Posted on May - 16 - 2010
Germantown man to head rail passengers association
WASHINGTON — The country needs a good railroad running regularly between Chicago and Florida through Nashville and Chattanooga, the newly elected, Memphis-based president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers said Monday.
William B. Strong of Germantown, the Tennessee delegate to the association that he’s been a member of before there was an Amtrak, was elected to a two-year term, the association announced in a statement Monday.
“I’m going to do everything I can to get more and better passenger service for Tennessee,” he said when reached Monday to ask how he’ll use his new bully pulpit.
Strong said he hopes to see not high-speed but higher-speed train service in the Midwest, where The Floridian used to travel from Chicago to Florida before it was killed by the Carter administration in 1979. Right now, to go from Chicago to Florida by train, passengers have to go through Washington.
A graduate of East High School and Vanderbilt University with a degree in mechanical engineering, the 67-year-old Memphis native has been active as a passenger advocate since 1968. He is a vice president of Tencarva Machinery selling industrial equipment like pumps and air compressors, he said.
He said that, being based in Memphis, he doesn’t travel by rail “excessively,” simply because it’s not convenient. He said he averages about 3,000 miles by rail a year.
The association is the only one of its kind advocating the interests of the rail passengers.
– Bartholomew Sullivan: (202) 408-2726
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