. Joseph frequently.  And as an employee of United Press, Cronkite headed the Kansas City bureau.

As a young man growing up in Mercer, MO, the St. Joseph News Press and Gazette were the newspapers that were delivered to the house in the morning and in the evening.  I recall that any time Cronkite came to St. Joseph to visit relatives, it was a big story in the St. Joseph newspaper.

In Cronkite's autobiography, A Reporter's Life, he mentioned recreating football games using a wire service.  I believe that he was in Kansas City at KCMO at the time.  The line went dead.  To avoid going to music (which was the way that stations in the 1930s handled dead air issues), Cronkite kept recreating the game, having the teams go back and forth without any scoring.  Finally, the line came back up, and he was able to resume his "normal" recreation.

Cronkite mentioned in his autobiography that when Ronald Reagan became President of the United States, he heard Reagan tell a story that sounded vaguely familiar.  It was Reagan's class WHO Chicago Cubs tale of the wire dropping out, his telegraph operator Curley shaking his head, and sending Reagan a message that the wire was dead.  To avoid going to music, Reagan kept talking having the batter foul off one pitch after another.  I heard Reagan tell the story at the 50th Anniversary in April 1974 at WHO and have used the tale in several stories and programs that I have done about Ronald Reagan.  As the story came to the conclusion, Reagan confessed that he became worried that he'd have the batter foul off so many pitches that it would be a record.  The wire came back up, Reagan's telegraph operator started typing, and when Reagan got the slip of paper with the information to recreate the play, it turned out that the batter had grounded out to the short stop on the first pitch.

Reagan also had stories about a broadcast from Birdland Pool in Des Moines where he spent the entire 30 minutes on the NBC network describing everything except swimming.  That's because officials were in an argument over some rules.  Several minutes after Reagan went off the air, his story was several records were set.  And then, at the Drake Relays, Reagan was sharing time on the NBC network with the Penn Relays.  It came time for the feature race at the Drake Relays.  Reagan had the whole network for what he hoped would be an exciting broadcast.  The President of Drake University comes into the booth just as the race begins and extends a greeting to the broadcast audience while the race is underway.  Reagan claimed the first instant replay.  He described the race as he recalled it, and as a coda he advised the listening audience that there was little crowd noise because they were stunned by the performance on the track below.

I shared the Reagan stories with Cronkite, and he very kindly replied with a written letter.

One more story about recreating an event for broadcast.  I was working at KTTN, Trenton, MO, and my fall assignment was to cover the Princeton, MO, high school football team.  The year before the Tigers had gone to the state champtionships, and 1969 had good prospects.  The Tigers won all of their conference and non-conference games.  They qualified for the state tournament, and they were scheduled to play Smithville at Northwest Missouri State Univeristy in Maryville.  Just before halftime the Tigers were driving to the goal line.  Smithville put up a furious defense.  Princeton scored with some power running.  The problem was, the tape recorder was not working properly (KTTN was a 500 watt daytime station.  The game was on a Saturday.  KTTN was carrying University of Missouri football live.)  Solution to the problem, was to recreate the plays and the description.  Frankly, the recreation sounded better, because I knew what I was going to say, and so did my color commentator.  Crowd noise was not a problem because the press box where we were working was enclosed, and the windows could not be opened.

Walter Cronkite has left a wonderful legacy.  His style based upon getting the facts, reporting them as accurately as possible, and then, letting the reader or listener make up his or her mind is the goal standard for reporters. 

Thanks Uncle Walter.  It was great to watch you as a young man.  It was inspiring to get to know you better, if only through your autobiography and one letter.  It has been a lot of fun to share great moments in history with you, not only as a viewer and a listener, but also as a fellow reporter.

Governor Culver Going to Chicago by Rail

Iowa Governor Chet Culver is going to a meeting in Chicago next Monday by train.  Here is the story from Progressive Railroading.

7/21/2009    Passenger Rail

Iowa governor rides rails to promote proposed Amtrak lines

On Sunday, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver will ride the “Iowa Unlimited” train around the state to raise awareness of key passenger-rail projects. Operated by Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd., the train will stop in Iowa City, West Liberty, Durant and Walcott, as well as Moline, Ill. — the future site of a Quad Cities’ passenger-rail depot.

The train will make its way to Chicago, where Culver will participate in the Midwest High Speed Rail Summit on July 27. The event aims to further efforts to make Chicago a regional passenger-rail hub, connected to lines running to communities in other states.

Culver expects to sign a memorandum of understanding with Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on two proposed passenger-rail lines between Chicago and Dubuque and Iowa City. A long-term plan also calls for extending the Chicago-to-Iowa City route to Des Moines and Council Bluffs. Iowa and Illinois are working with Amtrak to advance the lines.

“Restoring passenger-rail service is one of [our] administration’s top transportation priorities,” said Culver in a prepared statement. “Reconnecting some of our largest cities to Chicago will add to Iowa’s economic success.”

Iowa has some funds set aside for passenger rail. On May 14, Culver signed the I-JOBS Initiative, an $830 million, three-year measure that provides $10 million for multi-modal transportation projects in Iowa, including $3 million for expanded passenger-rail service. The Iowa Department of Transportation also will be competing for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to help finance passenger-rail projects.

During a National Train Day celebration in Des Moines in May, Governor Culver stated that he wants to be at the former downtown Rock Island depot when passenger train service returns.