Rail transportation the French (train) connection: The railroads of France are seen to be the best in Europe: Its ¿seconds¿ are exported to AMTRAK

Attendees at the recent Sixth International Conference on Urban Transportation, held in Pittsburgh, Pa., were greeted by some unusually barbed comments regarding the state of the U.S. rail system. Speaker Milton J. Shapp, Governor of Pennsylvania (and a cofounder of Jerrold Electronics Corp.) took note of an announcement by AMTRAK, the National Railroad Passenger Corp., of the acquisition of trains capable of ¿high¿ 200-km/h (125-mi/h) speeds. ¿In each case,¿ Gov. Shapp noted dryly, ¿America´s federally run rail passenger service was forced to buy or lease such trains from France, because no high-speed trains are built anywhere in this country.¿ To make things worse, Gov. Shapp pointed out, ¿the equipment AMTRAK gets from France is neither new nor novel.¿ According to the Governor, French engineers save their best trains for domestic use.